There are two moments in “Planet of Lana” that
made me realize I was playing something special. The first was, literally, a big moment. The
camera pulled back and an unfathomably large creature swam under my boat. Its body seemed
to keep going and going and there was a sense I’d surely be capsized and eaten — but instead it
simply passed on, leaving me with an overwhelming feeling that I wasn’t the center of this world.
The second moment was small: I misjudged a jump, and a predator caught me. Okay, time to try again.
After respawning, I decided to outrun the enemy, since that’s… usually something you can do
in video games. I didn’t even get close. It's rare that a game makes you feel
truly unimportant — like you’re just a tiny part of a much larger environment. When
a title successfully instills this feeling, it can be like witnessing a sort of magic
trick. So what I’d like to do today is take you backstage and explore how different games
succeed in making you part of their ecosystems… Okay, so how do you get past a predator in
“Planet of Lana?” The answer is you have to move slowly — learning the route of an enemy —
be they biological or mechanical — and finding a way to evade them altogether. From very early
on, the title establishes that you’re much too insignificant to overcome dangers directly.
Instead, “Planet of Lana” is a game all about understanding the ecosystem: knowing how different
threats operate, and putting that knowledge into practice to escape creatures much higher up the
food chain than you are. The character you play as is not particularly skillful. Your fastest running
speed is a leisurely jog. Your jump is just barely enough to cross most gaps. You fall and stumble
down cliffs most video game characters wouldn’t even be remotely bothered by. Unfortunately, the
land itself feels hostile. Eyes peer out from the darkness of most environments. And with no
health-bar, you’re always one wrong move away from game over. But if you pay attention, you realize
the game is constantly teaching you about how its ecosystem works. Early in “Planet of Lana,”
there’s a part where a tiny creature scuttles under a rock as you wander by. Later, you pass a
giant rock, and it lumbers after you on hundreds of tiny feet. The game is full of these little
moments of internal consistency. And once you learn the rules of how the environment functions,
the path forward becomes clear. [web sounds] But what about a game where you
experience an ecosystem not as a human, but something a bit smaller. Introducing:
“Webbed.” A physics-based platformer where you play as a peacock spider. Moving around in
“Webbed” is quite difficult. At least for me, I found my first attempts at traversal wildly
messy. Instead of gracefully swinging on webs, my spider careened around at high speeds, crashing
repeatedly into the foliage. My initial attempt at spinning a fly-catching web was equally sad —
yielding a crummy, asymmetrical disaster that was utterly ineffective. And this was a real problem,
because in the virtual ecosystem of “Webbed,” nearly every insect is larger than you are. And
the ultimate goal of the game is to rescue your mate from a relatively titanic bowerbird, a task
that seemed downright impossible at the start. But to succeed in the environment of “Webbed,”
you can’t think like a human. You have to think like a spider. Once I got used to having a body
light as air, I began to swing about with much greater success. With practice, I even managed to
pull off some rather fancy movement techniques. My fly-catching webs also improved. At first, my
few meager strands only ensnared a meal on rare occasions. But the more I crafted wider networks
closer in design to those of real-world spiders, the more I found my food came to me. One of the
most impressive aspects of “Webbed” is how game mechanics come together with its virtual ecosystem
to make you inhabit a perspective you otherwise might never consider. Granted, “Webbed” is not
trying to perfectly simulate the experience of being a spider. Spiders, generally, can’t fire
off a never-ending barrage of webs like they’re Spider-Man. They also can’t do sick tricks on a
skateboard, which is something you can eventually unlock. But the core gameplay truly does excel
at making you feel like part of an ecosystem. Another game that can successfully hijack your
mind is “Gibbon: Beyond the Trees.” In this game, you live the fast-paced, high stakes life of a
gibbon swinging full tilt through the rainforest canopy. Like in “Webbed,” your method of traversal
is unintuitive at first, but with practice it starts to feel unbelievably natural, with every
movement a glorious expression of momentum. There’s a certain feeling you get when you
perfectly sync up with your fellow ape, releasing at just the right moment for an incredible rush
of speed. It feels astonishingly good to grab a vine and hold it for a long swing, letting go
at the very top and gaining tremendous height. Though the ecosystem itself is less interactive
