From Engagement to Resilience: A Systematic Review of Game-Based Learning for Environmental Resilience

As Education for environmental resilience increasingly adopts Game-based learning (GBL) to address climate challenges, a critical ambiguity remains regarding how learning outcomes are structured. While games effectively enhance learner engagement, it is unclear whether this affective participation translates into the higher-order competency of sustainable climate resilience. To address this, this study followed PRISMA guidelines to conduct a systematic literature review (SLR) of 175 studies published between 2015 and 2025. We adopted a hierarchical taxonomy to code outcomes, distinguishing between affective precursors (empathy), cognitive foundations (systems thinking), and the ultimate goal of resilience (adaptive action competence). The macro-analysis indicated that although the complexity of game simulations has risen, evaluations often remain arrested at the motivational level due to a disjunction between game affordances and instructional support. Multi-level coding further reveals that specific mechanisms, such as dynamic perturbation, spatio-temporal feedback, and resource trade-offs, provide the structural scaffolding necessary to elevate learning from shallow empathy to cognitive resilience. Based on these findings, we propose the Game–Teacher–Resilience (GTR) Framework, arguing that transformative education requires coupling specific mechanics with pedagogical intervention to bridge the gap between engagement and resilience.