Remediation and Refunctionalization of Natural Spaces in Video Games: Perspectives, Patterns, and Impact on Society

This paper examines how mainstream video games represent nature, environment, and sustainability, with the aim of understanding which values and collective imaginaries these games convey to their large player bases. Its central premise is that commercial titles, because of their reach, function as influential cultural texts whose representations of the natural world shape broader attitudes, and that identifying these patterns is a necessary first step toward designing games that promote sustainable values aligned with the UNESCO Sustainable Development Goals. The author positions the work against a backdrop of urgent ecological challenges, while acknowledging that games cannot single-handedly solve them and that their influence on players is difficult to measure precisely given the diversity of audiences.

The methodology is hermeneutic and qualitative, drawing on game analysis techniques applied to a corpus of more than thirty popular titles released from 2011 onward. Selection was based on sales, popularity, awards, and media exposure, and the analysis considers narrative, audiovisual, and procedural forms of representation across several SDG-related themes, including clean water, energy, sustainable cities, responsible consumption, climate action, and life below water and on land. The study remains ongoing, so its results are preliminary.

Early findings suggest that games often make the symbolic functions of natural places explicit through mechanics. The bonfire save points of the Dark Souls series, for example, echo longstanding fantasy conventions of sheltering places. The analysis also finds that many titles reward hunting and resource extraction in ways disconnected from their narratives, encouraging violence-based interactions with nature, while simultaneously evoking nostalgia for simpler, less mediated relationships with the environment. A smaller number of games, such as Dishonored, incorporate side content addressing water sanitation and disease prevention, which the author identifies as notable exceptions.

The research concludes that these patterns reveal how nature and ecology are currently perceived within popular culture. The author anticipates that completing the analysis will support a design framework for games that convey more sustainable values, contributing to the broader shift in production practices that the paper considers necessary.