than some of the others in this video, it’s still deeply immersive, with other animals finding
their own path through the branches, and the weather changing at unexpected times. “Gibbon’s”
sense of spontaneity is bolstered by the game’s use of procedural animation — or animation that
responds dynamically to an environment, instead of following a predetermined loop. It’s the same
animation method that makes the creatures of Rain World feel so unpredictable. Since I’ve already
covered “Rain World” in detail elsewhere on the channel, I won’t say too much about its simulated
ecosystem, but it’s another example of a game that can be so mechanically immersive, it changes your
perspective as your play it: making you think and react like a prey animal living in an environment
that isn’t centered around you. “Gibbon,” similarly, has these moments that convey your
character’s utter insignificance. There are places where the camera zooms all the way out to capture
an incredible leap across an immense chasm. Part of what makes these moments so breathtaking
is the knowledge that you aren’t watching some predetermined animation — if you make a single
mistake, you will absolutely fall. If you stop thinking with your gibbon brain and miss a branch,
you’ll come crashing to the floor below, which isn’t such a big deal when you’re close to the
ground, but definitely is in the high canopy. The effect is a world that is not only expansive, but
indifferent to the player in a way that makes the environment feel all the vaster. “Planet of Lana”
has its own share of zoom-out-moments that let you soak in the sheer scale of the world around
you. But unlike in “Gibbon,” it’s not just the environments that are massive — but the entities
that inhabit them. Amidst a graveyard of giant, fractured skeletons, you can find, in the gloom
of a cave, the many glowing eyes of a monstruous, spider-like entity — who towers over you to
such an extent it seems… unfair. Some mechanical entities stand even taller, and while for much
of the game the largest units appear only in the background — there are some sequences where you
get up close with these machines that are just spellbinding. Rarely have I felt less significant
to a game’s world than I did during these sections. But the most stupefying expression of
scale in “Planet of Lana” doesn’t involve robots or giant monsters. Instead, it’s a relatively
quiet moment where your character runs through an empty expanse with their animal companion. The
camera starts pulling back: revealing the stars overhead. You watch as your character appears to
grow smaller and smaller, and you think surely the perspective can’t get any wider, but the zoom-out
just… keeps going. You become nothing but a tiny dot in a corner of the screen, and still the
frame isn’t done expanding as the sun starts to peak over the horizon. I timed it, and it takes
almost three real world minutes for the sequence to conclude. But absolutely I could not have told
you this number while playing, because while I watched the sun rise over the distant mountains,
time just sort of… lost all meaning. The rest of the world faded away, leaving only myself and
the infinite vastness of the cosmos above. Though there are other parts of “Planet of Lana”
that are technically more bombastic and cinematic, it’s this section that made me truly feel
like a small part of something much greater. I’ve gotten a similar feeling of… ‘smallness’
while playing open world games, sometimes due to the density of their worlds, and sometimes due
to the sheer scope. Many modern titles can instill a sense of insignificance simply from how long
it takes to cross their map. But where most open world games differ from the indie titles mentioned
so far is that while the player is typically a minute part of the environment, they can often
change the ecosystem around them to a significant degree. This can cause players to feel above an
ecosystem rather than part of it — but it can also pull them in deeper. And one open world I found
myself particularly drawn into was Hyrule from “The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild.” The
land of Hyrule isn’t just varied or simply ‘big’ but also a world that requires you to understand
and interact with its systems to progress. As you play, you learn to chop down trees to cross
gaps, and to cook meals. You find ways to overcome the freezing cold of the tundra and the
blistering heat of the desert. A lot of people have already talked about how immersive this world
feels — and I certainly agree. But I think I felt even closer to the world when I played “Tears
of the Kingdom.” A direct sequel to “Breath of the Wild,” “Tears of the Kingdom” takes you back
to the same Hyrule, and yet I found myself more immersed in the cell-shaded environments than I
ever was in the game’s predecessor. A big reason for this difference is Fuse, a super bizarre new
mechanic that lets you merge practically anything in the environment with whatever’s in your hand.
