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Posthuman Video Games: Defamiliarization and Becoming- Main Menu Posthuman Video Games: Defamiliarization and Becoming- Initial Remarks Video Games as a Posthuman Media The Player as a Posthuman Subject Video Games' Fascination with Death Video Games and Necro-Politics Posthuman Video Games Flower (2009) Stray (2022) Season: A Letter to the Future (2023) Becoming-Earth Becoming-Animal Becoming-Imperceptible

Final Remarks

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To finish off, I would briefly like to talk about Braidotti’s posthuman Humanities (2013). So far, I have discussed about the posthuman nature of video games, and how their interactive and immersive nature allows players to experience new subjectivities and challenge their worldviews. Through complex and meaningful plots and characters, gaming is a potential source for acquiring knowledge. I have showcased such potential through discussing my experiences with Flower (2009), Stray (2022), and Season: A Letter to the Future (2023). Each game adopts different ontologies, including Becoming-Earth/Animal/Imperceptible which allow players to reposition themselves and think outside of their bounded selves. Flower (2009) offers gamers a chance to embody a flower petal and help the environment, which ultimately shows the interconnectedness between nature and culture (the human world). On the other hand, Stray (2022) lets the player become a cat and roam around cities plagued with human corruption, reflecting current necro-politics, and showcasing how human laws can impact the future and other Lifeforms. Finally, Season: A Letter to the Future (2023) allows players to collect memories to pass on to the future, subsequently showing the interconnectedness between the past and the present, rather than being separate timeframes. As such, I think that videogames can be used as an innovative teaching tool to revive the ‘dying’ Humanities.

As a matter of fact, in her fourth chapter, Braidotti mentions the potential of Digital Humanities, and how technology can be used to shape posthuman knowledge (The Posthuman 2013). Video games, when purposefully designed, can be posthuman in many ways. The games I discussed, for instance, adhere to some of Braidotti’s ‘golden rules’ (The Posthuman 2013, 163).
  1. Cartographic accuracy: while the game takes place in a fictive future, Stray (2022) still raises important ethical concerns by criticizing systems of power and necro-politics. The player therefore becomes aware of how such politics, the systems under which they are currently living in, can create harm and threaten the future.
  2. Trans-disciplinarity: all three games I discuss raise different philosophical concerns, but all significant nonetheless. Flower (2009) raises environmental concerns, namely the importance of conserving the environment and how it can affect culture. Stray (2022) takes a more political approach and sheds light on systems of oppression. Lastly, Season: A Letter to the Future (2023), adopts the philosophy of death and endings and provides a different, more hopeful outlook on the post-apocalypse.
  3. The importance of combining critique with creative figurations: In relation to video games, this is pretty self-explanatory. Indeed, thanks to their aesthetics and unique graphics, video games offer different immersive experiences all the while producing knowledge.
  4. The imagination and the strategy of defamiliarization: This last golden rule was in fact the main focus of my project. In effect, all three games I discuss allow players to Become-, to defamiliarize themselves and embody new subjectivities.
Overall, video games have the potential to challenge traditional thinking, which in my opinion, can be used as a learning tool. What is also important to clarify is that this project only presented three third-person PlayStation games. I rarely play other types of games, so my experience and knowledge are only limited to videogames that require a screen. There is yet further room for discussion when it comes to more refined technology, such as Virtual Reality (VR) gaming, and potentially new methods of gaming in the future.
 

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  1. Becoming-Imperceptible Chandni Sakhrani