Hidden Levels #5: Press B to Touch Grass

Summary

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99% Invisible – "Hidden Levels #5: Press B to Touch Grass"

Host: Roman Mars
Date: October 21, 2025

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Overview

This episode of 99% Invisible, hosted by Roman Mars with Ben Brock Johnson and Dean Russell, explores the evolving relationship between video game design and representations of nature. Through personal stories, expert interviews, and industry insights, the episode examines how the creation of lush digital worlds both reflects and shapes real-world engagement with the environment. The discussion weaves from the nostalgia of childhood forests to the photorealistic, algorithm-driven landscapes of modern open-world games, even questioning the ecological impact of gaming itself.

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Key Themes & Discussion Points

The Allure of Virtual Nature

[01:54]–[04:11]

• Personal Example: Ben Brock Johnson introduces his video game–loving eight-year-old son, Brock, who delights as much in digital forests as in their real-life counterparts.
• Kids today, like Brock, are captivated by the term "biome," relishing game environments more than mere "smashing things." ("He’s just really like ensorceled by the outside world inside of his indoor kids game." – Roman Mars [03:16])
• Memorable Moment: Brock: “I play a lot of the tundra biome and sometimes the forest biome.” [02:42]
• Insight: For kids (and adults), immersive game environments often become surrogates for real nature, enabling a sense of discovery and belonging.

Nature Lost and Found Through Games

[04:15]–[10:53]

• Cassie Ann’s Story: Once an "outdoorsy" child in rural Vermont, Cassie's allergies forced them indoors, cutting them off from nature.
• Turning Point: Cassie found solace and inspiration in Minecraft, using the game’s endless, customizable landscapes to reconnect with a sense of wildness and exploration.
• Quote: “It kind of never mattered to me that like the Minecraft environments were like 16 by 16 pixels… it just translated into my experiences in game.” – Cassie/“Snifferish” [09:16]
• Influence: Cassie becomes a Minecraft influencer, blending real-life ecology and digital architecture, designing landscapes for millions online.

Evolution of Nature in Video Games

[12:47]–[19:29]

• Expert Perspective: Alenda Chang, a UC Santa Barbara professor and author on video game ecology, explains the push for greater realism and immersion in game environments.
• Three Eras of Digital Nature:
  1. Background (8-bit, 2D, e.g., Zelda 1986): Nature as static scenery.
     • “If it’s a forest, all the trees are the same...sort of replicated in a grid.” – Chang [14:33]
  2. Playable Environment (3D, e.g., Ocarina of Time 1998): Interactive, but not always lifelike.
  3. Open World (e.g., Zelda: Breath of the Wild 2017): Expansive, dynamic ecosystems, with emergent behaviors and interactivity.
     • “You can put the controller down and things will continue to happen...you’re part of that environment in a way that didn’t happen with earlier games.” – Chang [18:47]

Realism, Scale, and Procedural Generation

[19:29]–[26:32]

• Open World Impact: Games like Red Dead Redemption 2, Skyrim, and Minecraft offer not just endless territory, but a dynamic sense of place.
• Procedural Generation: Instead of hand-placing every element, developers set environmental rules; computers algorithmically generate diverse terrains and biomes.
  • “It’s not possible to design each part of an endless world by hand. Procedural generation is the reason why we can create this world with different biomes...” – Agnes Larson, Mojang [21:53]
• Scan Technology & Photorealism: Artists now digitize real plants and rocks, recreating them for games for unbelievable realism.
  • “You can literally just create realism now because you can go out and scan nature.” – Jeremy Huxley [25:25]

When Virtual Designs Shape the Real World

[29:20]–[33:20]

• Digital Twins: Cities like Zurich and New York leverage game technologies (procedural generation, game engines) for urban planning, climate response, and environmental conservation.
  • “The more immersive you can experience your world digitally, the better you’ll be able to make decisions, right?” – Tysha Fabritius, Esri [30:25]
• Climate Modeling: These tools simulate sea level rise, heat islands, and recovery from disasters, changing how we address real-world environmental challenges.

The Environmental Cost & Potential of Gaming

[33:20]–[38:40]

• Carbon Footprint: The gaming industry produces massive emissions—comparable to medium-sized European countries—largely due to the push for realism.
  • “The best number ... is around about 50 million tons of CO2 per annum. It's bigger than Hollywood.” – Ben Abraham, Sustainable Games Alliance [34:47]
• Behavioral Impact: Despite ecological costs, games foster environmental awareness, especially among young players.
  • Including endangered species like axolotls in Minecraft sparked real-world conservation awareness and action: “Nearly every kid who visited [the sanctuary] came because of Minecraft.” – Chang [37:59]

Returning to Actual Nature

[38:40]–[40:45]

• Cassie’s Reflection: Gaming never fully replaces nature for Cassie; the desire to translate real landscapes into Minecraft persists, not the other way around.
  • “I feel like I'm more focused on translating our world into Minecraft than Minecraft into our world.” – Cassie [39:14]
• Poignant Moment: The trio’s hike encapsulates humanity’s hybrid relationship with the world: both sculpted (trails, paths) and untameable.

