Terra Nil: A Game For Easing Climate Anxiety

This article was written by Tom Spencer, and edited by Jonathan Finlay.

Anyone who is rightly worried about the climate and biodiversity crises that we face has likely, at one time or another, wished that they could take control and have a direct impact on restoring the natural balance.

This is the exact focus of new nature-restoring game Terra Nil from Free Lives and Devolver Digital. The game, which is yet to be launched, has a free demo available to play on the Steam store, allowing you to experience the majesty of rebuilding a burgeoning ecosystem out of a once-ravaged environment.

Terra Nil

In Terra Nil your goal is to rejuvenate a wasteland by returning greenery and nature to the arid lands that you first encounter. You have a number of tools at your disposal with Terra Nil, including wind turbines to power toxin scrubbers, which prepare the soil for irrigation and the flourishing return of life. Water pumps re-fill dried up river beds, with life springing up along the newly-greened banks, which will soon become prosperous wetlands.

As the game progresses, you’ll unlock more tools that will enable you to bloom wildflower meadows, dense cool forests and gorgeous wetlands. The trick is always about striking a balance and ensuring that you are restoring the greatest amount of nature with each item that you place.

The joy and comforting satisfaction at knowing your actions are bringing life back to the wasteland, seeing clouds appear, which bring rain, animals, and plant life roaring back with eager vigour. Bears wander the newly-formed forests, frogs croak in the wetlands, bees hurriedly pollinate the new meadows, and fish dart in the crystal clear waters.

All the while, a small graph in the bottom corner also shows that you are returning the planet to a natural temperature that will help life to thrive. The final piece in the biodiversity puzzle is to balance the humidity and temperature. Get this right and storm clouds will periodically roll through the map, delivering quenching bursts of rain which will cause lush spontaneous growth on any part of the map that you have yet to rewild.

Leave No Trace

Then we move on to the clean-up – the true beauty of this game is that you leave no trace of you ever having been there. You set about creating an airship to leave the newly abundant world, using only recycled materials from the various buildings that you placed on the map. A small recycling drone ship will navigate the rivers, collecting all the structures, and allowing nature to return in their place. Not a single wind turbine or water pump will be left behind. Just nature, thriving where once there was nothing.

While the demo only offers a single level to play, it would appear that the full game will offer multiple levels across a whole planet, with the aim of restoring life and natural order wherever it is lacking.

A Cure For Climate Anxiety

There are few games that have made us want to cry in such a joyful way as Terra Nil – having thepower to return life to a once-decimated planet is at once too close to home, and yet also a comforting prospect that envelopes you in the warm glow of hope that we can solve the Climate Crisis.

Accompanied by a meditative, peaceful soundtrack which is complemented by birdsong, this is an ideal cure for climate anxiety – a growing mental health problem which has stemmed from the lack of governmental and corporate action on the Climate Crisis. In fact, Terra Nil is so comforting that is should be made available on the HSE to soothe climate anxiety.

We have previously written about simple actions that our readers can take to seek solace from their climate anxiety, and recommended documentaries that might offer comfort and inspiration. You can safely add Terra Nil to the list of recommended actions to make you a little less despairing in the face of the Climate Crisis, and to recharge your batteries before pushing on with whatever climate action you can manage.