If that statement isn’t surprising enough, consider that one of the lead developers behind the Tomb Raider reboot is also behind this game.

If you love city-building games, then you may have already heard of Life Below; perhaps you’re even following it. Unlike typical SimCity-style games, this game offers a completely different approach to city building. Instead of apartment buildings and skyscrapers, players construct vibrant coral reefs and work to revive collapsing marine ecosystems.

Created with the help of real marine biologists, the game features a story written by Rhianna Pratchett, whose other works include Mirror’s Edge and the 2013 Tomb Raider reboot. It’s a game with a worthy message. However, Megapop, the studio behind it, has structured Life Below to have a more direct impact on the precarious environments it depicts. Megapop partnered with the nonprofit Whale and Dolphin Conservation to release a special support package for the game that helps marine mammals.

The charity pack adds three new species to Life Below that will visit our restored reefs: the common bottlenose dolphin, the Atlantic spotted dolphin, and the common bottlenose dolphin. Players can watch these dolphins frolic around the corals and learn more about each species from an in-game guidebook. According to Megapop, the guidebook is based on real marine biology. The optional pack will cost €/$5 at launch, and 100% of the net proceeds will go directly to supporting the work of Whale and Dolphin Conservation. The base game itself will cost €/$30 at launch.

Of course, a positive message doesn’t guarantee a game will be enjoyable, but we can try the demo on Steam to see for ourselves. The recommended system requirements are ambitious: an i7-9700K or Ryzen 7 3700X eight-core processor, 32 GB of RAM, and an RTX 3060 or RX 6700 XT graphics card with 12 GB of VRAM.

Source: PCGamer, Steam