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Memorable Quotes & Insights

• "He is designing a very ridiculous treehouse that I do not have the ability or the resources to construct. He's riding his bike as fast as possible and he is starting to play, just starting to play, video games..." – Roman Mars [01:54]
• “I know for a fact that video games make people interested in nature because they're seeing nature that they've never experienced before, and it's making them almost want to go experience it.” – Cassie/“Snifferish” [10:53]
• “Games are, you know, these really incredible storytelling machines...that might be enough to propel somebody to think differently or to care about something that isn't just them.” – Alenda Chang [38:15]
• “Should we go to the end?” “Yay. So we can get in our cars.” “Go play video games.” – Ben, Cassie [40:17–40:22]

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Notable Timestamps

• [01:54] – Brock’s fascination with "biomes" in video games.
• [04:15] – Cassie's shift from outdoors to virtual nature.
• [07:39] – Cassie’s love of Minecraft as a lifeline to the outdoors.
• [13:45] – Three eras of virtual nature, starting with The Legend of Zelda.
• [18:07] – Breath of the Wild: ecological interactivity and immersion.
• [21:53] – Procedural generation in Minecraft explained by Agnes Larson.
• [25:25] – Photorealism and scanned assets in games, per Jeremy Huxley.
• [30:25] – Digital twins and virtual city modeling for climate change.
• [34:47] – Ben Abraham on gaming’s climate impact.
• [37:59] – Minecraft's axolotl effect and impact on real-world conservation.
• [39:14] – Cassie’s perspective on translating the real world into Minecraft.

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Episode Tone and Style

Casual, reflective, and inquisitive, the episode mixes technical explanations with human stories, balancing nostalgia, wonder, and a critical eye about the unintended impacts of design—both virtual and real. The hosts and guests joke, reminisce, and contemplate the blurry lines between digital and natural worlds, inviting the listener to do the same.

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This rich episode of 99% Invisible demonstrates that game design is more than entertainment—it’s a driver of how we perceive, value, and even manage real nature. It raises urgent questions: Can virtual worlds inspire environmental action? What do we lose (or cost the planet) in the quest for ever-more dazzling simulated landscapes? And what happens when, after exploring infinite digital vistas, we still long to just "touch grass"?

Transcript

[Roman Mars]

Welcome back to Listen to youo Heart.

[Ben Brock Johnson]

I'm Jerry.

[Roman Mars]

And I'm Jerry's Heart. Today's topic, Repatha Evolocimab heart. Why'd you pick this one? Well, Jerry, for people who have had a heart attack like us, diet and exercise might not be enough to lower the risk of another one. Okay. To help know if we're at risk, we should be getting our LDL C, our bad cholesterol checked, and talking to our doctor. I'm listening. And if it's still too high, Repatha can be added to a statin to lower our LDL C and our heart attack risk. Hmm. Guess it's time to ask about Repatha.

[Ben Brock Johnson]

Do not take Repatha if you are allergic to it. Serious allergic reactions can occur. Get medical help right away if you.

[Alenda Chang]

Have trouble breathing or swallowing.

[Ben Brock Johnson]

Swelling of the face, lips, tongue, throat or arms. Common side effects include runny nose, sore throat, common cold symptoms, flu or flu like symptoms, back pain, high blood sugar and redness. Pain or bruising at the injection site.

[Roman Mars]

Listen to your heart. Ask your doctor about Repatha. Learn [e-mail] or call 1-844-repatha I'm Scott Hanson, host of NFL Red Zone. LOWES knows Sundays are for football. That's why we're here to help you get your next DIY project done. Even when the clock isn't on your side. Whether that's a new Filtreate filter or Bosch and Cobalt power tools, Lowe's has everything you need to feel like the MVP of diy. So get it done and earn your sundae shop now in store and online. Lowe's official partner of the NFL, Roman Mars. Ben Brock Johnson. So you are a father of twins. I am a father of twins. I would like to introduce you to one of my twins. This is my son who got the name I always wanted to Brock Johnson.

[Ben Brock Johnson]

Hello, Roman. Mo.

[Roman Mars]

Oh, you're fired. This kid's coming for you. He'll have my resignation on his desk on Monday morning for sure. That's right. Brock is doing what a lot of eight year olds do these days. He is designing a very ridiculous treehouse that I do not have the ability or the resources to construct. He is riding his bike as fast as possible and he is starting to play, just starting to play video games which offer him this whole universe of different worlds to inhabit. He likes smashing things just as much as the next 8 year old or 45 year old in my case. But you know, when I asked him about what he really loves about playing video games. He's not just about smashing things, he's about game environments.

[Dean Russell]

I play a lot of the tundra.

[Ben Brock Johnson]

Biome and sometimes the forest biome.

[Roman Mars]

Forest biome, yeah. What do you like about the forest?

[Ben Brock Johnson]

In video games you can really transform the forest into a nice home. And there's really cool bushes sometimes. I really like the bushes. I can always be like, is there.

[Dean Russell]

Something tangled up in this bush?

[Ben Brock Johnson]

And it's really fun to imagine what could happen.

[Dean Russell]

And sometimes it does happen.

[Roman Mars]

You know, I've never heard an 8 year old use the word biome so much. Like he's just really like ensorceled by the outside world inside of his, you know, indoor kids game. I know, he really is. And the first time he said it, it was a sort of a record scratch for me.

[Ben Brock Johnson]

But.

[Roman Mars]

But I can see why, you know, the games that you and I played when we were growing up, right? They're really simplistic in the way that they depict or capture natural environments. But games now are getting really good at rendering things like bushes that might have something tangled up in them and trees. It is way more realistic and immersive than it used to be. And that's what we're going to talk about today. This is hidden how the world of video games is changing the world beyond video games. Endless Threads. Senior producer Dean Russell takes it from here.

