A release date has been set for Terra Nil, an ecological take on a city-building game in which you use wind power, irrigation, and other methods to create ecosystems and reclaim nature. The game’s publisher, Devolver Digital, said that it would be available on Steam for Windows on March 28. Additionally, the game will be included in the increasingly impressive collection of mobile games that come with a Netflix subscription.
In addition, South African developer Free Lives announced that it would give the Endangered Wildlife Trust a portion of all profits from Terra Nil sales on Steam. Broforce is a tribute to 1980s action heroes with a very different tone.
The game’s serene atmosphere, tranquil soundscapes, and lush isometric art are showcased in a new trailer. The press release states that visiting Terra Nil’s four regional biomes, which include derelict cities, tropical islands, and volcanic glaciers, will take anywhere from six to eight hours. However, they are all procedurally generated, playable, and come with additional unlockable levels.
Charlie Hall wrote, after sampling a demo of the game for Polygon in 2021. “There was a delightful tension to using the least amount of resources possible to have the greatest impact on the land. But it was a thoughtful, distant kind of tension, mind you, the same sort of tension felt when planning the layout of a vegetable garden or picking which wall to make an accent color in the living room. And that tension was at all times mitigated by the game’s delightful, Ghibli-inspired landscapes and animations. As the land came back to life, flocks of geese crowded the sky, while frogs and herbivores caroused in the forests.”
It certainly sounds delightful. Sign me up, as my favorite game of the year was the similarly thoughtful Dorfromantik.