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Terra Nil

A reverse city builder

Ratings

Age

4+

Category

Simulation

Languages

English

Terra Nil is a meditative reverse city builder that tasks you with transforming a ravaged environment into a vibrant ecosystem. Use advanced eco-technology to clean polluted oceans, purify soil, and create diverse habitats like rainforests and wetlands. Once life has returned, recycle every building you've created to leave the landscape pristine for its new animal inhabitants. With procedurally generated maps and a tranquil soundscape, Terra Nil offers a unique, peaceful strategy experience.

Dinsun Expert Review

Our Expert Score

95/100

Terra Nil is a profound and beautiful subversion of the city-builder genre. Instead of focusing on expansion and industrialization, it tasks you with 're-wilding'—turning a desolate wasteland into a thriving ecosystem. The process is meditative: you purify the soil, create wetlands, and plant forests until the animals return. The most unique and satisfying mechanic, however, is the final stage of every level, where you must recycle all the high-tech equipment you used and 'leave no trace,' departing with the environment in pristine condition.

The hand-painted environments and the atmospheric ambient soundscape create a sense of tranquility that is rare in gaming. Because the maps are procedurally generated, every attempt feels like a new puzzle that requires careful planning around mountains and rivers. It’s a peaceful, eco-conscious experience that feels incredibly timely. As a Netflix member exclusive, it’s one of the best reasons to use the service for gaming. It’s not just a game; it’s a hopeful, meditative journey that leaves you feeling accomplished and calm.

Dinsun reviewed on: Fri Feb 27 2026

Features

1

Innovative 'reverse' city-building mechanics

2

Procedurally generated landscapes for endless replayability

3

Lush, hand-painted graphics and relaxing ambient audio

4

Diverse biomes including wetlands, plains, and rainforests

5

Appreciate mode to bask in your restored natural paradise

Tips & Walkthrough

Gameplays

Screenshot

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Q&A

Terra Nil is available exclusively to Netflix members at no extra cost and features no ads or in-app purchases.

Ratings & Reviews

You HAVE to play this game!
Mon Sep 08 2025 Zombie"lober"

This is genuinely one of the best games I have ever played. It is relaxing while still having rewarding goals & objectives, the graphics are surprisingly rich, and the sounds(with headphones on) bring it to a whole new level of “zen”. There are still some glitches(I have to close out the game at the end of each level to move forward) but they have greatly improved over the last few update releases and honestly are so minor when the rest of the game is so good! I really appreciate that they are still releasing updates several years past release, the most recent 2025 update included new map areas and new game objectives - such fun additions! I have restarted this game from the beginning dozens of times and will continue to do so countless more times. Thank you for such a wonderfully relaxing game!

Excellent game, unusually glitchy. Devs, add Bug Report option because it’s that bad. See examples.
Sat Jan 04 2025 turkicnomad

First, the vibe of this game is so comforting. I get to scratch my city builder itch without creating a wasteland. Restoring a wasteland feels much better. The graphics could be a little clearer on iPad and there are some visuals that could be displayed less obscurely—literally some assets obscure others in a very counterproductive way—but it doesn’t destroy the experience. Although, I’d love a few more undo’s, and a forecast for the rain so it doesn’t put out my controlled burns all the time. The bugs, however, can actually crash the game. Infinite loading screen after every level even though progress is still saved; the animal migration building is completely unusable; sometimes buildings are sort of grayed out and have to be dragged from the toolbar to get them on the map instead of just tapping them; humidity can go to zero even if it’s raining constantly (if that’s a feature not a bug, yikes); I’ve even seen the variable and functions get called in the objectives tab. There aren’t that many version released, but given the amount of bugs, it feels like it’s still in beta. Sorry, devs, but it would behoove you to add a bug report and log dump option in the settings when things break this badly.

