Based on his 2021 vegan comic book, strongman Patrik Baboumian has created the concept of a new video game called EARTHRAISER – GAIA’S WISH, in which a vegan superhero who can feel animals’ pain meets human and animal rights activists to help liberate the oppressed.
Patrik Baboumian is an Iranian-born German-Armenian retired strongman and former bodybuilder, known for his promotion of veganism. He is one of the vegan athletes shown in the documentary The Game Changers. He is now crowdfunding for this project, which was originally conceived as a film. The Kickstarted campaign aims to get €250,000 to help fund a 30-minute playable demo. If successful, the idea is to eventually create a feature-length video game for PC and later, XBOX and PlayStation.
The game’s story begins with Gaia, a 12-year-old animal-lover from Berlin who volunteers at a farm sanctuary every day after school. Distraught by a fire that kills many animals, she wishes upon a falling star for a guardian spirit to protect all animals from cruelty and to punish those who harm them. After a fallen soldier named Wolf Winter resurrects in a secret military base where animals are being kept for experiments, he learns he can sometimes transform into a berserker (a warrior often featured in medieval Germanic history). He then meets Gaia and discovers he has gained the ability to experience the pain felt by all life near him, including non-human animals.
Talking to Vegan FTA, Baboumian said, “The whole story is based upon the idea that the hero is a vessel for the animals. He’s a vessel for the message and the reality of the animals, and it only works if the audience is going to put themselves into the shoes of the hero… Those playing the game are going to identify with the hero because they are the hero, so they become the vessel to the journey into the world and the reality of animals. And then see what they see, feel what they feel and then fight for them. I think that’s a million times more powerful than making a film out of it. It would still be great if we could at some point make a film, but I think this is so much more powerful.”
“I understood that if something is about veganism, it immediately becomes about vegans. I wanted to actually reach out to those who probably do not even like me, like those who think I’m an annoying person. I wanted to make something that is so appealing to them. So, if I make it about compassion, it’s really something that is open to all of humankind.”
The Kickstarter campaign can be found here.
