Video games aren’t always competitive and crammed with gore and violence; while there’s nothing wrong with those types of games and they can be enjoyable to play, it’s good to know there are many animal-loving video games that send out a light-hearted message about looking after the environment and our friends. Here we’ve listed five environmental video games that encourage players to change the world for the better.

Sky: Children of The Light

Sky: Children of The Light is an environment-loving video game that makes a real-life difference. 

Sky: Children of Light is an open-world MMO, developed by ThatGameCompany it was originally released in 2019 for iOS, then subsequently for Android and Nintendo Switch. Set in a post-apocalyptic world, Sky: Children of the Light can be interpreted in many ways. The player must travel through seven different realms, helping spirits, avoiding dark creatures and befriending other players to help along the way. 

While there are dragons and other dark creatures that attack, there is no violence in Sky: Children of the Light, players are encouraged to simply avoid them and leave the dark creatures to reside in their natural habitat. 

Their encouragement doesn’t end with in-game content. ThatGameCompany has been working with many charities, towards planting trees and clearing the ocean of plastic and other wastes that make the habitat unsafe. They encourage players to contribute to this by offering special in-game cosmetics exclusive to the charity in-app purchases. Such as their "Days of Nature" event, which was held in celebration of Earth Day, where they offered an exclusive cosmetic: the player’s in-app purchase would go towards planting one tree.

Wandersong 

Wandersong is a wholesome puzzle-platformer adventure game developed by Greg Lobanov and many others that made up the team. The story follows a young Bard who ventures on a quest to stop the world from ending, the Bard hears from a Goddess messenger that the only way to do this is to find the pieces of ‘the earth song’. This adventure is filled with whimsical music, and funny dialogue, it can also get rather emotional at times. 

So what makes Wandersong environmental? Throughout Wandersong the protagonist encourages other characters (and the player) to help dangerous creatures instead of harming them when they become an obstacle in the player’s journey. The developers even created an entire Kingdom dedicated to love and support animals. The protagonist also considers bugs to be our friends, once the player reaches a certain scene in the game, they will see the Bard defy gravity to avoid stepping on bugs entirely, which turned out to be pretty funny. 

It’s nice to see a video game that approaches obstacles without harming animals in their natural habitat, which seems to be very common in video games, including the infamous Super Mario Games. Wandersong is definitely amongst the top animal-loving video games.

Minute of Islands

Minute of Islands is a masterpiece, the first thing most people notice when stumbling upon this game is that the art style is similar to that of the famous Cartoon Network show Adventure Time. Developed by Studio Fizbin, Minute of Islands is a puzzle-platformer adventure game that follows the story of Mo. Mo is a young wielder of the Omni-switch, who aims to save the environment and rid all the islands of the toxic pollution. Mo takes a leap of faith to save what’s left of the land and the inhabitants and fix all the purifiers. 

It's a heart-wrenching story about saving what’s left after the years of environmental damage. Some aspects of this game can prove to be very realistic and can help spread awareness of how we affect our world today and what we can do to help.

Here Comes Niko!

Here Comes Niko! is a wholesome adventure-indie game developed by Frog Vibes. It follows a young character named Niko, who starts their new internship at Tadpole Inc. and their boss… is a frog! In this game, the player concentrates on accepting tasks from their fellow animal friends at the resort. While it is very unrealistic, this game is a great starting place for young children to interact with the animals they recognise positively and encourage them to help them in any way that they can. 

Here Comes Niko! is a great animal-loving video game for anyone who wants a cosy, relaxing game with positive vibes for everyone, including our animal friends! 

Earthraiser - Gaia’s Wish

Lastly, on the list is an unreleased game being backed on Kickstarter, called Earthraiser - Gaia’s Wish, developed by former “Germany’s Strongest Man” Patrik Baboumian. Earthraiser - Gaia’s Wish, follows the story of Wolf Winter, who’s an agent and war veteran hiding from EIS, a government organisation. Why? Well, Wolf Winter can sense the suffering of beings around them, from humans and animals. This includes hearing their thoughts. This journey soon leads the main character to bear the responsibility of saving animals, humans and the entire planet. 

Patrik’s Kickstarter goal is to create a prototype of the game, but if they reach their stretch goals, then a full-fledged game could be published across platforms. The game will also include animal and human rights activists as NPCs, which enhance the realism of the gameplay and represent the issues that need to be addressed in our real world today.   

Looking for more wholesome vegan entertainment? Check out virtual reality bringing us closer to nature and vegan shows to binge watch.