Umurangi Generation

Umurangi Generation is a game about photographing and hanging out in a crumbling New Zealand in a dying and crappy future.

Developed by Origame Digital and released in 2020, numerous outlets including Vice, GameSpot, and The Washington Post noted a striking relevance of the game to the ongoing crises and zeitgeist of the year. It is also a fairly prominent video game made by a Māori developer, and a rare example of a video game available in the endangered Te Reo Māori language. That said, English and several other major languages are also selectable to play in.

Has a website here.

• Aliens in Cardiff: The invasion is experienced from Tauranga, New Zealand.
• Alien Invasion: As experienced from New Zealand.
• Cyberpunk: Technology is an avenue for escapism as the world crumbles.
• Central Theme: Subjective, but Word of God suggested to Vice that the game as things fall apart, you should think.
• The End of the World as We Know It: The alien invasion has drastically altered the Earth.
• Environmental Symbolism: Heavily used through environmental storytelling.
• Everything's Better with Penguins: A penguin is among the friend group.
• First-Person Snapshooter: The main mechanics of the game.
• Humongous Mecha: The UN uses them.
• In-Universe Camera: Complete with in universe lenses.
• Kaiju: Faced by humanity.
• Plot-Based Photograph Obfuscation: Played with - The player is encouraged to take photographs that would be this in universe by keeping blue bottles out of the shot. Of course, the player sees everything setting up the shot.
• Twenty Minutes Into the Future: The technology isn’t all that different, but some things are definitely beyond current levels of technology.
• Unperson: Downplayed, The player is lightly punished for photographing blue bottles.
• United Nations Is a Super Power: The United Nations occupies New Zealand.