It’s an ability that made me think more about the world around me without even realizing it. Because
most objects in the world now had a special utility that Fuse could bring out, I found myself
engaging more with the virtual ecosystem around me. I explored each section of the world more
thoroughly. I started to know different types of berries by sight alone. I learned more about all
the different elemental interactions the game’s psychics system makes possible. The simple act
of experimenting with different in-game-systems became one of my favorite activities. I also found
myself seeking out different enemy types just to discover what sort of Fuse materials I could
obtain. My curiosity was further encouraged by the greater variety of creatures in “Tears of the
Kingdom,” which exhibit a wider array of emergent behaviors that make the ecosystem feel more
unpredictable. I felt like the game was rewarding me for learning how its world functioned,
pushing me to discover all its hidden networks. There’s another, blockier open-world game
that rewards you for intimate knowledge of its ecosystem. Like Zelda, Minecraft balances huge,
lonely environments with deep systems of learnable interactivity. While much of Minecraft has to do
with… mining, it’s also very much a game about knowing what plants are edible, what types of
animals respond positively to what types of crops, what can be turned into your ally and what sees
you as food. It might not immediately strike you as a game that makes you part of its ecosystem,
but personally, when I’m in the early stages of a playthrough and I hear the vocalizations of
giant spiders my brain is still conditioned to go on alert like a prey animal. Knowing things
about the world like ‘don’t get too close to the weird green guy,’ or ‘don’t look the lanky
fellow directly in the eyes’ are absolutely key to survival. Minecraft also puts emphasis on
different biomes, encouraging the player to learn what can be found in which type of environment as
they navigate a near-infinite landscape. Tears of the Kingdom similarly incentivizes knowledge of
different environments — retaining not just the different biomes present in Breath of the Wild,
but adding two all new ecosystems that feel radically different from one another. The game is
essentially three worlds stacked on top of each other: the bright and sunny islands in the sky,
the vast and varied surface world, and the dark and eerie depths below. Even more than different
Minecraft biomes, all of these ecosystems have their own rules, and their own aesthetics that
reinforce those rules. The depths are meant to be this hostile, lost realm of foreboding flora
and fauna, which is why I thought it was clever that the plants here seem to take inspiration from
prehistoric species. Even the insects down here look more like something from the Cambrian era.
And what you find in each realm encourages you to explore the others. The Sundelion flowers of the
sky islands give you resistance to the depths. Likewise, the Brightbloom Seeds you find in caves
in the sky and on the surface are absolutely crucial for lighting your way when exploring the
dark underground. And when exploring the depths, you’ll find powerful fuse materials that make you
feel more equipped to take on challenges in the other two realms. Minecraft has its own parallel
realm in the Nether, a fiery dimension filled with creatures and biomes completely different from
the overworld. As is the case in Zelda, if you aren’t careful, the different rules of this domain
can catch you off guard, and lead to disaster. There’re other open world games that succeed
in making you feel like the underdog. “Horizon: Zero Dawn,” with its artificial ecosystem
of towering machines, and Subnautica, with its Thalassophobia-inducing ecosystem of
undersea nightmares, both fit this category nicely. As was the case with Rain World, I’ve
already covered these virtual realms in detail, but if you want to feel like a very minute part
of a large food chain — they would be among my top recommendations. It's also worth noting that
as you progress through both Minecraft and Zelda, you might start to feel less and less beholden
to the food chain as your abilities grow. Indeed, there’s the argument to be made that
you’re not part really of these ecosystems, but conquering them. It’s a feeling that can arise
as you near the end of a lot of open world titles. But even in the late stages of Minecraft and
Zelda, there’s no way to fully disconnect from the world around you. No matter your experience
level, you can pretty much always be caught off guard by something in the environment. As games
with a significant amount of player freedom, how much you disrupt the digital ecosystems of
Minecraft and Zelda is ultimately up to you. In the end, the option to keep the land around
you green and unspoiled is always available. Life in an undamaged ecosystem is not an option
in the game “Endling.” “Endling” didn’t begin the way I expected. Based on screenshots, I thought
it was a relatively innocent game about a family of foxes. But when I booted it up, I was greeted
by these two dark shapes floating against a red background. The camera pulled out and I realized
