Nature exploration games?

I visited Grand Teton and Yellowstone National Parks this Summer, with the family. We used GyPSy Guide while there, and it was awesome! We learned a ton about the history of the parks, when they were mapped and explored, etc.

It got me thinking of a game I would enjoy: Start in the 1860s (or so) as the person dispatched by the government to explore Yellowstone. You have to hike in with your team (first person, doing old school surveying, etc), manage your resources, chart and map everything, identify and document the wildlife, you’d be able to name various places, etc… Then, as time passes, and Yellowstone is protected by the Govt, the game shifts to a National Park strategy game, of sorts. You get to decide where to build the first lodges, how to build our the roads, how to manage the tourism and protect the environment, all of it evolving and unfolding over time. I’d love to play a game like that. The same type of formula could apply to other wilderness and/or national park areas.

Anyhow, given that it doesn’t exist, I thought I’d look into games that get close; hence, the thread. :)

I would totally love a game like that! I’ll note that The Angler does have voice-over describing the semi-fictional history of the reserve, which is surprisingly interesting and ties well to the landscape exploration

Does anyone else remember…

This hits almost all of the ones I could have thought of, with one addition:

This might be Miasmata. IIRC, it was very much about triangulation and actual navigation techniques.

Right in! Thank you.

I want to believe these count. Explore nature, and get stuck!

I was going to post Spintires , the original game / inspiration, but its been delisted and apparently trapped in some kind of legal publisher dispute hell.

They count. Snowrunner is rad.

It’s a game of mandatory violence so it feels not quite right for this list, but also the first game I thought of was Monster Hunter: World, which has beautiful, elaborate, multi-tiered biomes, with different monsters inhabiting different parts of it. One of my favorite bits of the hunts there is how they often to distinct parts of the map - it’s a bit scripted but you’d learn that the habits of the different monsters as each tends to hang around certain areas, will go to certain places to and eat different things when it gets hungry, and will limp off to hide in a specific nook when it’s weak. Part of fighting a new monster is that it would often take you to a new part of the map, and you’d see new interactions between the fauna/flora. There are plenty of exploration related achievements, although I have to admit that I basically worked on those after I’d finished most of the rest of the game (like 300-500 hours in) and was looking for more excuses to keep exploring the world so I can’t really say whether the exploration holds up alone - but it worked for me at that stage! (Note that Rise unfortunately has much much simpler maps, to my chagrin).

Miasmata is one of my all-time favourites!

No, but that reminds me of Survival on the ZX Spectrum!

Survival aims to teach children about nature, by simulating the lives of six distinct creatures - lions, hawks, mice, robins, butterflies and flies.

It was a brutal game.

Take only photographs, leave only metre-deep ruts.

You just don’t appreciate natural beauty.

(my own recommendation of The Long Dark also contains many areas of industrial wasteland).

Alan Wake is surprisingly nature-y. I recall it takes place in and around a campground and other outdoor nature locations.

Just mind the shadow enemies that want to kill you.

Great answer imo. The environments are so well realized, even compared to other MH games. The early flatter part of Ancient Forest, with the creeks running through it, is one of my favorite places. I wish there was more to the photography quest stuff, they could do a lot more with the non-combat part of MH beyond gathering quests.

The Vanishing of Ethan Carter also has some great nature scenery. I enjoyed just exploring all the areas.

This is 80% off on Steam right now. I picked it up for $3.99.

I’ve been meaning to share Paradise Marsh in this thread for a while now. Not played it yet but it looks and sounds lovely:

Does heavily modded Skyrim count? There’s a “big and tall trees” mod that makes forests thick enough to get lost in. Other mods remove the in-game map + markers and add survival aspects to simulate exploring / camping. Maybe there’s some sort of pacifist mod to get rid of combat?

Or, from the archives and perhaps even more far afield, the great grand daddy of all wilderness survival games: Robinson’s Requiem.