Video game designers battle to depict climate impacts

PARIS, France — Game designer Sam Alfred is keenly aware of the challenge he faces in trying to build a video game with climate change at its heart.

Lists of best-selling games are filled with titles pushing destruction and violence rather than constructive engagement with the environment.

Yet "Terra Nil", a strategy game designed by Alfred and released in March last year, puts players in charge of rebuilding ecosystems -- and has since attracted 300,000 players, according to the publisher Devolver Digital.

"I've lost count of how many people have dismissed the game or made fun of the game, because of its nature, because it's a game which is not about shooting people or rampant expansionism," said Alfred.

"The environment was the focus of the game. The one angle was trying to show players and other game developers and people that it's possible to build a strategy game without exploitation of the environment."

True to his word, the 30-year-old South African asks players of Terra Nil to help decontaminate radioactive zones with sunflowers and save the Great Barrier Reef among other climate-related tasks.

He is not the first designer to include an environmental message in their games -- nor is he the first to be criticised for it.

In 2017, "Cities: Skylines", a city-building game, introduced its "Green Cities" offshoot where players could create their ideal metropolis while taking into account pollution and environmental management.

"I remember the Green Cities extension was something that surprisingly polarised the audience," said Mariina Hallikainen, managing director of Colossal Order, the Finnish studio behind the game.

"There was actually feedback that we are now ruining the game by going political."

The team behind the game deny there was any overt political message, flagging that players could choose whether to make their city green or not.

And other studios have not been discouraged from putting climate into their games.

The daddy of all strategy games, "Civilization", included climate change in and offshoot of its sixth edition in 2019.

With an estimated three billion people playing video games at least once a year, climate campaigners have long targeted