How Ghost Recon Wildlands, Horizon Zero Dawn and Zelda are recreating nature in video games

This year’s biggest releases are presenting players with expansive living environments
What a wonderful world: 2017's games are full of lush environments to explore
Ubisoft
Ben Travis17 March 2017

Playing Tom Clancy’s Ghost Recon Wildlands takes you into the vibrant Bolivian underworld. The sky burns bright blue, mountains standing stoic behind the mist as birds cruise through the air.

Your mission involves eradicating the country’s flourishing drug cartels but it’s impossible not to do a bit of sightseeing along the way, going to South America via your sofa.

In many ways technology distracts us from reality, but 2017’s biggest game releases so far — particularly in the open-world genre — are taking gamers back into the natural world.

The team who made Ghost Recon Wildlands spent two weeks in Bolivia doing research.

Ubisoft

Ubisoft’s lead artist and technical art director Benoit Martinez says: “Sound engineers were able to record ambient sounds, and the art team took more than 15,000 pictures and 15 hours of video. Everyone was able to realise what it feels like to stand in the middle of the salt flat, to drive on ‘Death Road’ or to see the flamingos at 5,000 metres of altitude after a 10-hour road trip.”

But it’s not just that Wildlands’ Bolivia looks like pure Instagram-envy holiday fodder — the natural world plays a role in the gameplay.

“The environment ranges from the salt desert to the Yungas mountainous jungle, from snowy mountains to swamps, from gigantic lakes to forest valleys,” says Martinez. “Each biome also affects your playing style. You would not approach the enemy the same way in a dense jungle as in an arid environment.”

Nature is similarly significant in Guerrilla Games’ sci-fi adventure Horizon Zero Dawn, which poses a “post-post-apocalyptic” far-future Earth where human society has collapsed, wildlife has taken over and robotic animals are top of the food chain. These creatures were designed to adapt to the game’s natural world.

“Each one has its role in the ecosystem, and then we decide what it’s going to look like based on that,” says producer Samrat Sharma.

Guerrilla Games/Sony

“We drew inspiration from Planet Earth and nature documentaries about animal behaviour to see which animals fit which roles.”

In Horizon, warrior rebel Aloy has grown up learning the land. She scavenges wood and metal shards to craft arrows, climbs trees for better vantage points and uses tall grass to evade detection. It’s her understanding of nature that helps her survive.

Guerrilla Games/Sony

While a recent BBC Earth study preaches the therapeutic benefits of nature documentaries, the perilous inhabitants of Ghost Recon Wildlands and Horizon Zero Dawn might not necessarily make for stress-free gaming.

There is, however, another recent open-world game out there with a natural world that’s far more tranquil — The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild’s living and breathing pastel paradise.

Hyrule looks fantastical but its ecosystem feels real. Entering snowy areas is dangerous unless you take a lit torch to keep yourself warm. Holding out fruit to your faithful steed keeps it contented in your company. Fire creates air currents that you can fly high on with your paraglider.

In the game, nature is both a puzzle and a solution — you can go anywhere on the map as long as you work out how, and exploring and experimenting with the world bears fruit (often the literal kind).

Nintendo

The game’s tough enemy creatures — often minding their own nefarious business before you stumble across them — can be easily circumvented, and you can instead spend a peaceful hour collecting apples to cook up into a delicious, health-boosting stew. Any surface can be climbed if you have sufficient stamina, with treacherous mountain ascents bringing fresh loot, hidden shrines, or new paths on your objectives.

Between Wildlands, Horizon and Zelda, we are being rewilded — and that makes for intuitive, challenging gameplay.

Follow Ben Travis on Twitter: @BenSTravis

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