[Dean Russell]

Let's go.

[Ben Brock Johnson]

Cassie Ann was raised to be what you might call outdoorsy. A wild child of the mid aughts. Dirt under fingernails, grass on the knees. Cassie was a rain or shine kid.

[Dean Russell]

I was outside all the time, at least when I could be because we do have very harsh winters here. Sometimes though, that never stopped me. Sometimes I would just go out in the snow and be completely soaked.

[Ben Brock Johnson]

Cassie and their family lived in rural Vermont, a beautiful spot east of Lake Champlain in a valley of pine and birch and oak and maple. Some of Cassie's favorite things.

[Dean Russell]

Giant trees. Big, big into trees.

[Ben Brock Johnson]

Nature was everything. A place they could explore. It was a place to hang with friends, a place to build forts and fairy villages. A place to be. In those early years of life, nature felt limitless. It felt good. Until one day it didn't.

[Dean Russell]

I was like 10 or 12, like somewhere in that early second decade and I was out playing with my friends. I had a lot of friends who had like farms growing up and we loved to play in the hay bales.

[Ben Brock Johnson]

On that day, when Cassie tired themselves out and came inside, they noticed something. Cassie's skin was red, puffy. Itchy Honestly, it was a little scary.

[Dean Russell]

I never had that reaction before and I don't know where it came from. And so like their mom was like giving me Benadryl and you know, the creams and stuff like that. But it was so bad I had to go home in the middle of the sleepover and. And I was like, I was just so embarrassed.

[Ben Brock Johnson]

This reaction was new. It felt invasive and confusing. It went away, but they didn't know what it was. On another day, Cassie went to the beach. Suddenly they felt awful, feverish. Even these episodes became more frequent. Pretty soon rashes and fevers developed. It was. It felt like almost every time they went outside they saw doctors who couldn't give a clear singular diagnosis. What they did come to know is that they are allergic to hay, allergic to grass, immunocompromised, extremely sensitive to the heat of the sun, or as some put it, allergic to the sun. It was like their body had decided enough with the outdoors.

[Dean Russell]

I mean, I just kind of became a little bit of a shut in, I guess, which is sort of expected. I just kind of retreated into my room, very much so. And you know, I'd have the window open if I could, but I definitely stopped spending time outside.

[Ben Brock Johnson]

Doctors didn't know what caused Cassie's body to turn on them or if they'd ever get better. They still don't know. What is clear is that Cassie, someone who loved the outdoors, who thrived with their hands in the dirt, had to become a lot more indoorsy. But they couldn't give up nature. They had to find another way to get it. And for a Kid in the 2000s, there was one obvious place to turn. What's your favorite game? Video game?

[Dean Russell]

Oh, Minecraft. Sorry, really excited there.

[Ben Brock Johnson]

Cassie frickin loves Minecraft. Minecraft is, by the numbers, the most popular video game in the world. Over 350 million copies have been sold since it launched in 2009. The Spinoff Jack Black Movie, which you probably heard of, grossed nearly a billion dollars this year.

[Roman Mars]

Anything you can dream about here, you.

[Ben Brock Johnson]

Can make zero limits.

[Roman Mars]

You know what I'm talking about.

[Ben Brock Johnson]

The game is a Lego like world of 16 pixel by 16 pixel by 16 pixel blocks. The trees are blocks, the animals, the rocks, all blocks. Minecraft has no points, no prescribed goal really. You mine with pickaxes and punch trees for lumber. Yeah, punch trees, then you can build. Or not. One of the things Cassie enjoyed most in the game was walking, walking around in the game and exploring. Because Minecraft is a virtually endless world of forests, farmlands, deserts, oceans, caves, you, name became Cassie's portal to the outdoors.

[Dean Russell]

I started playing it like pretty much every day. I had my little server with my friends and whenever my friends would kind of burn out from it and play something else, I would just go in my single player world and build. It kind of never mattered to me that like the Minecraft environments were like 16 by 16 pixels.

[Ben Brock Johnson]

Yeah.

[Dean Russell]

Or whatever. Because in my head I was like, I was so familiar with that feeling of like walking through the woods and being outside that it kind of just translated into my experiences in game. This is like Minecraft generated terrain. This is a monitor barn that's specifically for livestock.

[Ben Brock Johnson]

Yeah. And you got like a butterfly garden.

[Dean Russell]

And there's some tadpoles in here. You can see that.

[Ben Brock Johnson]

Oh, now we're underwater. Cassie is now 22 and they are better known by their Minecraft handle, Snifferish. Snifferish is a Minecraft influencer. They are Internet famous between TikTok, Twitch and YouTube. They have some 3 million followers, people who watch hours long videos of Snifferish building some of the most elaborate landscapes.

[Dean Russell]

One of my first videos, it was like a farm video and I built a fire pond and everyone was like, what is a fire pond? And I was like, I got some.

[Ben Brock Johnson]

Of these builds will take months to make.

[Dean Russell]

I built this very classic white farmhouse. And then this is a monitor barn, which is a barn that's specifically for livestock.

[Ben Brock Johnson]

Sniffersh has even been commissioned by the makers of Minecraft to design mini worlds. Oh my gosh, now we've got giant mountains in the background. All because snifferish Cassie has a unique understanding of the game's virtual nature, a nature that for Cassie and many others, feels quite real.

