“It’s a game about healing, I guess.”
I gotvery excited about Terra Nilwhen I played a demo in summer 2021.
Here was a game from BroForce developer Free Lives about repairing the world.
A kind of reverse city-builder, if you like, or an anti-city-builder, maybe.
And it felt so refreshing to play that, as well as being current and topical.
Excitedly, I waited to find out more.
And I waited and I waited, but nothing happened, Terra Nil fell out of sight.
Terra Nil will be released on PC and mobiles (via the Netflix app) on 28th March.
Question is, what took it so long?
That’s what led to the 2021 demo I played.
“And then it just exploded online,” Alfred says.
And we decided to try something more ambitious."
It’s just a cracked brown slab of mud before then.
There are something like 50 building types in the game now.
In other words, there’s a lot more content.
But, Alfred stresses, “This is not a hundred-hour game.
This is an experience about rebuilding an environment and then leaving.
The game is about balance and it’s about nature, and it’s not about infinite building.”
The timing of Terra Nil, somewhat depressingly, couldn’t be better.
But he never wanted Terra Nil to be a game about worrying.
It’s one of the reasons there’s no overt story or context to the game.
Is it our own world?
We don’t know.
Why are we regrowing it?
We don’t know that either - we just are.
What we take away from it is up to us.
He pauses and then adds: “It’s a game about healing, I guess.”
Terra Nil will be released on 28th March, to reiterate.
And they’re quite different in tone.
I cannot wait.
