A New Browser Game Lets Anyone Walk Through Michael Heizer's Remote Land Art Work "City"

Michael Heizer's "City" — a vast land-art installation in the Nevada desert that took five decades to complete and admits only a limited number of visitors each year — can now be explored on a phone browser, thanks to a free video game released by developer Lily Belmira.

The game, titled "City by Michael Heizer [Free Version]," is playable on itch.io, an independent platform for browser and downloadable games. It is categorized as a simulation and walking-simulator — a genre focused on exploring an environment at the player's own pace rather than combat or scoring. No download is required; it runs in mobile and desktop browsers. (ARTnews)

Heizer, an American artist now in his late seventies, began "City" in 1972 in the Nevada desert's Garden Valley. The work — over a mile and a half long — consists of massive earthworks inspired in part by ancient Mesoamerican architecture. It opened to the public in 2022 under strict visitation rules: visitors must arrange trips in advance, travel on unpaved roads, and numbers are capped. The site is managed by the Triple Aught Foundation, a nonprofit that oversees its preservation.

Belmira's game reproduces the installation as a navigable virtual space. According to ARTnews, which covered the release on 13 August 2026, the project allows anyone with a browser to experience the work regardless of the logistical barriers that make an in-person visit difficult or impossible.

Belmira maintains a personal game-development blog on Neocities, a free website-hosting platform, at lilybel.neocities.org/blog. Her itch.io account, listed as lilybelmira.itch.io, hosts the "City" game alongside her other projects. A public contact email — lilybelmira@gmail.com — is listed on her personal homepage.

For anyone who has followed the decades-long saga of "City" — from its remote construction to its delayed opening and limited access — the appeal of a free, browser-based walkthrough is straightforward. The work's physical isolation, intentional as it may be, places it out of reach for most of the world. A walking simulator sidesteps that barrier entirely, turning one of land art's most inaccessible monuments into something a phone can hold.

Whether the game captures the scale and material presence of Heizer's earthworks is a question for critics and players to settle. What is verifiable is the access: one tab, one click, no reservation required.