[Dean Russell]

I know for a fact that video games make people interested in nature because they're seeing nature that they've never experienced before, and it's making them almost want to go experience it. And then in turn, you know, you have people who are already interested in nature and therefore get into video games because of that.

[Ben Brock Johnson]

Video games are arguably the antithesis of of nature. Highly constructed worlds, synthetic, inorganic. If you grew up gaming, you may recall grown ups telling you to shut down the console, go outside and touch some grass. These days, though, touching grass isn't something you have to do outside. As gaming has grown into a $200 billion industry, the boundary between screen and soil has muddied. New technologies and types of play are getting gamers ever closer to the experience of real nature. And yet, in a kind of weird feedback loop, those same technologies and Types of play meant to simulate nature are now changing the real thing in ways that could outlast us all. Since the start of gaming history, virtual nature has played many roles, served many purposes, and been represented in many ways. Spacewar, a 1962 game on a circular screen computer, was maybe the first with quote unquote, nature space, AKA white dots on a black backdrop. When games advanced, virtual nature also evolved.

[Alenda Chang]

As always with the industry, it's usually a push toward more verisimilitude and toward more accuracy.

[Ben Brock Johnson]

Alenda Chang is a professor at UC Santa Barbara and a gamer. Elenda studies video game ecology, wrote a book on it. Why would an academic study ecology in games?

[Alenda Chang]

For a lot of people, that is their daily dosage or whatever, their weekly dosage of encounter with the natural environment.

[Ben Brock Johnson]

Right.

[Alenda Chang]

Or at least the representation of a natural environment.

[Ben Brock Johnson]

Yeah, I haven't been hiking this week, but I have been to the mountains of Hyrule. So, you know, there's that. Oh.

[Alenda Chang]

Excellent.

[Ben Brock Johnson]

Hyrule Kingdom. Zelda. She gets it. The Legend of Zelda, Nintendo's long running franchise with dozens of games, is actually a good example of how nature has evolved throughout gaming history.

[Alenda Chang]

There is something about Nintendo and also the Zelda franchise itself that has always been at the forefront of natural representation in games.

[Ben Brock Johnson]

You can think of video game nature's evolution in three big eras. The three big Zeldas. Let's start with era one. The first Zelda game comes out in 1986. It's two dimensional, eight bit. You play as Link, a pointy eared warrior saving Princess Zelda from a pantsless evil hog monster in the magical world of Hyrule. Link is a flat pixelated figure moving over flat pixelated approximations of lakes and caves.

[Dean Russell]

Did you see the latest Nintendo newsletter?

[Ben Brock Johnson]

Whoa, nice graphics. I'd like to get my hands on that game.

[Alenda Chang]

Everything down to the character itself occupies a very discreet square or rectangle. You know, so all the. If it's a forest, all the trees are the same and they're sort of replicated in a grid, right. Or rocks and things. And so you get the sense that it was like all very carefully placed and scenic in the sense of like scenery.

[Ben Brock Johnson]

As with most games then nature is little more than background, a placemat. So era 2. Skip ahead a decade to gaming's 3D period when games including Zelda start centering nature in their gameplay. It's 1998, Zelda's 3D Ocarina of Time. Pixels are replaced by large brightly colored polygons. Triangles typically that Snap together to create an origami like forest world. In Ocarina of Time, you're still in Hyrule, still fighting monsters. Yet this time, nature is not just background. Nature is a key part of the game. To accomplish your goals and progress, you need to interact with him. Link swims, he lifts rocks, he chats up a talking tree. All to prevent the bad guy from plunging green Hyrule into ruin.

[Alenda Chang]

If you go back and look at footage from playthroughs of Ocarina of Time, you see the sort of vision of being able to traverse the world in a very embodied and three dimensional way.

[Ben Brock Johnson]

Ocarina of Time fit into a breed of 3D games. Final Fantasy VII, Spyro the Dragon we which gave nature a more evolved role. But that was nothing compared to what came next. A new type of game. One that would truly blur the lines between virtual and real nature. Era 3 an era that dominates modern gaming. Open World.

[Alenda Chang]

Open World is this moniker that gets attached to games, meaning you as a player can traverse these virtual spaces without the impression of having limits.

[Ben Brock Johnson]

In open world games, nature is neither just a place setting nor a means to an end. They are immersive with seemingly boundless landscapes and their gameplay is often non linear, where experiencing nature can be a goal in its own right.

[Alenda Chang]

Thinking about ecology and games, I think it's a huge. It's a huge development because you can now tell stories where you can by all appearances wander around a fully realized immersive game environment.

[Ben Brock Johnson]

Truly giant open world games started popping up in the 90s and early aughts, Everquest and World of Warcraft. And by 2017, you guessed it, Zelda. Breath of the Wild is wild. Link is no longer a composite of large polygons, but a hyper detailed teenager with flaxen hair that whips in the wind. He you are dropped into an enormous world where you can run for hours without hitting a wal. And if you hit a wall, you can climb it.

[Alenda Chang]

I was completely blown away by not only the beauty of the game environments, but also in terms of liveliness and agency of the non human environment. So you know the fact that in Breath of the Wild when it rains, you have more trouble climbing things was amazing.

[Dean Russell]

I was thrilled.

