The climate crisis is sadly very real, though it can also be just as depressing when depicted in games, or possibly in poor taste when used for a gimmicky game mechanic. The alternative is to present a more optimistic vision of how things could be if humanity got its act together. We’ve seen an example of this earlier this year with online football sim Rematch, and now Rebound is planning to do the same for its cosy open world exploration game, where you live sustainably in the camper van home of your dreams.
“My co-founder Mark and I, we both love the idea of owning a camper van,” Square Glade Games co-founder and studio director Tobias Snackernberg tells me. “It’s a very cool dream, but in practice it’s very impractical when you have a family, a job, and you need income, all that kind of stuff. So Outbound basically creates this alternative where you can at least live it digitally.”
Art imitates life
The other visual inspiration came from, of all places, a yoghurt commercial. Well, not just any yoghurt commercial. Indeed, Chobani’s ‘Dear Alice’ ad is a Studio Ghibli-inspired animation (with a score from Hayao Miyazaki’s regular collaborator Joe Hisaishi), created by London-based animation studio The Line, and has been inspirational in its optimistic depiction of farming in the future. It very much parallels what Outbound is going for.
“We are trying to portray a world where mankind has learned to coexist with nature and with technology in a way that is mutually beneficial,” says Snackernberg. “It’s our pitch on how such a future could look.”
But how much does that message stay true in a survival game where often you are essentially exploiting your environment for resources, whether that’s to eat or to craft tools and other materials? Fortunately, it’s not really a survival game, more of what Snackerberg refers to as ‘cosy-vival’, taking a much milder approach to systems like hunger. The team is also mindful of what kind of resources you can acquire.
So one of the early incentives is to pick up litter, which can then be fed into a recycler that then rewards you with tickets you can redeem for new items. “We want you to have an impact on the world when you play the game,” he explains. “And when you craft an axe, you won’t be able to cut down perfectly grown trees, but only wood that is already from dead trees or trees already lying on the ground. So we try to incorporate these ideas into the gameplay in a subtle way.”
Crafting customisation
The more important aspect is that your campervan can be customised and upgraded in myriad over-the-top ways. While the demo I got to play is too early in the game to showcase, you’ll essentially transition from burning biomass to produce energy to being able to stack solar panels, wind turbines, greenhouses, and many more on top of your van.
“These have different tiers over what is more efficient, but you can choose your path,” Snackernberg says. “For instance, if you think that solar energy would be the best way to charge your vehicle, you can totally lean on that and go into solar energy, but you have to make sure you have a plan B during rainy days or nighttime. You could also go fully into wind energy, but then you’ll need to adapt if a biome doesn’t have a lot of wind. We think that creates interesting choices for the player.”
With several interconnected biomes, Outbound’s world isn’t based on any real place then. While its beautiful depiction of the outdoors does remind me of Firewatch (both games are also made in Unity), this is also not a narrative-heavy game. However, there may still be light environmental storytelling that builds up a picture of this utopian future.
“We believe that players are best to make up their own stories, and that’s also what we see a lot in play tests,” Snackernberg concludes. “Some players treat the game as more like a very solitary and mindful experience; other players play it more like, hey, we’re going on a road trip with friends, and it feels more like a weekend away.”
Outbound will be coming soon on PC, and you can wishlist it on Steam now.
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