Research Visualized in VR Game
The new VR game Terraforming Agency by game studio Really Interactive is the result of an initiative by the Riksbankens Jubileumsfond (RJ) to foster collaboration between research and culture.
Really Interactive was one of seven organizations awarded funding through RJ’s initiative Art and Culture, aimed at creating new productions rooted in academic research. The initiative seeks to make the humanities and social sciences accessible to a broader audience. The VR game draws inspiration from research in the field of the history of technology.
In the virtual world of Terraforming Agency, players step into the role of scientists working alongside aliens to save their fragile ecosystems. The game highlights the vulnerability and importance of ecosystems for survival and visualizes how artificially constructed ecosystems might function.
The project behind the game is Living on Mars: The Science and Fiction of Terraforming and Earth’s Future by Sabine Höhler, Professor of the History of Technology at the Royal Institute of Technology (KTH). Her research explores the concept of Mars colonization through the example of terraforming—as both the creation of new environments in space and a model for technologically reconstructing Earth’s ecosystems.
Terraforming Agency is set to launch in 2026.