Enjoyable, except…
Thu Oct 30 2025 Fish netter

Why do I keep getting dropped from the game? At least twice for every map area is too often. Usually it is when I am nearly done with the area, but sometimes it is when I open the map, and last time all the controls disappeared. Reloading does spoil the game when it happens so often. When I can actually play, I enjoy building the climate zones and trying to make the animals comfortable. The graphics are nice, and the tools are good, though a label for those would be helpful too. I don’t have trouble with other games, so I do not think it is my iPad or my connection. Please fix. It has been a while since I last played, but the game still closes unexpectedly. Not much for instructions, and it is still buggy. Lost airship, can’t replace in the same spot, and the level will not finish without it. New game takes me back to the first level, of course, so I can’t continue. I need to delete the app to restart. Why do I find all these bugs in any Netflix game I try?

Relaxation Station
Sun Feb 02 2025 ArmaDiLeoDiCaprio

Hands down the best game for relaxing. I needed something like this to help get over my dopamine addiction. In a society that is so addicted to moving fast, this is such a great way to slow down, and use your mind while working through the tasks at hand. It is recommended to use headphones for game play, and after not using headphones — and then using headphones — I can see why. Definitely use them if you can! You will hear your biome slowly come to life. Very surreal. Applause, kudos, and major credit to creators and developers. Thank you so much for this experience.

Relaxing
Tue Jan 07 2025 iamoepe

This is a very easy-going game that you can literally spend two hours on and not even realize. Find myself playing this game more and more on a daily basics. When I am listening to my audiobooks, this game is very easy to understand. It’s not really complicated. It doesn’t have any unnecessary actions in it. What you see is what you get and once you get the hang of it, you will play for hours. If I could change anything about this game is, I wish it had more levels. Once you get used to the game, you realize that you can put it on different stage of difficulty whereas you get points upon completing certain task or if you don’t want the hassle of getting points, you can put it on the easy mode where you can play the game points free . Needless to say it’s a really good game.

Nice concept but it’s unplayable
Fri Aug 02 2024 Oddsby

This is the kind of game that’s right up my alley. Calm and quiet, animals and natural scenes, restoring beauty to a wasteland…all of that. But the game is so buggy as to be unplayable. It crashes constantly, sometimes within seconds of loading my saved game even on the lowest settings. Would love to play more but I actually can’t. Edit: was hoping the recent “bug fix and stability” update would help. But now I can’t even load my saved game. Thought I’d see if this was available on PC and it was! BUT, reading the Steam reviews, apparently that version is just as buggy if not more. Resulting in CPU overheats, BSODs, and other failures. Yikes! I’m not downloading that. The graphics and gameplay aren’t complex. My devices aren’t that old. If I had to guess, the coding is overwritten and inefficient as to be causing such a high drain on resources and I don’t think this game can update its way out of that.

Love this game, but the new version not so much
Fri Jul 12 2024 Borealgal

I have played and loved the original version many times. The artwork, the soundscape are beautiful and soothing. The premise and gameplay are very rewarding and it is satisfying to restore polluted biomes and see wildlife return. Especially as there are so many games (and the real world) focused on destroying or blowing stuff up. I particularly love playing it in Zen mode. BUT the new version will not advance beyond the first biome, River Valley, even though I have completed all goals, even the optional goals. I have deleted and reinstalled the app several times and my iOS is up to date on my iPad M4, but no joy. I’d love to play this new version through all levels, so hope you can fix it soon. Thanks for the creativity.

pleasing terraformer
Wed Aug 20 2025 jeff204vk

I enjoyed restoring biomes for a while with this game. Unfortunately, every time I try to open Parched Dunes, the game crashes, so my journey ends here, but I had more fun than I expected to for a free game (if you have Netflix). The animal graphics are cute, and the theme is welcome given what’s happening to our actual environment. I did notice, though, that once I make an animal’s habitat ideal and take a picture of it, after that I can mess up its habitat with no penalty in the process of helping other animals. This means that players can win scenarios with one or more animals totally screwed at the end. I still am glad I tried this game, there are just a couple of things to fix.

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