About: Stefan Werning
Stefan Werning works as Associate Professor for Digital Media and Game Studies at Utrecht University, where he organizes the annual ‘Multidisciplinary Game Research’ summer school and coordinates the special interest group ‘Thinking Through Games’ within the Game Research focus area. He obtained his PhD (2010) in media studies from Bonn University and his venia legendi at Bayreuth University (2015). Stefan has been a visiting scholar (2005) and fellow (2006-2010) at the program in Comparative Media Studies at MIT. Moreover, he has worked in the digital games industry, most notably at Codemasters (2005) and Nintendo of Europe (2007-09).
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In Mediaobject: Hollow Knight: Silksong:
While Silksong is not explicitly framed as an 'ecogame', it exhibits several relevant design aspects:
The motif of a ruined civilization and environmental degradation: The setting of Silksong is presented as a vast, interconnected ecosystem, similar to Hallownest, the world of the game's predecessor Hollow Knight. Players discuss how the in-game 'Citadel' has polluted the game world in various ways clearly reminiscent of contemporary environmental destruction (e.g. https://www.reddit.com/r/Silksong/comments/1o9p927/how_the_citadel_ruined_pharloom_part_1_water/).
The world as a 'character': The environments themselves — mossy grottos, coral forests, cities or misty moors — are very detailed and hand-drawn, with life-like vegetation. Arguably, the exploration of this ecology and its focus on the nonhuman world are a central part of the player's experience, that raises questions about coexistence.
Bestiary and Biomes: The diverse bestiary features creatures that are unusually deeply integrated with and adapted to their specific environments, with creatures specific to different biomes.
Interdependence: The world is designed to feel like a functioning (or formerly functioning) ecosystem, in which characters, enemies, and environments are tentatively linked. For example, some side-quests involve hunting rare beasts and restoring or interacting with the world in ways that go beyond combat.
Thus, while Silksong doesn't simulate an ecological system for the player to manage or actively learn about sustainability, it can be viewed from an eco-critical perspective because its world-building, aesthetics, and narrative create a vivid threatened natural environment of insects and bugs that partially unsettles anthropocentric views.
In Mediaobject: The Lion King (1994):
Jean Trenton argues that The Lion King presents an "androcentric society inhabited by nonhuman animals" and suggests androcentrism, i.e. a male-oriented or otherwise 'masculine' worldview, as a concept to both characterize and critique the film as an example of ecocinema (See http://www.ecomediastudies.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/Annotated-Keywords-Trenton-Jean.pdf).
In Mediaobject: Poika ja ilves [Tommy and the Lynx]:
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In Mediaobject: Fantastic futures? Cli-fi, climate justice, and queer futurity:
Addresses the concept of "allegorical fantasy" (100-101, 105)