[Ben Brock Johnson]

The Hyrule environments, deserts, tundras, plains, they are practically ecosystems. Their components interact with you and each other. You can tame a wild horse, or collect mushrooms, or do nothing. And the world keeps turning. Rivers flow, rain slicks rocks, bears hunt deer, trees burn and fall all on their own.

[Alenda Chang]

Breath of the Wild is one of those Games where you can put the controller down and you can walk away and things will continue to happen and you can also stay like you're saying, and just really enjoy. Enjoy a scenic overlook or a storm coming in or a herd of wild horses coming by. Right. So I think that increases the sense of realism and also the sense of stakes for players because you are more vulnerable in some way, you're part of that environment in a way that didn't happen with earlier games.

[Ben Brock Johnson]

Breath of the Wild is one example. But today we're living in a golden age of open world games. Red Dead Redemption 2, Skyrim, Assassin's Creed, the Hunter, Call of the Wild, no Man's Sky, Ghost of Tsushima. People play these games differently. Some focus on the main objective, some bounce around taking screenshots of butterflies, really, because today's games are closer than ever to a true nature experience. Of course, true nature experience means different things to different people.

[Dean Russell]

I don't know, it was just, it was so fun to walk around. I love walking around in game. I love just like taking a little stroll.

[Ben Brock Johnson]

Cassie Snifferish loves Minecraft. Not because it looks realistic, I mean, it's all blocks. The sun radiates at right angles. But Minecraft's nature, despite its blockiness, does feel real. Part of Minecraft's realism is its diversity. The game has over 60 different environments, or biomes, each with their own plants, animals and landscapes. Players can access a kind of nature that is not right out their front door.

[Dean Russell]

Growing up in like the classic temperate forest, having access to those other biomes that I definitely don't have access to, like beaches even I'm in a landlocked state, I don't see beaches. Like, yeah, it's interesting and also it kind of lets me. I could build my house on a beach, I can build my house in a rainforest, you know, I can't do that in real life.

[Ben Brock Johnson]

The realism in Minecraft is also in its scale. If Zelda feels endless, Minecraft is endless. You can wake up every day, walk east and never stop if you want. Some guy actually did that. He made it 58 days before he chose to stop the game because the game wasn't going to stop him. These features of open worlds, their diversity and scale, the way you can walk forever and never see the same scene twice. That experience is possible because of something called procedural generation. Procedural generation is a technique that creates nature algorithmically, not manually. You don't place every tree in the game. You, you give the computer rules and the computer populates the scene for you this is something Agnes Larson told me. She's game director at Mojang, maker of Minecraft.

[Dean Russell]

It's not possible to design each part of an endless world by hand. Procedural generation is the reason to why we can create this world with different biomes, different kind of building blocks. There are oceans, we create continents.

[Ben Brock Johnson]

Procedural generation came out of the late 70s as a way of creating rudimentary but semi randomized grid like environments. Nowadays, Minecraft developers tell the game software the rules of the world, like where mangrove trees grow or which creatures live in which climates and the software executes.

[Dean Russell]

Each thing is simple by the same and the visuals are simple and the mechanics are simple. And that means that it can kind of be combined in an endless amount of complex ways.

[Ben Brock Johnson]

The procedural rules in Minecraft's game design are akin to the laws of nature. Just as with nature, the magic is in the unexpected combinations. Even as a Minecraft developer, Agnes has been been genuinely surprised by some landscapes because she didn't invent them. Not exactly.

[Dean Russell]

I remember walking into this location that it was a big mountain and then there was a huge waterfall because a lake had generated on top of the mountain. And then we also happened to generate a lush cave biome. So the waterfall went into these wines that came down from like the sides of the caves. And it was just very dramatic because there was so much contrast.

[Ben Brock Johnson]

As gamers and developers told me it is the pursuit of nature that inspired technologies like procedural generation. It also fueled a new wave of graphics. Graphics that if you haven't seen a brand new video game in a while, go look because it's crazy.

[Roman Mars]

The Last of Us 2, a lot of it is borderline photorealism with a dash of style.

[Ben Brock Johnson]

Jeremy Huxley is an environmental artist. He's worked on games heralded for their looks, including Uncharted 4 and the Last of Us Part 2. The game turned HBO series where fungi calls the zombie apocalypse. I'm not infected.

[Roman Mars]

I'm immune. Yeah. I was lucky enough to get to work on the Fungus team and I was focused on materials, so I would do a lot of the snow and rocks and stuff like that.

[Ben Brock Johnson]

The Last of Us 2 in Uncharted 4 are linear games technically not open world, but they are large worlds and they look unbelievably believable because of people like Jeremy. His job is to study nature and blend art and tech to mimic it.

[Roman Mars]

Actually when we were developing the tech for Uncharted 4, we didn't fully understand, for example, like how translucency worked on leaves. So we Literally went out, gathered a bunch, and then we took a light box that you would use for like animating, cast light through them to kind of see how it reacted. And we took a lot of notes there. And then we were able to sort of simulate that.

[Ben Brock Johnson]

When you're designing a game environment, you use a library of assets. Trees, rocks. You can design them from scratch, a process called sculpting, which is Jeremy's fortress. But you can also fill that library with real trees and real rocks scanned from life into the virtual world.

[Roman Mars]

The fidelity level is extremely high. You can literally just create realism now because you can go out and scan nature.

