Hollow yet Hopeful? Sky Islands, Hubris, and Gravity in Video Games

"Hollow yet Hopeful?" argues that sky islands in video games are ambivalent spaces, simultaneously offering utopian escapism and serving as cautionary dystopias. Using the Queendom of Zeal in Chrono Trigger (1995) as its central case, the article contends that these floating civilisations typically begin as idealised ancient societies and fall through hubris and catastrophe, making them potent vehicles for reflection on power, normativity, and the limits of utopian ideals. The work positions sky islands as what it calls "experimental thought environments," spaces in which players can critically engage with how games construct space and possibility.

The study's methodology combines three full playthroughs of Chrono Trigger with walkthrough review and narrative, spatial, and intertextual analysis. Its justification rests on the game's largely linear arrival at and destruction of Zeal, and it expresses a broader concern that game studies has under-engaged with older titles. Theoretically, the article draws on utopian and dystopian scholarship, including Gillis, Sargent, Moylan, and Farca, and frames video game dystopias as "refracted mirrors" that prompt reflection on real-world structures. It engages the tension between Edelman's queer negativity and the accounts of hope and futurity offered by Muñoz and Bliss, and it reads queer hope as a form of refusal.

Central to the analysis is the reading of Zeal as a "critical dystopia" that begins as a peaceful floating utopia and collapses after its pursuit of power. The author argues that the game's shifting music, NPC dialogue, and the contrast between the tranquil first visit and the combat-driven second visit render the player's experience of this downfall both emotionally and mechanically affecting. Zeal thus embodies the tension between imagining alternative futures and the inevitable fragility of such ideals.

The article extends this reading to other sky civilisations, including those in Xenoblade Chronicles and Skies of Arcadia, concluding that the trope recurs because it invites critical reflection on hubris, power, and possibility. The scope is primarily scholarly and game-focused, with examples drawn from a range of titles across decades of console and PC development.