Empathy – Green Media Mediography

Warframe – Vallis Undermind Expansion

This entry is still work-in-progress. With the Vallis Undermind expansion, Digital Extremes added a content update to its live-service ‘looter shooter’ game that, while not having an overtly educational or environmental focus, clearly taps into a heightened sensitivity and receptiveness towards human/nature themes in popular culture. Pertinent design choices include:

Herdling

The game invites players to "head out on a grand alpine expedition with a herd of loveable beasts, as you ascend a mountain path, encounter eerie dangers and surprising obstacles, and forge your way to the mystery at the summit".

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

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.

Never Alone

Never Alone, or Kisima Inŋitchuŋa, is a game developed in collaboration with native people of Alaska, called the Iñupiat. The game is about a young Iñupiat girl and a fox trying to find the source of a devastating blizzard that is threatening their world.

Out and About

In Out and About, the player character visits their grandmother and learns about the real world plants that surround a mountainside town. A natural disaster strikes while they are visiting the grandmother. In the aftermath, players find a lot of fallen trees and hard-to-follow paths and are encouraged to explore and talk to the people

The Deep Forest

The Deep Forest is a free collaborative mapping RPG game that addresses several themes related to but often not directly associated with the climate crisis, in particular monstrosity, inhabiting non-human perspectives and postcolonial perspectives on human-nature relationships. The game’s website summarizes the premise as follows: “For a long time, our monstrous home was occupied by

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

A Plague Tale: Innoncence

A Plague Tale: Innoncence is a narrative-driven adventure game in which the player follows the story of two brothers, Amicia de Rune and Hugo de Rune. Set in France during the Hundred Years War, the game depicts the horrors of war and epidemics, as the title suggests. One of the peculiar features of A Plague

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

The Endless Forest

The Endless Forest is a multiplayer online game PC by Tale of Tales, in which players represent deer in a peaceful forest without goals or the ability to chat. Pictograms above registered deer’s heads represent their names. Players communicate with one another through sounds and body language. From the wiki: “During ‘abiogenesis’, every deer runs

Meadow (computer game)

From the wiki: “Meadow is Might and Delight’s latest release; a massively multiplayer online sandbox that allows players to interact as animals would. Described as a ‘forum in games’ clothing’, this online fable experience lets fans – old and new – come together and experience a peculiar world.” With its focus on nonverbal communication, the

Wolfspell

In the tabletop role-playing game Wolfspell, players embody humans that have been transformed into wolves. During the campaign, they will balance their wolve and human personalities, embedded in two dices that are used during the game: the blood die, representing the human thought (which includes the will to take risks) and the wolf die, representing

As Far As The Eye

As Far As The Eye is a resource-management roguelike in which the player guides a tribe of anthropomorphic animals of diverse shapes that need to travel to the center of the continent to avoid a flood The game is strongly impregnated on the cultural narratives and practices of the tribe. As the flood is a

Tree

Tree is a VR installation directed by Milica Zec and Winslow Porter that premiered at the Sundance Film Festival 2017 New Frontier Program, in which the theme was climate change. This virtual experience transforms participants into a rainforest tree. The experience begins with participants planting a real seed given to them by one of the Tree‘s

Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind

Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind is a 1984 Japanese animated movie directed by Hayao Miyazaki, based on his 1982 manga. One thousand years have passed since the Seven Days of Fire, an apocalyptic war which destroyed human civilization and most of the Earth’s original ecosystem. Scattered human settlements and tribes survive, isolated from

Where the Crawdads Sing

Where the Crawdads Sing is a 2022 book adaptation directed by Olivia Newman. It dives into the story of Kya Clark who got abandoned by her family from a very young age. She survives in the marshes of North Carolina by herself—living off selling mussels to a local store—and acquires the name ‘marsh girl’ from

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

Walden; or, Life in the Woods

Walden (first published in 1854 as Walden; or, Life in the Woods) is a book by American transcendentalist writer Henry David Thoreau. The text is a reflection upon simple living in natural surroundings. The work is part personal declaration of independence, social experiment, voyage of spiritual discovery, satire, and—to some degree—a manual for self-reliance. Walden details Thoreau’s experiences over the course of two years, two

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

A Life on Our Planet

A Life on Our Planet: My Witness Statement and a Vision for the Future is a 2020 book by documentarian David Attenborough and director-producer Jonnie Hughes. It follows Attenborough’s career as a presenter and natural historian, along with the decline in wildlife and rising carbon emissions during the period. Attenborough warns of the effects that climate change and biodiversity

A Life On Our Planet

David Attenborough: A Life on Our Planet is a 2020 British documentary film narrated by David Attenborough. Attenborough describes this film as his “witness statement” on the current state of the planet due to humanity’s impact on nature and his hopes for the future. He shares his concern from Pripyat, a town deserted after the nuclear Chernobyl disaster on 26 April 1986, and intersperses his