[Ben Brock Johnson]

These days, scanning is what it sounds like, but on a meticulous level. Professionals go into the wild with handheld light or laser scanners, or they use intense camera equipment to take thousands of photos of a single object from every conceivable angle. That data is then uploaded to a game engine software used to make games. This means that some tree you bump into in the game may actually be the digital ghost of a living tree. Game engines then make the tree come to life to blow in the breeze and shimmer in the sun.

[Roman Mars]

What I'm using currently is Unreal Engine 5. We have insane amounts of processing power. You can use tons of geometry materials, react naturally to light. Like you were saying, even Minecraft is doing a similar thing. This sort of stuff is really difficult to do, but it's really powerful that we have this sort of thing.

[Ben Brock Johnson]

So procedural generation creates a game world that feels dynamic and infinite. Scans make the world beautiful in a way that real nature is beautiful. And then game engines animate it into being. Together they make the nature in video games feel very close to the real thing. But that dynamic also works in reverse. Because today some of the technologies born from gaming are now being used to manipulate the real living world and our place in it. More on that in a minute.

[Roman Mars]

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[Ben Brock Johnson]

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[Dean Russell]

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[Dean Russell]

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[Ben Brock Johnson]

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[Roman Mars]

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[Ben Brock Johnson]

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[Dean Russell]

Sure thing.

[Ben Brock Johnson]

Barbecue sauce. Tide's got you covered. You don't need to use warm water.

[Roman Mars]

Additionally, Tide pods let you confidently fight.

[Ben Brock Johnson]

Tough stains with new coldzyme technology. Just remember, if it's gotta be clean, it's gotta be Tide.

[Dean Russell]

Hey neighbor. This holiday season, Birch Lane is here to help you celebrate with friends and family. From guest ready dining tables to cozy sofas that fit the whole crew, our classic furniture and decor are crafted to last. And with fast free delivery, you can be ready for holiday hosting in days, not weeks. So you can spend time on what matters most. Its classic style for joyful living. Shop Birch Lane, a Wayfair specialty [e-mail].

[Ben Brock Johnson]

In a lot of ways, it makes sense that nature has inspired the games industry. Games are commercial art, and art has been emulating nature since someone drew a pig on a cave wall. But what's maybe less expected is the way the gaming industry has, on a real, tangible level, shaped the living world. How much have video games influenced nature?

[Dean Russell]

In my field of work, heavily.

[Ben Brock Johnson]

Tysha Fabritius works in Zurich for a company called esri. ESRI uses video game technologies like procedural generation and game engines to map the real world or even recreate it.

[Dean Russell]

How much do you know about digital twins? If I say digital twins, does that, does that mean anything to you?

[Ben Brock Johnson]

Digital twins are functioning animated simulations of a real place. Think Google Street View meets Grand Theft Auto. Zurich has one, New York has one. Corpus Christi, Texas has one.

[Dean Russell]

The more immersive you can experience your world digitally, the better you'll be able to make decisions, right?

[Ben Brock Johnson]

Digital twins are used primarily in city planning. They're not exact replicas, but living models of a place. And the reason they are possible is because of technologies pioneered by the games industry. Game engines for one, procedural generation, for another, procedural generation. The game tech that creates worlds algorithmically can invent a place like in Minecraft. It can also use rules and real world data to digitally approximate a place that already exists easily. So instead of some person painstakingly scarcely sculpting each building and tree or even scanning them, you can give the computer a map and information about the landscape, how many stories each building is or how many trees on each block. And the program uses procedural generation to invent the rest or fill in the blanks. Then ESRI brings the digital twin to life with game engines. Game engines animate a place so that traffic moves and rain falls. The result is an immersive map that doesn't just look like its real life twin, it also acts like it when.

[Dean Russell]

You'Re bringing in real data into game engines. And you can create these believable, very visual, very immersive experiences that obviously quote, unquote, changes the game when it comes to actually making real decisions in the real world.

[Ben Brock Johnson]

What ESRI does with game engines has been particularly helpful in the age of climate change. As nature itself changes, we need to imagine what will come and how to prepare for the worst. Kauai County, Hawaii used ESRI tech to animate sea level rise and see how it would affect the area. The county then adopted new construction ordinances. The national oceanic and Atmospheric Administration used it to visualize heat. Islands in D.C. la used Esri for response and recovery efforts during the wildfires earlier this year. Tysha says ESRI can recreate those fires, allow you to revisit them again and again to understand what went wrong and how to plan for next time.

[Dean Russell]

You can be there and see it. And because the data's there and the 3D model is there, everything looks real and so you can see it and you're fully immersed in it. And it helps you to plan for ways that you can mitigate this then.

