German state media broadcaster develops virtual reality game in which players shoot lasers at flying climate denialists, in perhaps the most eccentric effort to propagandise teenagers known to man

I swear that what follows is true and that I am not making it up.

Climatists at the German state media broadcaster Südwestrundfunk (SWR) have used the mandatory license fees they collect from all German households to produce an astounding virtual reality video game called GreenGuardiansVR. In this game, players shoot lasers at flying climate denialists to defeat disinformation and save the planet (h/t RatSays). This is literally true, this thing really exists. It will be released to the public sometime in the autumn; the Steam page is here. In the meantime, they’ve set up a whole stand to debut this lunacy at Gamescom, the Cologne video game trade fair.

A digital mockup of the Gamescom GreenGuardiansVR promotional stand, which in their fractal bizarreness the promoters provide in lieu of an actual photo.

Everything we know about this exercise in state-media propaganda comes from the trailer that you can watch here. It’s in German, so I’ll walk you through it.

The trailer opens with an advertising jingle and animated letters jumping around. “E.V.I.L.!” announces a chirpy narrator “ – for a carefree future consisting of more of the same!” The letters form the word “EVIL” as the narrator speaks; the “I” is stylised as a smokestack, belching multicoloured emissions.

From there we cut to a monologue by an anonymous fossil fuel villain from the E.V.I.L. corporation (played by the popular German YouTuber LeFloid), who appears to have actual oil flowing through his veins.

He delivers a sneering pitch:

Climate, weather, disasters: Do dark forecasts cloud your future prospects? Don’t let it get you down! We at the Environment Venture Income League will show you that everything’ll be wonderful if we don’t do anything about climate change. Let us upload your brain into the future so you can see for yourself how extraordinary life will be. We’ll upload you into one of our brand new stainless steel robot bodies. Experience a tour of idyllic Lake Constance and learn about the wonders of fossil fuels!

Before you have any chance to ponder how this scenario makes any sense, what a bizarre name like “Environment Venture Income League” could even mean, or why time travel is contingent upon being uploaded into a stainless-steel robot, you find yourself zapped into year 2112 …

… and wandering with your fellow robots through a “high-tech” train full of amusements, with images of Lake Constance projected on video screens that stand in for windows.

To one side of the car is a disturbing arcade game called “Fossil Fuels.” It consists of a globe with massive udders hanging beneath it. Players are invited to “Milk the Earth!” and asked “How much oil can you milk in 15 seconds?”

Opposite is another game called “Renewables,” which is like whack-a-mole, except that you use a hammer to whack not moles but virtual wind turbines, which pop up out of holes, as wind turbines do:

In the centre of the car is a model of the future Lake Constance, where we find that the town of Lindau has been renamed “New-New-New Lindau,” I guess because it has been destroyed so many times by climate catastrophe. We also see that the island Mainau is no longer the “flower island” (as it is today) but the “cactus island,” because climate change of course.

On the wall there is an Environment Venture Income League poster:

EVIL

FOSSIL FUELS ARE THE FUTURE

We are giving it our all to keep humanity dependent on fossil fuels in order to keep the planet warm, comfortable and profitable for future generations.

YOUR E.V.I.L. CORP: WHERE THE FUTURE BURNS!…

Then a digital disturbance interrupts our fossilian recreations. A freedom fighter girl-power eco warrior (played by the Twitch streamer itzjanina) hacks into our climate-denying dystopia. “Hey!” she shouts from a floating screen. “Don’t get sucked in! Join the Green Guardians! Help save the future!”

She appears to have oil blood too; I guess that’s just how everyone will have to live in the twenty-second century. At this point, you and the other robots notice laser guns, which for some reason are suspended in glass cases throughout the train.

You break them out and rapidly begin shooting at things to defeat disinformation. You blast away the train walls to reveal the emissions-addled wasteland outside. Climate-denying aircraft are rapidly approaching.

As you continue to shoot, one of these aircraft lands on the now-open train car, carrying none other than the E.V.I.L. executive you met at the beginning. Everyone directs his laser fire at this final boss of climate denialism.

From the press release:

Young people especially are put off by bad news and dystopian predictions. “We wanted to counteract this,” Philipp says … “We realised that young people from Generation Z are primarily attracted by entertaining content.” Youth between the ages of 14 and 25 want to have something to do, they want to be involved and interact in groups, Philipp says.

He and his team have therefore developed a multiplayer game called “GreenGuardiansVR” – a game for augmented reality goggles for up to three players.

“GreenGuardiansVR” is a game in which a fictitious oil company transports players into the near future. “This company wants to suggest to players that ‘business as usual’ is possible,” Philipp explains. “It’s a disinformation campaign that we are supposed to fall for.” Players have to learn to see through this corporate campaign – in a playful way.

This has to be one of the dumbest exercises in climate propaganda ever attempted, by anybody, anywhere. If we had deep-cover allies on the inside, I doubt we could achieve anything more discrediting and ridiculous than this retarded nonsense.