Terra Nil Reviews
A puzzle-citybuilder about rejuvenating the environment, Terra Nil has an almost lovely message, but it's buried beneath tedious chores.
Terra Nil's aesthetics and calming ambience mean that you might be playing it wrong if you're stressing out over its message and its environmental education method via an easy-to-control simulation. I'm honestly glad that titles like Terra Nil exist to help combine the fun and challenges of a simulation together with an encyclopedia on how to grow your own tundra.
Terra Nil is one of the most beautiful and peaceful games I’ve played in quite some time. Turning the procedurally generated wastelands into paradises has been really therapeutic. Free Lives not only did a great job of creating a reverse city builder but showed us why we need to give back to nature. Even with some frustrating elements, Terra Nil is worth your time.
It's a simple game, but one in which all the systems work in harmony to create a chilled-out and satisfying experience. With customizable difficulty, decent variety in levels, and a soundtrack that makes you feel like you're in a fancy spa, Terra Nil offers a relaxing opportunity to turn a bleak little square of land into a verdant paradise.
Terra Nil is not what you might expect from a typical strategy game. There are no opponents to face, no incessant clicking, and no steep learning curve. It is a game that takes the concepts found in many city-building games and turns them on their head, emphasizing sustainability and conservation rather than endless expansion or usurpation of resources. While the game's mechanics didn’t always work as expected, what few issues I encountered did little to take away from an otherwise enjoyable and meditative experience.
The reverse city builder is trickier than it appears, but utterly committed to its environmental vision, taking the genre - and every level - to new places.
Terra Nil is a charming and deceptively deep strategy game with a lovely aesthetic that flips conventions in a compelling way.
Terra-Nil is a short and sweet relaxing builder game about restoring barren lands.
There’s something rewarding about this game. You’re working to restore a dead world, with tangible results to keep you engaged. The mechanics get pretty complex after a while, true. And it can feel like your mistakes are indelible, even as you’re restarting a stage. But the labor feels worth it. Better still, developer Free Lives is putting a portion of pre-order and post-launch sales towards the Endangered Wildlife Trust. In that sense, playing this game actually does some good for the environment. If you’re looking for a peaceful, yet sometimes stressful, gaming experience, consider Terra Nil. You might even reconsider our actual planet as a result.
Beautiful, complex, and captivating, Terra Nil is a delightful strategy game only held back by a smaller amount of content and some difficult-to-fulfill objectives.
Terra Nil proposes a strategic adventure around the environment and allowing us to give the complete power back to nature. The concept is very topical and succeeds in immersing us completely. The challenge remains more difficult than it seems and you should not be afraid to start over in certain phases. On the whole, the adventure remains quite short and it would have been interesting to push the idea even further. Nevertheless, the gameplay and the atmosphere are addictive, making it difficult to let go of the game. If you are looking for an original city builder, the title developed by the Free Lives team is clearly made for you!
Review in French | Read full review
A small but satisfying strategy puzzler that comes, does its job and leaves without fuss.
Terra Nil is a relaxing game that will help you wild down. The game’s portability by being available on iOS, Android, and Steam Deck, will make this a great game to bring with you on vacation this summer. Plus its lightweight demand from the hardware will not kill your laptop battery. While the ending may not answer all of your problems, Terra Nill is a fantastic way to wind down. If you have Netflix and have not checked out the games yet, this is a great place to start. Along with a nice way to mix up your game library with something unique.
As I played, I kept thinking, Let me love you, as I built so many pylons and tramway poles just to complete a scenario. I played the demo over and over again when it was first released last year, excited for what would come. Even if some of the gameplay feels unnecessarily rigid, I still have a lot of respect for the way this game emphasizes environmental stewardship, especially within a genre that tends to focus on the exact opposite. Despite the roadblocks, that sense of wonder is enough to bring me back into the game’s world.
The rewarding environmental restoration game plays like a puzzle and is satisfyingly simple
As someone prone to bouts of climate doom every time I read anything about carbon levels and ice sheets, Terra Nil was the ultimate form of video game escapism. A little diversion, no matter how unrealistic it is, that rather than asking us to live through the planet’s destruction let us try and recover from one instead.
Terra Nil is a a deeply soothing and relaxing game. Very beautiful artistically, we only regret that it is too short.
Review in French | Read full review
Terra Nil is a strategy game about the beauty of nature and how terrible it is to lose it. It serves its purpose very well: it is entertaining and relaxing in a way that few other games in the genre are. Its nature and environment theme carries an important message at its core and delivers it in an experience that is accessible to everyone, even players new to the genre. It is a must for wildlife lovers and those who love building and management games.
Review in Spanish | Read full review
There’s something cathartic about Terra Nil‘s gameplay loop. It might not be the most engaging or addictive strategy/puzzle hybrid out there, but I commend Free Lives for making the sole act of wanting to clean up a wasteland fun and engaging. It is not the most realistic eco-friendly game out there, far from it, but I think it manages to deliver its “save the world” message better than most songs, movies, Twitter posts or activists out there.
Terra Nil is an optimistic and well-designed reverse city builder. Its gameplay ideas are easy to understand and each scenario poses specific challenges that take attention and care to solve. Gamers will love the feeling of hope that infuses the painstaking process of taking a barren landscape and getting it to a point where flora and fauna are in harmony and no human presence remains.