[Ben Brock Johnson]

And this is not just for cities. ESRI partnered with the Nature Conservancy to create a digital twin of Point Conception in California, a place where chaparral and oak woodlands meets coastal scrub and kelp forests. There, invasive ice plants are displacing the local flora. Researchers are using the digital twin of Point Conception to test out ways to eliminate the plants before going IRL in real life. In theory, you could predict which ideas will fight off invasives and which won't. It is a digital proving ground, like a game. Try, fail, respawn, try again. While this endless pursuit of a truer virtual nature has made its way into tools of for predicting sea level rise and preparing for wildfires, it also comes at a cost. One that is arguably raising the level of the sea and sparking the flames. The number one thing for me is the almost staggering amount of carbon emissions that come from playing games, from making games, and from all the other peripheral activities around the games industry. You just broke a lot of gamers home. I just have to point that out. Yeah. Ben Abraham researches digital games and climate change. And no, he doesn't hate gaming. Destiny is his favorite game, but also his favorite Earth is, well, Earth. So Ben works for the Sustainable Games Alliance, a non profit trying to clean up the industry for the planet. A difficult task because game companies do not have to disclose their emissions. The best number that I've been able to come up with, and it's just a ballpark figure really, is around about 50 million tons of CO2 per annum. And most people will just be like, okay, that sounds like a lot because it's a million, but what is that? Well, it's bigger than Hollywood. It's probably around about the same sort of emissions as a medium sized European country like Sweden or Greece. Graphics, game engines. It all bleeds energy. Without more solar and wind, that means burning fossil fuels for the sake of play. And despite some smart industry moves to make games more energy efficient, the fuels keep burning and emissions, they are absolutely going up. I mean there's almost no question. Yeah. And I think we need to reckon with that fact and, you know, figure out what is a sustainable path for the games industry. I don't think that we've got a vision of one yet. Part of what's fueling emissions is ironically the push to create more realistic environments. Think of the CPU energy needed for scanning. You take thousands of photos of one tree and upload them into software which renders that Tree as a 3D model with multiple layers of detail and specially calibrates it to say, authentically reflect light. And then that model is fed into an AI supported engine where it's downloaded and perhaps used to procedurally filmed the virtual world. All in the name of getting us to admire the fake tree instead of going outside where the real drought ridden trees are no longer any more alive than the one in the game. Anyway, some people see it differently. GAM ecology professor Alenda Chang thinks it's more of a mixed bag.

[Alenda Chang]

I have to acknowledge the sort of environmental impact of the powerful computers and graphical processing units on the world.

[Ben Brock Johnson]

Right.

[Alenda Chang]

But I think also games do have a really profound influence on people's understandings or perceptions or attitudes toward the natural world, or at least they can.

[Ben Brock Johnson]

Games are media. Media have a huge effect on people psychologically and people have a huge Effect on nature. Fill the earth and subdue it. Set a book. Once, people took that to heart. But the messaging in games can be quite different than the Old Testament. Take Minecraft, punch down a tree, and you'll need to plant another one to replace it. Punch down all the trees and you're out. Resources are finite, just like in nature. Maybe that sounds small, but again, Minecraft, a game created by Mojang, a small studio in Sweden. Minecraft is the the most popular game in the world. 20% of its players are kids. They pick stuff up. One small study found kids who played Minecraft learned more about sustainability than kids who didn't. And there's anecdotal evidence.

[Alenda Chang]

It's pretty wild and magical to me, the power that Mojang has in some ways, you know, just the decision to include axolotls, right?

[Ben Brock Johnson]

Yes, Axolotls, the critically endangered salamanders with pointy punk rock headgills. After Minecraft added them, the game in 2021, Google searches spiked. An Axolotl sanctuary told NPR at the time that nearly every kid who visited came because of Minecraft.

[Alenda Chang]

Games are, you know, these really incredible storytelling machines, and they can just leave us with a feeling or they can leave us with a sensation. And that might be enough. Yeah, that might be enough to propel somebody to think differently or to care about something that isn't just them.

[Ben Brock Johnson]

Is your wardrobe a specific choice against the sun or.

[Dean Russell]

Yes. Yeah, I'm, like, always wearing pants in summer.

[Ben Brock Johnson]

Over the years, Minecraft loving, allergic to the sun, Cassie has found ways to be more outdoorsy again. With the right season, the right weather, the right clothing, and sometimes a really annoying journalist who won't shut up about nature. Cassie still sees green. So a while back, we went for a hike in the foothills of western Vermont. Do you ever just, like, look out and see the world in blocks?

[Dean Russell]

No, actually, yeah. I feel like I'm more focused on translating our world into Minecraft than Minecraft into our world, if that makes sense.

[Ben Brock Johnson]

So you're not punching trees?

[Dean Russell]

No, it's definitely not.

[Ben Brock Johnson]

Cassie, her partner and I wended our way through white birches and red maples and across a field of tall grass. There was a breeze. Birds. Nature was moving. Oh, look, there's a little snake.

[Dean Russell]

Oh, there it goes. Okay.

[Ben Brock Johnson]

We followed trail signs and a dirt path. Reminders that even in reality, few places are truly natural. Like players in Minecraft. We've sculpted this world, but even under the heaviest footprint, there is something there. Something beyond ourselves and our ambitions. That something is. And Will always be irreplicable because we didn't make it. And that is quite a thing. Should we go to the end? Yeah, sure. All right. To the parking lot.

[Dean Russell]

To the parking lot. Yay. So we can get in our cars.

[Ben Brock Johnson]

Go play video games.

[Dean Russell]

Yeah.

[Roman Mars]

So, Roman Mars, Ben Brock Johnson. Do you know what I love about those huge open world games like Ghost of Tsushima, the game where you play a samurai defending his Japanese island from the first Mongol invasion. I don't know everything you love about them, but what do you love? I love me a side quest. You know, side quest, of course, side quest. The little mission you can do that's not necessarily part of the big mission. In Ghost of Tsushima they have so many of these. You can practice your sword skills on these bamboo things. You can follow foxes to shrines where you pray. You can write haikus. There's lots of side quests you can do. And we have one more side quest for our hidden levels listeners on the endless thread feed, right? Yeah, that's right. And this one comes to us from producer Grace Tatter.

