Sustainability has been a core theme for videogames for as long as I can remember.

Sonic the Hedgehog’s motivation for stopping Dr. Robotnik in Sonic CD was to prevent him flattening the greenery of his home world and turning it into a polluted wasteland.

Nintendo were very careful to make sure that players were aware that cutting down all the nature in Animal Crossing was not a shortcut to profit; in fact the opposite is true.

I see the image from Horizon Forbidden West used for the Dutch gaming con. That and Zero Dawn have an intricate tale about environmentalism, exploitation by the 1%, humanities relationship with technology but also how it can get us out of our mess.

Senua’s fall into psychosis in Hellblade is handled with the utmost care, leading the player to question their reality. The same was also true of the sanity of Alex Roivas in Eternal Darkness.

Games like Flower, Lumino City, Fate of the World, Ice Flows, Metal Gear Solid, Death Stranding and Destiny all grapple with issues of sustainability, community, politics, war and religion in ways other artistic mediums cannot.