Speculative evolution can be defined as a science-fiction subgenre and an artistic movement that considers hypothetical and scientific creativity to bring about fictional organisms with an entirely imagined evolutionary history. There are many pieces of successful media that contain elements of speculative evolution such as C.M. Kösemen’s book “All Tommorrows,” “Expedition,” by Wayne Barlowe and “Man After Man: An Anthropology of the Future,” by Dougal Dixon. These are all examples of scientific books that utilize speculative fiction to explore an idea such as futuristic humans and aliens in another world, however it goes beyond that, as speculative evolution is more common than one might expect, especially in video games.
There are many popular video games with speculative evolution as a key component such as “Subnautica,” for example. The game’s premise revolves around the idea that the player is trapped on an alien ocean planet full of unknown alien organisms. As you play through the game you can find all sorts of creatures with different evolutionary histories such as the Oculus being an offshoot of the Peeper that evolved to live in caves or the Crabsquid evolving an emp defense against a bio-electric predator known as the Ampeel.
“Spore,” is another great example, as the entire premise revolves around the player evolving from a single celled organism to a space faring civilization. The player has total control over their creature’s evolutionary history as they have a wide variety of options for how the player can design their creature as it evolves, which allows for a vastly creative method to allow players to create their own speculative organisms.
“Rain World,” is a challenging survival game where you play as a small omnivorous creature known as a Slugcat and the player fights for their life in a world that has been pushed to mass extinction by never ending rain. The game is filled to the brim with creatures that have been affected by or evolved with the constant rain that the player must avoid. With a phenomenal atmosphere and visual style, it creates a great representation of speculative evolution.
