rose-engine

Posthuman Gaming in a Time of Planetary Crisis: Human Agency at the Crossroads of Technology and Ecology in Signalis

This paper examines "posthuman gaming" through a close reading of the 2022 survival horror game Signalis, developed by rose-engine, arguing that the game's cyborg protagonist, Elster, destabilizes human-centered agency and queers conventional identities at a moment of planetary ecological crisis.

• The paper argues that Signalis (2022, developed by rose-engine) destabilizes human-centered agency through its cyborg protagonist Elster, positioning gameplay itself as an embodied posthuman practice in which player and avatar form a cyborgian assemblage.
• The authors contend the game queers conventional identity by reframing its dystopian plot as a romance and a study of trauma, since the player's goal of recovering memories to save a queer lover centers intimacy and loss.
• The paper reads the horror mechanics, especially the viral Bioresonance "sickness" and the corruption of Replikas, as ecological horror that critiques technological progress pursued at environmental cost.