All too often video games are based around domination. The idea of balance is rare, even in more relaxing games like Stardew Valley and Minecraft, and instead everything often needs to be at the whim of the player - including nature itself. This is where Terra Nil, from developer Free Lives, changes things by instead tasking the player with rebuilding damaged ecosystems.
Terra Nil is a strategy game at heart. The player is thrown into an isometric grid of a wasteland, where nothing grows and nothing lives, and must slowly reverse the catastrophe that has led to this crisis. Over the course of the game, the player will travel the world and visit different environments, bringing back different flora and fauna and leaving the world in a better place than they left it.
Each stage is structured in three parts. First, the player needs to clean up the wasteland, removing toxicity and creating a landscape where things can grow. After that, it's a case of introducing flora and fauna diversity, taking care to make sure that factors like humidity and temperature are considered and using tools like controlled burns to help build up biodiversity. Finally, it's a matter of removing human elements like the buildings and machinery the player has used, leaving behind an environmentalist's video game dream.
What makes Terra Nil so interesting is that it's a game of balance, rather than a game of control. Rather than simply powering the way through each level with brute force, instead the player needs to make sure they are keeping an eye on their resources versus what the ecosystem requires, delicately introducing wetlands, plains, or rainforests depending on the needs of the location. The purpose of Terra Nil is the opposite of homogeny, and that's a refreshing change.
The gameplay itself feels solid, with the player quickly getting to grips with the loop of reclaim, rebuild, retreat. Terra Nil is a game about working out the reach of your materials and the range of where they can be most effective, and understanding the environment that the player needs to create. Reaching 100% in each level is very much dependent on the conditions of the stage, and what that means for the variety of environments that the player is looking to cultivate.
This reversal of the destruction that is so intrinsic to other games is such a compelling game look, and doubly so given the visuals. The isometric feel of Terra Nil leaves the player almost as if they are undoing the actions of games like Age of Empires or Command & Conquer, where the natural world is nothing but a resource to exploit to gain victory. It's not perfect, with the animation of animals feeling quite stilted, but overall the shift from a grey-brown desolate landscape to something vibrant and diverse is impactful.
It's an extremely satisfying experience, and to make things better the player is rewarded with a screen stating "Wasteland Reclaimed" with each completed level, almost in the same way Dark Souls praises the player for defeating a boss. After that, the player is given the option to sit back and appreciate the diverse landscape they have helped bring about, which nearly makes up for how the 'recycle' stage, where the player removes any human elements from the level, can feel like a bit of a chore.
Terra Nil avoids getting tired over its various levels, in part because of the different approach required for different parts of the world. Using geothermal energy in an arctic, volcanic climate is very different from building up coral reefs off the coast of an island, while the final stage tasks the player with dredging a flooded city to create a natural paradise. It's a replayable game, too, particularly with new environments to choose from after beating the game the first time and the drive to reach 100% ecosystem repair on each level, although it's likely something that gets put down after the second run is completed.
Overall, Terra Nil is a wonderfully relaxing strategy game. Its unique approach to the strategy genre is refreshing when compared to its peers, and although its scope is a little limited, players will still want to revisit to get the optimum outcome of each level.
Terra Nil releases 28 March 2023 for PC and mobile devices. Screen Rant was provided with a PC download code for the purposes of this review.
Source: Devolver Digital/YouTube