Play as Water and Rain to Fight Wildfires in Atuel, a Free Short Game on Nature’s Power and Vulnerability

Have you played…?

Well, have you played Atuel? If not, you can do so within the next hour — it’s a tiny, free, 25-minute walking sim, albeit one with little actual walking on account of you playing most of it as a river. Más of a running sim, really.

Technically, Atuel calls itself a “documentary game”, and not without justification. While its sweeping Patagonian landscapes are rendered with a dreamy otherworldliness, and certain moments are downright mystic, the whole watery journey is based directly on the Atuel River that runs through western Argentina. As you drift downhill, taking control of water, clouds, and the local wildlife, you’ll hear real-life scientists and historians monologuing on the Atuel and its relationship with the human cultures it’s nourished. Mercifully, these are delivered with thoughtfulness as well as earnestness, maintaining the game’s contemplative atmosphere without making it sound like the audio guide to a museum of Birmingham canals.

Image credit: Matajuegos

A few bends in, Atuel also takes on the climate crisis, directing you away from the soothing freshwater and into wildfires and parched riverbeds. I’d say this was preaching to the choir, at least for anyone who a) desires a functioning planet and b) learned about the water cycle in primary school, but then it isn’t really preaching. Rather, developers Matajuegos weave between the beauty of the Earth and the need to protect it quite gracefully, and end their river tour on a more hopeful note than its darker moments may have intimated.

There’s plenty else to leave an outsized impression in your memory matter: the understated, naturally-textured soundtrack, for instance, or the patiently gradual zoom-outs that slowly unveil the Andes’ wild splendour. For me, and without wanting to undermine the importance or the accuracy of Atuel’s environmental point, it was mainly just nice — therapeutic, even — to float through its gorgeous, surreal scenery like a cloud. And sometimes, as one. You can download it for free from Steam and Itch, with a pay-what-you-want option on the latter.