Tides of Tomorrow – ghostly gamers offer a novel navigation of the climate crisis

Gameplay designer Adrien Poncet explains how this seafaring adventure anchors the idea of common effort' by linking problem-solving players out of time

Azure skies; crystalline waters; a flotilla emblazoned with welcome to Pleasureland". It sounds like a dream holiday but this is actually dystopia: continents lie submerged after the Great Flood; a disease caused by toxic plastic ravages every living organism.

There's no mistaking Tides of Tomorrow for anything other than anxious cli-fi", but its tone is exuberant, brash and irreverent rather than moody or dread-laden. The setting is the fictional planet of Elynd which, says lead game designer Adrien Poncet, lets him and his colleagues take liberties with the science and technology they are depicting. We see one character inhaling ozen" from a canister - it's an oxygen-like substance keeping people alive. Elsewhere, players bear witness to striking and unsettling images, including a vast mass of bobbing plastic akin to the Great Pacific Garbage Patch.