India, Feb. 4 -- Picture a player two-thirds of the way through Civilization VI, the empire-building strategy videogame. They're swimming in gold, their fleets rule the seas, victory seems close.
Then, disasters strike, one by one. Floods take out their most productive industrial zones. A Category 5 hurricane wipes out an entire naval fleet. The seas begin to rise, submerging prime districts one by one.
The climate crisis is setting in, in the gaming world too.
An expansion called Gathering Storm, added to Civilization VI by developer Firaxis in 2019, introduces anthropogenic climate change to the challenges in the series. The intensity of the disasters is determined by how many power plants a player built and how many forests they cut d...