The video game industry has always had a love affair with the cyberpunk genre and its aesthetics, as illustrated by games such as System Shock, Deus Ex, Shadowrun Returns, and most recently, open-world action-RPG Cyberpunk 2077. There's potential, however, for game developers to introduce a new genre into their repertoire: solarpunk, a literary and artistic movement that defies the dystopian leanings of cyberpunk and other "punk" settings in favor of depicting decentralized, eco-friendly, and beautiful societies of the future. Designers looking to build games around the solarpunk genre have a rich array of visuals to draw from - communities with colorful, retro architecture, advanced technology co-mingling with greenery, and plausibly utopian-leaning social systems.
Ever since the 1960s, science fiction authors like Ursula K. LeGuin and Norman Spinrad have been writing books set in proto-solarpunk societies, where technological progress is balanced with renewable energy and communal living. Writer Jay Springett traced solarpunk's origins, as a term, to an obscure 2008 blog post, but he attributes the movement's true beginnings to a 2012 Brazilian short story anthology titled Solarpunk: Ecological and Fantastical Stories in a Sustainable World. Solarpunk stories consciously reject the neon grime of classic cyberpunk and the white sterile corridors of classic sci-fi settings in favor of futures that are vibrant and hopeful, while still feeling tantalizingly plausible.
Writers, illustrators, architects, and political radicals have eagerly embraced the nascent solarpunk genre as an optimistic alternative to the gloomy, polluted sprawls of cyberpunk and the "everything has a cogwheel" decor of steampunk. Additionally, many Afrofuturist creatives have adopted trappings of the solarpunk genre to build hypothetical worlds where futuristic technology mingles with traditional African architecture, artwork, and fashion, as is seen in the fictional country of Wakanda from Black Panther. In short, solarpunk is shaping up to be the new big thing - not just for books and movies, but for video games, too.
Solarpunk Video Games Would Look Awesome
The archetypical solarpunk city seen in paintings and speculative books mixes advanced technology and sustainable urban ecologies with design motifs from centuries past: Art Nouveau buildings with stained-glass windows and rooftop gardens, bio-engineered tree-buildings, old-fashioned electric trolley cars and blimps, a revival of hand-crafted goods, augmented reality networks, and, of course, solar s everywhere. Nearly all of these snapshots of solarpunk scenery take place on sunny days, also featuring solar symbolism and bright primary colors.
In short, solarpunk worlds are both colorful and alive - more down to earth than the sleek futures seen in Star Trek, but less grimy and commercialism-saturated than games like Cyberpunk 2077. In an industry where eye-catching graphics are vital to marketing, the visuals of a solarpunk video game would stand out among its less colorful and gloomier competitors. Hints of what a solarpunk game could look like can be seen in Pokémon dieselpunk games, like Final Fantasy 7 or The Outer Worlds, also betray elements of solarpunk when examined more closely. In the lawless places outside the control of corporations like Shinra or Spacer's Choice, ecological-minded visionaries are building new societies in places like Cosmo Canyon or the Botanical Labs that are based not just around sustainable technology but sustainable ways of life.
Solarpunk Games Would Inspire Players To Imagine Better Worlds
The media people consume, whether in book, movie, or game form, has a huge influence on their personal beliefs and how they see the world. Dark, cynical works the Westworld TV adaptation are valuable cautionary tales - warnings of what will happen if humanity doesn't collectively get its act together. Without the counterbalancing narrative of more optimistic stories, though, it's easy for people to get the impression that it's impossible for society's problems to be solved (particularly if the revolutionary factions in these social commentary stories keep devolving into mass-murdering terrorists).
Many of the problems in the modern world can be solved; brilliant scientists, activists, and social reformers across the world have been innovating practical, comionate solutions to problems like poverty, inequality, prejudice, police brutality, and environmental damage. True, implementing these solutions on a large scale will take hard work, investment, and far-reaching changes to the structure of societies, but it can be done, as long as people believe it can. And what better way to inspire people to work towards better worlds than by creating simulations of these better worlds for them to explore and experiment with?
True solarpunk video games wouldn't just bombard players with images of moss-covered buildings and rooftop gardens. They would also include gameplay that demonstrates the social ideas associated with solarpunk: direct democracy and consensus-building; smaller, worker-controlled businesses; restorative justice; demilitarization; DIY manufacturing; workshop-based education; the embracing of diversity; etc. Whether as civilization sims in which players try to build a sustainable utopia or as RPGs with a particular emphasis on non-violent problem solving, solarpunk video games, if done well, could give gamers and the people in their lives a reason to hope their future won't be a carbon copy of Cyberpunk 2077.
