Green Media Mediography – Utrecht University

Hero of the Kingdom (series)

While not explicitly framed as an ‘ecogame’, the Hero of the Kingdom series (developed by Lonely Troops) offers an interesting and sometimes surprising representation of human-nature relations in a fantastical but grounded setting. It lacks political urgency or systemic, macro-level climate simulations but succeeds on a more micro level, training players to closely observe its

Blue Planet (TTRPG series)

Originally published in 1997 by Biohazard Games and recently revived with Blue Planet: Recontact, Blue Planet is widely considered a pioneering and successful example of ‘hard’ eco-science fiction in the tabletop RPG space. The game is set in 2199 on Poseidon, an alien waterworld that humanity has fled to following a devastating, 70-year ecological collapse

The Edge of Water

BigMood’s indie adventure The Edge of Water avoids mechanics of environmental exploitation for gameplay systems built around stewardship, multi-species kinship, and ecological harmony. The game works most visibly by defamiliarizing our relationship with water and marine life, offering a serene but also notably romanticized experience of human-nature relations. The game’s lore states that long ago,

Machine Dreams: Rainforest

Refik Anadol’s Machine Dreams: Rainforest, the headlining debut exhibition at Anadol’s Los Angeles museum Dataland, is a highly ambitious attempt at using AI and immersive projection techniques in the service of sustainability and climate communication. The exhibit aims to prove to skeptics that machine learning can offer something radically different from generic ‘slop’ by dedicating

Silt

While often categorized by players primarily within the horror genre, the indie game Silt foregrounds environment and ecological systems as central components of its gameplay. Rather than treating the setting as a passive backdrop, Silt embeds ecological themes into its formal design structures, shaping player interaction through environmental constraints and engagement with nonhuman entities. Silt

Plastic Island

Plastic Island, developed by the Indonesia-based “Ecogames” collective, is an educational board game that thematizes combating plastic pollution. Participants clean and upcycle trash, enhancing the ocean’s health; the game (like every title designed by the Ecogames collective) is created by local artisans in Bali, at least partly from upcycled materials like recycled wood, canvas, and

Beyond Blue

Developed by E-Line Media, the creators behind Never Alone in partnership with BBC Studios, Beyond Blue (2020) draws heavy inspiration from the footage and eco-philosophies of Blue Planet II. The game frames its environmental representation through a near-future narrative starring Mirai, a deep-sea biologist leading a small, high-tech research team. Beyond Blue presents a relationship

David Attenborough: A Life on Our Planet

“My Witness Statement and a Vision for the Future”. The British filmmaker and naturalist, David Attenborough, has devoted his career to educating people about nature and, more recently, the climate crisis. The 2020 documentary David Attenborough: A Life on Our Planet weights in on the climate crisis by aiming to subvert the traditional nature documentary

Kelp: Shark vs Octopus

Kelp is a two-player asymmetrical game that offers players a unique opportunity to delve into the natural world of Pyjama Sharks and Common Octopuses, set in a South African kelp forest. Hide and seek meets bluffing and manipulation. Deck builder meets dice bag builder. As players take on the roles of these iconic sea creatures, they

FathomVerse

FathomVerse is a free mobile game that invites players to contribute to science. By playing mini-games and interacting with ocean imagery, gamers contribute to identifying ocean animals and training AI models design to help discover and understand life in the ocean. Players tackle minigames to view imagery collected by researchers and discover ocean animals. The

Ocean Crisis (WIP)

In Ocean Crisis, players are the defenders of the ocean and will do whatever it takes to stop the formation of the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, a.k.a., the Ocean Waste Island.

Grow Wild

Grow Wild is a cozy sandbox style game in which players can discover new plants, find bugs, and watch the world change around them. Players discover the natural phenomena around them and document the different stages of plants and animals throughout the year.

Mission Amazonia

Adapted from BGG: “Mission Amazonia is a strategic deckbuilding board game, in which players are part of a Brazilian team of rainforest protectors. From their headquarters (e.g. Pôrto Velho) they go on different missions north and south of the Amazon to curb the illegal exploitation of the rainforest. The poaching of exotic animal species, the

Spilled!

Spilled! takes players to a captivating but polluted world that they need to clean up to watch it come back to life. It taps into the pleasure of frictionless ‘cleaning’ that a small but growing number of game are catering to, both with and without an explicit environmental subtext (like e.g. Powerwash Simulator). Spilled! is

Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora

Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora is a 2023 action-adventure game developed by Massive Entertainment and published by Ubisoft. The game is part of the Avatar franchise, and was released for PlayStation 5, Windows, and Xbox Series X/S on December 7, 2023.

Diving into an Acidifying Ocean

"Diving into an Acidifying Ocean" brings along the users on an interactive journey that will educate them more about the dangers of ocean acidification while going back in time or travelling into the future.

Dungeon Meshi

The Netflix anime series Dungeon Meshi (Delicious in Dungeon) is unusual in that it constructs the dungeon, a common worldbuilding trope from role-playing games, as an ecosystem and as a metaphor for ecosystemic interactions.

Saltsea Chronicles

Saltsea Chronicles is an adventure game set in a flooded, post-apocolyptic world. The player, controlling an ensemble cast of characters, must sail to islands and investigate the mystery behind their captain’s disappearance. The game combines a critical dystopia scenario with experimentation in sustainable game production. From Polygon: “Developer Die Gute Fabrik’s take on Earth’s current

Dishonored 2

Dishonored 2 is the direct sequel of 2012 Arkane Studios’ awarded Dishonored. The story takes place a few years past the events of the first chapter, and lets the player take on the role of Empress Emily Kaldwin. Usurped of her throne by the Duke Luca Abele, she embarks on a journey through the southern

Dishonored

Dishonored is an immersive-sim game set in a fictional world that recalls the Victorian Era imaginary. The player takes on the role of Corvo, the Royal Protector and master of spies that is accused of killing the Empress. To redeem his name and save the princess, Emily, he makes a deal with a mysterious demigod

ABZÛ

In the game ABZÛ, the player takes on the role of a diver in a part of the ocean. Without any knowledge on himself, the environment, or the purpose of being there, it is up to the player to discover the secrets of the deep sea. During this adventure, the player will swim alongside all

Half-Earth Socialism

Based on the book of Troy Vetesse and Drew Pendergrass, Half-Earth Socialism is a free videogame in which you are tasked with governing the world, reducing humanity greenhouse gas emissions, protecting biodiversity, and reducing the temperature to 1 degree above industrial levels at the year 2100. To reach that objective you’ll have different policy proposals

Our Planet

Our Planet is a 2019 British nature film series, directed by Alistair Fothergill, Keith Scholey, Colin Butfield and Sophie Lanfear, and narrated by sir David Attenborough. The eight-episode film series aims to inspire its viewers to understand the natural world and to raise awareness about the human footprint on it. This is done through showing the

Our Planet Live In Concert

Featuring favorite scenes and highlights from the Our Planet series, Our Planet Live in Concert tours international arenas. Hosted by the series composer and Academy Award®-winner Steven Price, the show features spectacular visual and sound effects and on-screen narration from David Attenborough. The magnificent series score is performed live by a 44-piece orchestra. This specially-curated reimagining of the Netflix