In this article, Vincent Boutonnet and Marco Barroca-Paccard explore Civilization VI’s Gathering Storm expansion, which offers significant new features including the effects of fossil resource consumption on CO2 emissions, climate change simulation, and occurrence of natural disasters. Game analysis shows the importance of different types of disasters in a game. The management of the risks of disasters simulated in the game is carried out according to a technical vision, since many technologies discovered over the course of a game make it possible to manage the risks of disasters and to maintain the expansion and the appropriation of the territory. In general, the game simulates certain current environmental issues, but does not completely correspond to a model of sustainable development, because the political and technological solutions proposed dismiss the social and ecological impacts of these choices and do not integrate many contemporary environmental issues. These principles of the game can be questionable. However, from a didactic point of view, they can also constitute learning opportunities, because the game offers an important playful aspect and offers a real freedom of choice regarding the type of development. The game thus has a didactic and educational potential by allowing students to discuss a vision of sustainable development based solely on political and technological control.
To read the article (in French): https://journals.openedition.org/vertigo/35043