[Dean Russell]

Hi, Ben. Hi, Roman.

[Roman Mars]

Hey. Hey, Grace. Tell us a little bit more about this journey you are taking us on with your side quest. What's the story?

[Dean Russell]

Okay, so this is a story about a renowned story surgeon. He's a pioneer in his field and he has a theory that playing video games could help other doctors be better surgeons.

[Roman Mars]

Does this surprise you as an idea like gamers could be better surgeons, Roman? Oh my God. No, it does not surprise me as an idea because, you know, we've talked about this, like the, the dexterity, the tools, the reaction, all that sort of stuff is built into video games. And I imagine it's like a cornerstone to what makes a good surgeon a good surgeon. Would it surprise you to learn that non gamer surgeons might be skeptical of this idea? I mean, the funny thing about doctors in general is that doctors have some fealty to tradition. Yes. That makes these types of developments, you know, sometimes hard for some of them to accept.

[Dean Russell]

Yeah, that's exactly right. The doctor in this story, it was quite the for him to prove this theory in the 90s and the 2000s because a lot of people really did not believe that video games had any place in medicine. Dr. Rosser is considered one of the.

[Ben Brock Johnson]

Best at this in the world.

[Alenda Chang]

And it's all because he figured out.

[Ben Brock Johnson]

Something no one else had thought of.

[Roman Mars]

That was a big breakthrough.

[Ben Brock Johnson]

You know, he said, oh, mom, you.

[Roman Mars]

Know, look, I playing Donkey Kong and it still can help me save lives. Roman. That story is ready for us to listen to right now in our feed. Endless Threat and coming up Friday on the final boss of Hidden Levels, we bring you a dispatch from the Console Wars.

[Dean Russell]

Sega was the challenger, right?

[Ben Brock Johnson]

Sega was never the king.

[Dean Russell]

SEGA was just coming up to the king and asking for a fight.

[Roman Mars]

This episode was produced by Dean Russell, Edited by Kelly Prime Mix Sound design and music composition by Paul Vikas Additional mixing by Martin Gonzalez Series theme by Swan Real and Paul Vikas. The super cool music by Swan and Paul for Hidden Levels is being released as an album. You can listen everywhere you stream music. Fact checking by Graham Hacha Special thanks to Samuel Auberg, Alex Beachum, Tracy Fullerton, Will Mattia, Kelsey Myers and Mike Rougeau. The Managing Producer producer for Hidden Levels is Chris Barube. Hidden Levels was created by me, Ben Brock Johnson while dancing in a Fortnite game lobby with power ups and cheat codes. Thanks to Team 99% Invisible and Team Endless Threat. 99% Invisible's executive producer is Kathy Tu. Kurt Kolstead is the digital director. Delaney hall is our Senior editor. The rest of the team includes Jason De Leon, Emmett Fitzgerald, Christopher Johnson, Vivian Lej, Madonn, Jacob Medina, Glenn Gleason, Joe Rosenberg and me, Roman Mars. But 99% of this world logo was created by Stefan Lawrence. The art for Hidden Levels was created by Aaron Nestor. We are part of the SiriusXM podcast family now headquartered six blocks north in the Pandora building in beautiful uptown Oakland, California. Endless Threat is a production of WBUR Boston's npr. The rest of our team, tackling unsolved mysteries, untold histories and other wild stories from the Internet, includes my illustrious co host Anne Marie Sivertson, managing producer Summita Joshi, editor Meg Kramer, producers Grace Tatter, Frannie Monahan and sound designer Emily Jankowski. See you on Friday everybody. When the flu is keeping you up at night, don't try to tough it out.

[Ben Brock Johnson]

Knock out your flu symptoms with NYQUIL Intense Flu.

[Roman Mars]

You got this. It provides powerful relief of your flu.

[Ben Brock Johnson]

Symptoms so you can sleep well through the night. NYQUIL Intense Flu the nighttime sniffling, aching, aching fever. Best sleep with a flu medicine.

[Roman Mars]

Use as directed. Keep out of reach of children.

[Dean Russell]

Hey neighbor. This holiday season, Birch Lane is here to help you celebrate with friends and family. From guest ready dining tables to cozy sofas that fit the whole crew, our classic furniture and decor are crafted to last and with fast free delivery, you can be ready for holiday hosting in days, not weeks. So you can spend time on what matters most. Its classic style for joyful Living Shop Birch Lane, a Wayfair Specialty Brand, at.

[Alenda Chang]

Birchlane.Com Holiday PSA from DSW this is a reminder that shoes are a gift.

[Roman Mars]

Literally.

[Alenda Chang]

So unwrap something good, like boots that.

[Dean Russell]

Inspire your next big adventure. Or cozy slippers that you give you an excuse to stay in.

[Ben Brock Johnson]

Or sneakers that feel like pure joy.

[Alenda Chang]

Because shoes aren't just shoes, they're exactly what you wanted.

[Ben Brock Johnson]

Let us surprise you so you can surprise them.

[Dean Russell]

Find shoes that get you and everyone.

[Ben Brock Johnson]

On your list at prices that get.

[Alenda Chang]

Your budget at DSW stores or dsw.

[Ben Brock Johnson]

Com.