Animal Crossing and World of Warcraft were two top ones for me, which have already been mentioned, so I’ll add some others that inspired me. Wildlife featuring in video games is traditionally very poor, as games focused on that theme tend to sell poorly. The main audience for these kinds of games don’t tend to play games period, which is probably why we haven’t seen many focused projects in the past. However here’s some!
Alba: A Wildlife Adventure is a recent game that some may know about. It is a really charming experience focusing on you, as the player, documenting wildlife with an ID app on your phone (Seek, anyone!?). Along the way you collect petitions to fight against the main plot line, a proposed hotel development that would destroy the only nature reserve on the island. It’s very short, but as a proof of concept it’s marvellous. About as close as I’ve seen to an “iNaturalist: the game”! 1-2
Endless Ocean (1 & 2) and Everblue 2 are at the top of my list, wonderfully immersive scuba diving games and featuring a very broad variety of species (70 in EB2, 353 in EO2!). For wildlife content, Endless Ocean games are vastly superior, and in Everblue 2 that portion of the game is a little obscure and overshadowed, as obtaining the camera and access to the encyclopedia takes a little time to get to. All of these also have a pretty invigorating and investing storyline, so it’s not all about the “collect them all” aspect. The former used a scanner-like system (learn by clicking on them in the field), while the latter use photography (photos which were then shown to the fish expert later for ID). There’s field guides that are empty at first - you have to complete it by finding all the species yourself. A large number of different habitats, with large open areas, ranging from marine mammals through fish, to even small stuff like nudibranchs and sea stars. Beyond Blue is a more recent take on the underwater theme, but it’s unfortunately very shallow in scope, but the visuals are stunning nonetheless. 1-2-3
Subnautica. What? Another underwater game? Dang it! But no, really, this game is very enjoyable. Wildlife documentation is not the primary objective, but there is an in-game scanner which allows you to gather journal entries on all the species you come across. It doesn’t have many species compared to many examples cited here, but it’s very much appreciated nonetheless. But honestly, if you are going to play Subnautica, it isn’t going to be for the collection aspect. You are there to enjoy the experience and storyline, which as long as you can get over thalassophobia, is absolutely worth a try. 1-2
Abzu…wait, this is also an underwater game! Regardless, this game is more of an art project than anything, but it goes to say that the visuals and atmosphere result in a truly stunning experience. There are moments where you are able to meditate, which allows you to go through and observe all the species in that area, with name tags, however there is no collection to keep track of. Well worth playing just for the experience, though. 1-2
Afrika (regionally known as Hakuna Matata) was a photo safari game on the PS3, even backed by Nat Geo. I’ve seen a few “safari games” but this one was the best by far, featuring several open spaces of habitat with a total of 60 photographable species (including some insects besides the usual showy mammals, which is rare for games like this!). Pretty simple, but very memorable for me. 1-2-3
Fishing games come to mind as well. Unfortunately most suffer from tunnel vision (e.g. the large number of “bass fishing tournament” games that featured nothing but…well, you can guess!). In some there were a couple other fish but you were penalized for catching them! However they are not all this way. In terms of embracing variety, the Reel Fishing series is a prime example. Reel Fishing 2 was the best in my experience, with 19 locations and 70 species, and it just plays nicely for the most part. It doesn’t have technical and complicated controls like many fishing games. And unlike most fishing genre games, documenting various species is greatly encouraged. In addition to target fish there were a large number of other species, and you had a variety of baits and lures you had to experiment with in order to try and hook those last obscure fish. A lot of fun. The River King series originating in Japan, shares this theme but follows a more open-world aspect with a defined storyline where you as the player having to catch the namesake golden carp. Unlike Reel Fishing games there isn’t a direct motive to hunt down all the fish, besides your own “collect them all” investment, but there is an in-game encyclopedia for this purpose. Some of the River King games also have bug and plant collections in addition to fish!
Harvest Moon. Ok, so this one is tricky because it’s very variable. Only a few of the entries in this series really have decent wildlife portrayal. Most of them have a developed seasonal fishing system, and a large number of different fish you can collect. Some games also have the bug collection aspect that Japanese games love, also based on seasons. However it is not the focus in many of the games by any means, and in a few of them there aren’t even unique graphics for each species, e.g. one of the recent entries that had a red dragonfly image for every bug. So the collection was just a list of names, no visuals, which personally I found a tad boring.
Beetle King. An honourable mention, this is a Japanese game with an English translation however it was deemed too niche to be formally released. The game file still exists as a rom and can be played through certain means however. This is a focused bug collection game with something like 200-300 species last I recall, including a wide variety of beetles, dragonflies, butterflies, cicadas, bees, mantises, and so on. You start at home, and go on excursions. Each time you go outside, it generates a random map of habitats and you can walk through them and collect insects. It’s very simple, you click on insects and have to line up the cursor to catch them, certain items can be equipped to help with say butterflies that naturally have an excessively fast cursor (reflecting the difficulty of catching a butterfly with your hands in real life!). Certain mission quests can be completed which change the general habitats generated on each excursion, with different quest paths. For example, the most difficult quests guide you towards rarer beetle habitats, whereas the easiest ones guide towards meadows containing more butterflies. Once you reach the end you can jump back to the start at any time to go through and take the other paths as needed.
In general, games with any documentation or collection of flora and fauna are notable. Casual examples not really needing their own paragraph are as follows: Metroid Prime games, featuring totally alien flora and fauna, and a shooting game that earned my trust. But it has a scanner system that I very greatly enjoy using. Legend of Zelda: Wind Waker had a fun idea where you’d take photos of species, show them to an artist, which would then “inspire” him to make 3D models of them that were housed in a museum. Unfortunately it was extremely tedious as you could only store a few photos at once, requiring you to make the full journey back to the museum constantly, and you can’t even get the camera until late in the game. But I give props to this out of uniqueness. Paper Mario: TTYD earns an honorable mention due to the ability to not only scan enemies, but feature a logbook that tracked all the entries, which is rare for the turn-based RPG style of games. Final Fantasy games, especially more recent entries, also had developed encyclopedia systems that encouraged tracking down and fighting enemies to fill the list. Obviously combat-based stuff isn’t everyone’s cup of tea, though.
I’ll probably be adding to this post as I remember others.