You know that Netflix has bet on video games as a way to attract customers, reach more people and offer a better experience to its current users. More content for the same money is a good idea.
This is due to the fact that Netflix has a good set up, since they banned account sharing to users a few months ago and that their prices do not stop rising. Almost 20 euros per month counts the good subscription with 4K and HDR.
And from all this new policy has come something that we now have in our hands: the new video game Terra Nil, a complex environmental strategy game whose objective is to transform a desolate wasteland into a prosperous and balanced ecosystem.
You can pay 25 € for it on Steam or you can access it with your Android or iPhone and play for free… as long as you have an active Netflix subscription. It’s caught me by days.
You feel God in a barren land
And, at the beginning, there was none. As if it were the Bible, Terra Nil offers us a barren world where our job will be to turn it into a paradise. It can also be interpreted as a vision 100 years in the future.
But the seemingly burdensome task is made satisfyingly easy for players: all you have to do is place a windmill on a stone surface, where it will provide electricity to the machines.
The toxin scrubber and irrigator are crucial, whether you are restoring a continental zone, a polar zone or a patch of rainforest.
The scrubber detoxifies the surrounding space, preparing it to sprout new life; the irrigator provides the crucial moisture needed to get that process going, at least until you have the tools to make it rain.
A polyp collector, once discharged into the sea, will grow you a nice coral reef full of crustaceans, mollusks and anything with a shell, and easily recyclable atomic reactors bring heat and electricity to regions where a windmill can’t do the job.
Recycling is another vital part of the process, as is the reintroduction of local wildlife. Once a region’s nature has been restored, it’s time to move on.
Every piece of machinery you deposit on the ground must be collected before being recycled in the aircraft in which you will depart. You leave knowing that the interaction between the local fauna and flora will keep the region alive, without the need for human intervention.
This is the juxtaposition on which Terra Nil is based: the game will make you feel almost like a god every time you see the trees re-emerge and your first bears come out of the forest, but at the end of each mission, you will have done your job and they won’t need you anymore.
The strategy is in the placement of equipment
The game is mainly about tactical building placement, but it is more like a puzzle than a regular city builder.
When placing each machine, you have to make sure that it can restore as much land as possible and that they do not overlap too much, to avoid wasting resources.
Similarly, you have to place everything so that it is easy to recycle at the end of the day: your recycling drones, no matter how advanced, have their limits.
Even on the hardest of the three difficulty levels, Terra Nil is more forgiving than expected. Everything from its simple interface to an easy-to-understand tutorial and a fantastically beautiful game guide makes environmental restoration go smoothly.
The music and sound effects are very relaxing, and after each successfully restored map, there is a moment when you can simply appreciate your work.
While a little more friction wouldn’t have hurt, and the variation from map to map is modest, by keeping it simple, developer Free Lives spreads a clear message: saving the planet could be very easy if we wanted to. All that’s missing is a toxin scrubber.
Here comes the real criticism of the Netflix game: it’s too simple and unambitious.
It is true that it is a Netflix game designed for a massive audience and little given to video games, but I think they could have started with a premise as simple as this, and then gradually complicate it, as Hogwarts Legacy does.
If you have a Netflix subscription, don’t hesitate to try it out, but if you’re thinking of spending 25 euros to buy it on Steam, that’s a different story.
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