Question: Who created the terraforming computer game where players ' decision-making skills are critical in the outcome of the game ?

text: Terraforming in popular culture
Video Games -- As a plot element

Terraforming is well represented in popular culture, usually in the form of science fiction. While many stories involving interstellar travel feature planets already suited to habitation by humans and supporting their own indigenous life, some authors prefer to address the unlikeliness of such a concept by instead detailing the means by which humans have converted inhospitable worlds to ones capable of supporting life through artificial means. Author Jack Williamson is credited with inventing and popularizing the term terraform. In July 1942, under the pseudonym Will Stewart, Williamson published a science fiction novella entitled Collision Orbit in Astounding Science-Fiction magazine. The series was later published as two novels, Seetee Shock (1949) and Seetee Ship (1951). American geographer Richard Cathcart successfully lobbied for formal recognition of the verb to terraform, and it was first included in the fourth edition of the Shorter Oxford English Dictionary in 1993.
Date Title Genre Notes
1989 Millennium 2.2 Strategy Colonization of the Solar System with the ultimate goal of returning Earth to habitability
1992 Star Control II Multiple The fungoid Mycon terraform geologically active worlds to their liking , shattering the crust , giving direct access to the mantle
1995 Millennia : Altered Destinies Simulation ? The invention of the terraformer usually kills its species ; it must be copied , prevented and reintroduced later to a more mature society . Success marks the end of guarding sentient species against an invader and begins the more tedious task of balancing them against each other
1995-2008 The Command & Conquer Tiberian series Real-time strategy Earth ravaged by the alien substance Tiberium , a self-replicating mineral extractor crystal that works on a planetary scale
1997 Outpost 2 : Divided Destiny Real-time strategy A failed attempt at terraforming an alien planet precipitates the game 's events as inhabitants flee the Blight and lava flows
1999-2008 The X series Space flight simulator game Earth has built a race of terraformer ships which have started to build colonies on uninhabited planets throughout the X Universe . These robotic machines then turn on their owners due to a programming error and wage a war against them , destroying the Terran colonies and attacking Earth itself . They now exist as the Xenon
2000 Armored Core 2 Third-person shooter Mars is undergoing the last stages terraformation during the events of the game . It has a breathable atmosphere , surface temperatures comparable to Earth 's and a sizable ocean
2001 Hostile Waters : Antaeus Rising Strategy / Third-person shooter As we delve deeper in the plot , the genetically-engineered alien Species , after having turned against their masters ( Cabal ) , begin to drop the ambient temperatures of the island chicane where they operate . And in addition to pumping toxins into the air and increasing ground radiation levels , to bypass their in-built sensitivity to heat ( which in itself was a safety feature to prevent them from spreading too far ) . The effects of terraforming become more and more pronounced with every mission , until the final islands come to resemble nothing on our planet Earth , as we know it
2002-2008 Escape Velocity Nova Space trading and combat Mars saw the first use of terraforming technology , becoming a ball of toxic algae sludge . Other planets have been terraformed and colonized using the now-corrected processes . An optional sidequest involves hauling terraforming equipment to a barren world that becomes more hospitable
2004 Half-Life 2 First-person shooter Earth under terraformation by the Combine Empire for new inhabitants . Examples include the draining of the oceans ( evidence of a receding shoreline can be seen near the coast ) and depletion of natural resources . A Suppression Field prevents humans from reproducing
2006 Resistance : Fall of Man First-person shooter The Chimera cool the Earth for their purposes , making it snow in London in July
2007 Crysis First-person shooter An alien ship begins forming an ice sphere around the island it has landed on , affecting weather patterns and ultimately making the Earth more habitable for them
2008 Fallout 3 RPG / First-person shooter A prototype module capable of terraforming large areas of land and creating life itself from inanimate matter , designed to be used following a nuclear war , is central to the game 's storyline . ( The G.E.C.K . aka Garden Eden Creation Kit )
2009 Red Faction : Guerrilla RPG/FPS Mars is in the process of being terraformed to allow colonists and miners to walk the surface of the planet without any advanced protection . Light vegetation can be seen in certain parts of the game
2013 Defiance Shooter/MMO The entire Earth was subjected to terraforming events , many of which were designed to replicate alien environments . Due to the nature in which these terraforming devices were activated , it created a mostly new world : altering the physical landscape of the world , causing severe and odd weather patterns , and hybridizing plants and animals to create vicious and terrifying replacements
2013 Warframe Third-person shooter The Orokin were an advanced race of people capable of terraforming the entirety of the Solar System , most notable Venus , which was transformed into a cold planet through a network of coolant liquid rivers . They also deployed terraforming drones en route to the Tau Ceti system , that finally gained sentience and rebelled against their masters
2017 Horizon Zero Dawn Action RPG After the end of all life on Earth due to the Faro Plague , an AI is responsible to recreate and restore all life on Earth , terraforming it from lifelessness
2019 The Outer Worlds Action RPG After colony ships depart Earth to colonize Halcyon , they terraform planets to better fit human life . It is explained in the setting that terraforming is a relatively new science for humanity and the results are unpredictable , with the hostile moon of Monarch as an in-universe example of terraforming gone wrong with its hostile creatures and a sulfurous atmosphere that causes chronic health problems . Despite this terraforming allowing genetically modified crops to be grown , it is later discovered that food grown on these terraformed worlds is not nutritious enough to sustain all the colonists , leading to a food shortage crisis