those were embryos in a mother fox’s womb, and the world outside was on fire. Almost immediately,
I found myself inhabiting the perspective of the mother fox I controlled, reduced to the single
instinct of moving forwards. A burning deer sent me hurtling off a ledge. Still, I pressed onwards,
limping, through the smoke and the rain. At last, I made it to shelter, and as a scene played of
the mother having her cubs — I took what felt like my first breath since pressing start. But
the scene wasn’t over, because then the camera panned up out of the den to remind me just what
kind of a world these cubs had been born into… “Endling” is a game that traps you within its
setting. Ingeniously, from here, the gameplay changes into a stressful cycle of finding food for
your cubs before the night ends. To reflect this new format, the raging inferno is replaced with
desolate snowfall. Tracking down food in this barren ecosystem is a constant challenge, and
to make things more challenging, before long, your cubs start coming with you to learn how to
hunt. Trying to remain alive while also protecting your pups requires constant vigilance, pulling
you further into the world. Though technically post-apocalyptic, “Endling” depicts a future
much closer in time than most works of sci-fi, one ravaged by the mistakes of humanity. As
a game rooted in the perspective of a fox, no dialogue communicates its themes
of environmental degradation. Instead, the devastation is felt in the bareness of the
ecosystem itself and the decaying remnants that make up the landscape. Humans themselves are
rare, their gas masks making them feel alien, and helping you think of them as threats the
same way the fox does. To drag you further into the psyche of an animal, one of your cubs is
carried off early in the game by a human survivor. But though the game teaches you that the world of
humanity is best avoided, as food becomes scarce, you find yourself taking greater and greater risks
just to keep your cubs alive. This all came to a head for me when one night, starving from lack
of things to hunt, I allowed my cubs to feed on noxious-looking garbage, not knowing if it was
toxic. It’s a moment that wouldn’t be nearly as powerful if I hadn’t felt forced to make that
choice myself due to the ecosystem’s scarcity. The later stages of “Gibbon” uses in-game systems
to convey ecological devastation in an analogous manner. After a while, you start seeing plumes
of smoke and clear-cut groves in the background. Swinging itself begins to feel different
as the number of trees decline. Eventually, a full-scale fire breaks out, sending the forest
ecosystem into a panic. Missing a branch holds new weight, as falling into the forest below
now means succumbing to the inferno. Crossing large gaps are now key for survival — turning
what was once a joyous expression of freedom into a grim necessity. Even later, the natural
forests give way to rows of monoculture crops that are difficult to swing through, which then
transition into urban areas. Here again, “Gibbon” doesn’t need dialogue to convey its themes.
The simple mechanical awkwardness of trying to navigate rooftops instead of the branches you’re
accustomed to says more than a direct statement on environmental destruction potentially could
have. Maybe it should be no surprise that games that make you part of an ecosystem can get you to
think more about the world around you. After all, humans are already part of an ecosystem, even
if it doesn’t always feel that way in our daily lives. Though we are a relatively insignificant
part of Earth’s history on a cosmic scale, we have the capacity to profoundly influence our
environment in the present. And after playing through some of these games, I can’t help but
wonder what kind of ending we’re headed towards. If there’s an ecosystem-focused game with a
more hopeful — if bittersweet — conclusion, I’d say it’s probably “Planet of Lana.” It’s
a game that exposes you to constant imagery of the mechanical interrupting the natural world, and
yet it’s also very much a story about how you can learn from the mistakes of the past to create a
better tomorrow. As you progress through the game, educating yourself on the ins and outs of the
environment, you gain a tremendous appreciation for the world around you, all without a single
sentence of dialogue spoken. And while I won’t spoil the final moments, I will say the ending
stayed with me long after the credits rolled. Ultimately, there’s no single way to create
an effective ecosystem-based game. Across many different genres and art-styles, game
studios have made a startling variety of worlds ruled by interactive systems. And
there’s plenty of games with unique fictional ecosystems that I wasn’t able to cover here.
If you’re interested in virtual ecosystems, I’ve got a full list of the games featured in
this video down below. And as always, thanks for watching. If you enjoyed this entry, please
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Why no love for Rain World? You're part of the ecosystem!
I disagree with caption message. Your contribution to environmental sustainability is VERY important and so are you. However, you are no more important than everyone else and should respect both yourself and them :)