For many city-builder enthusiasts, the endgame often brings a twinge of guilt. After transforming pristine landscapes into sprawling metropolises of eight-lane highways and polluting power plants, it’s hard not to wonder about the environmental toll. If this resonates, then “Life Below,” a new city builder spotted on Steam, might just be the cathartic, intriguing experience you’re seeking. Its Steam description cuts straight to the chase: “the ocean is dying.”
After a hands-on demo, “Life Below” emerges as a captivating marine take on the beloved genre. The core mechanics will feel familiar to fans of games like SimCity: you’ll balance territory expansion with resource management, tackle unexpected disasters, and ensure your underwater denizens have stable access to food, energy, and shelter. However, instead of wrestling with electricity grids and traffic flow, you’ll be cultivating a thriving ecosystem of fish, the algae they consume, protective anemones, and various resource-rich corals.
While the game embraces a touch of the fantastical – resources are distributed by magical water spirits born from stray souls, and you play as Thalassa, a tentacled ocean guardian – its roots are firmly planted in ecological reality. This blend creates a compelling experience. When a sudden heatwave threatened the demo reef, the scramble to cool things down and prevent the clownfish population from becoming homeless felt urgent and real. Monitoring pH levels, expanding to new zones, and witnessing schools of fish dance around your burgeoning base feels both grounded in science and imbued with a magical, deep-sea sensibility.
Developer Lise Hagen Lie, in a press Q&A, emphasized the game’s intent to foster a “nurturing sensibility rather than an exploitative, imperial one.” She stated, “We want to show the spectacle of underwater life on nature’s own basis, subverting the materialistic and human centred focus of traditional city builders … We had, for instance, workshops with marine biologists, who helped us make sure we had a certain amount of ‘reality’ in the game.”
This commitment to ecological themes promises a narrative focus in the full game that, despite the magical elements, centers on the fragility of underwater ecosystems. Hagen Lie offered a potent example: “The player might, for instance, experience lionfish infestations, where the here-invasive species infests a zone, causing devastating wildlife death. The fish living in that area will be eaten by the lionfish as it spreads, taking over neighboring areas until dealt with by the player. The loss of wildlife is devastating to the area, the coral structures and the reef itself—slowly killing the Reef Heart and the foothold the player has made.”
While such scenarios sound intense, the demo maintained a mostly languid pace, complete with a handy pause button. Though the true depth of the city simulation remains to be seen across a full range of zones, the foundations laid in the demo point towards a robust and refreshingly quirky addition to the genre.
If “Life Below” has captured your imagination, you won’t have to wait long to dive in. A demo will be available during the upcoming Steam Next Fest, running from June 9 to 16. So, get ready to trade in your bulldozers for coral cultivators and perhaps, for once, leave the virtual world a little better than you found it. Just try to save those minnows before the Steam Fishing Fest kicks off the following week!
