Alba is a game that touches on issues we care deeply about. One of these is our relationship with nature. The goal of the early prototypes was to recreate the feeling of going birdwatching. A lot of iteration has gone into the game since then but a core of it would still be recognisable today. The game has always featured a young girl exploring a small open world and taking photographs of birds. Slowly, as the game fleshed out, Alba started to grow in complexity and size. As a result, it became impossible to speak of our relationship with nature without addressing the current challenge we face. Climate change can be a real downer. Thanks to Alba, we realised we often focus on the problems, but not the solution. The natural world is incredible, and we stand to gain so much if we take action now and protect what we love.


So we made a game about protecting an island and we were inspired to do even more. In 2019, ustwo became a certified B Corp which challenges us to continually improve the impact we have internally and externally. As we were thinking about what we could do, someone suggested Ecologi.

A bit about Ecologi, they exist to give companies like us the tools to do something about climate change. One of those ways is they help connect us to different planting projects like the Eden Reforestation Project. They are a fascinating couple of organisations, but the TL;DR here is that they can plant trees in areas that need reforestation, in a responsible way, involving local communities and continuing to look after the trees as long as needed. So we decided that we would plant a tree for every copy of the game sold.

Our goal is to plant 1 Million trees. After an initial donation of 100,000 to get the ball rolling we have finally reached our halfway point and planted 530,000 trees. And we haven't even released the game on console yet!

So if you are inspired to help after playing, we have good news. You already have by playing! BUT, if you're like Alba and want to take it further, you can add your own trees to Alba's Forest or encourage your friends to do so by going to the site below:
https://ecologi.com/albasforest

If you want to reduce your carbon footprint, you can also join Team Alba by signing up to take a step here:
https://alba.count-us-in.org

Thank you so much for your support so far. The reception to our little adventure has been better than we could have hoped for and it means a lot to us.

Your friends,
ustwo games

And it's out there!

This is the longest we've spent making a single game. Back in 2018 we didn’t know that this game would turn out like this. Not least of which because nobody expected 2020 would turn out the way it has. What started as a simple exploration to see if we could capture the magic of a birdwatching hike, has become Alba: a Wildlife Adventure, the pre-apocalyptic game some of us sorely need right now. We wanted to take the world we remembered from our summers growing up, and turn it into an experience for others to enjoy. But we didn't expect just how nostalgic that would feel now that we have to stay indoors to keep each other safe. A few team members have remarked how nice it was to be able to just take little strolls within the game world, as a way to escape the stress of the reality outside. Sure, we are biased. But we are very proud of this game and hope you like it.

Setting out to make an open-world game was a huge challenge. Making games is hard. This is our biggest game ever. It's the longest, the most complex, the biggest team, the most platforms we've ever launched on, and so on. Before this game, we never had more than 15 people work on a single game. At one point we had a team of 25 people. Sure, some AAA studios are used to dealing with a much more complex organisation but for us, this was a big deal. Despite all that, we can all still say this project felt personal. Every person that worked on this has made their mark and we are so lucky to have worked with incredible people during all this. Seriously, check out the credits, every one of those people is individually remarkable, and the game is better off for them.

The last thing we wanted to mention is the game's themes. Like we said before, we just wanted to make a bird-watching game. But as we were writing the story and the wider world, we couldn't avoid the obvious topics. The game deals with the complex relationship between humans and nature, and that made us explore our relationship. If people feel inspired, as we have, by Alba and her movement, we invite them to check out our website albawildlife.com for more information for how they can help out and make the world around us a better place.

It is fitting that for our biggest game, we wrote our biggest Steam announcement. This has been a massive project for us and we thank anybody that's been involved from the bottom of our hearts. But we especially thank you, the player, for taking a second to even read this. If you play the game, thanks again. We made this in the hope that you enjoy this little slice of the very real world we loved in our childhoods and that we hope that our children can continue to enjoy.

Optimistically,
your friends at ustwo games