Heterotopias 009

Heterotopias 009 | September 2022 | games + architecture
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Credits
editor + creator
Gareth Damian Martin
associate editor
Reid McCarter
contributors
Hamza Bashandy, Richard Bingham, Maria
Bonete, Nick Capozzoli, Alexander King,
Spencer Yan, Lucas Marques dos Santos,
Elikia Mongo-Mboussa, Autumn Wright.
art direction
Gareth Damian Martin

Contents | click numbers to go to articles
3 Wielder of Power
introduction Gareth Damian Martin 100 Playing in a Lost Space
materiality Riot: Civil Unrest | Hamza Bashandy
4 Concrete Dysphorias
interstitials Control | Elikia Mongo-Mboussa 112 The Master Clock
mapping The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask | Richard Bingham
7 Defund the SimCity Police

history SimCity series | Alexander King 125 Empires of Futures Past
history Star Wars Jedi Knight II: Jedi Outcast | Maria Bonete
24 Ever Forward
photo feature Battlefield 2042 | Gareth Damian Martin
138 Transparency / Opacity
feature Lucas Marques dos Santos
50 This War of Mine

feature Ghost Recon: Breakpoint | Spencer Yan 147 Ashina's Nightfall
photo feature Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice | Autumn Wright
65 Planet of Slums
mapping Cities: Skylines | Nick Capozzoli 162 Capture and Control
photo feature Umurangi Generation | Gareth Damian Martin
75 Freeway Teleology
photo feature The Matrix Awakens: An Unreal Engine 5
Experience | Gareth Damian Martin

Wielder of P
ower is once again the with the fascist architecture
focus of this issue, of Star Wars, and the nation-
although unlike 008, here building fortifications of Sekiro:
we will be focussing on Shadows Die Twice both being
Power
those who wield the power, rather contextualised within their
than those subject to it. historical conditions.
That means we are turning our Perhaps unsurpisingly, player

focus to institutions, structures agency within games is also a
(physical and otherwise) key focus, and in the final set of
and systems that grant and essays we turn our attention to Gareth Damian
maintain power. This is perfectly a range of experiences, from the Martin is a writer,
encapsulated by Alexander implied freedom of Grand Theft game designer, and
King's piece, Defund the SimCity Auto Online roleplay servers to artist. They make
introduction Gareth Damian Martin
Police, which begins the issue, the all-powerful clock at the heart games under the
and focusses on how the SimCity of the programming of Majora's studio name Jump
series represents policing and Mask. And in the final photo Over the Age and
its role in society. Following this, feature, I explore how Umurangi are the creator
pieces on Battlefield 2042, and Generation grants agency through and editor of
Ghost Recon: Breakpoint explore the lens of a camera. That feature, Heterotopias.
how representations of climate appropriately enough, is also the
change in games feed into existing final Heterotopias feature in this
representations of power. There's current form. The zine will be
a strong urban focus in this issue transforming itelf, and we will be
too, with pieces on Riot: Civil thinking about the new futures and
Unrest, The Matrix Awakens, and forms that might carry this work
a heavily modded version of Cities: forward. For now, thank you for
Skylines, all of which invesigate supporting us this far, over the past
power in urbanism: who holds 5 years. I hope you enjoy the issue.
it, and the futures it implies. The
past too is something we explore, GDM
Back cover: The Matrix Awakens: An

Unreal Engine 5 Experience (Gareth
Damian Martin).

Concrete T
here is a room in reminder that we did not build
Control that follows this house, instead we are merely
everywhere I go. It’s stuck in the lineage of its cosmic
a room that does not wishing-well. We’re both puppets
Dysphorias
exist, really, insofar as it lacks the and puppeteers in this game of
sense of material permanence that labour—constantly destroying it to
most other spaces in the Oldest reform what was once departed.
House seem to possess. You won’t By playing the shooter at hand and
find it on any map, burrowed manipulating the strange forces
behind a secret seal or scribbled of the House’s Altered Objects,
away in the lore’s redacted Control allows the player a certain
footnotes, yet it permeates every degree of agency over its game
moment spent inside. No dig can spaces. While the scars we leave
prevent a return to its center; there are temporary at
interstitials Control | Elikia Mongo-Mboussa
materializing it is as much an act best, shifts in level-design
of faith as it is about accidental preordained by scripted sequences
revelations. Out of all non-places, of play and button-presses, the
this one’s the purest: a space made reclamation of choke points
and remade by way of shooting. throughout the map turned
into acts of reversal, it’s during
This situation is Control's most those shootouts that we can
compelling argument: Something truly grapple with the meaning
hisses within that only Jesse can of directorhood and what this
cleanse by wielding her Service role entails on a transient basis.
Weapon against the haunted Two temporalities exist in a state
workers of the Bureau in order to of constant tension during our
reestablish the chain of command passage through Control: What
through action-play. Partaking in the House once was and what we
those ephemeral acts of violence make it become by cutting through
is the only way for us to move its environment with our Service
forward, every push serving as a Weapon. Moving and mirroring

each of our advances and retreats restrictive visual kingdom. There’s them—to record the temporary the program just as much as it’s a
is a frame that could only belong also a trap there—that in following and make it permanent, to take construct, arranged with an intent
to a corpse. It’s not that the House the clues of the powerline we the parasitic and, in another of new order in mind to exceed the
is lifeless—nothing ever really dies may end up at the same place way, turn it sacred. Scattered grasp of codified playing regimes
like that in Control—but rather whence we came. Deep in one of throughout this issue is a series and put ourselves in front of
that its exterior is impossible the Bureau’s most closely guarded of collages aiming to rebuild a spaces that sometimes refuse to
to envision because we’d make sectors we find a near life-sized different House. One that would be seen. An escape from Control is
little sense inside it anyway. recreation of Jesse’s hometown acknowledge itself against us. necessary in order to fully grapple
Control ends where it begins: of Ordinary, trapped under Flows of times produced by the with its inside forces - in other
with recognition in the eyes of lifeless floodlights for all to see actionable metamorphoses of words we need to dig further down
a gun as the main framework of and analyze. Like so many other Control now find themselves to finally emerge out of the House. Elikia Mongo-
understanding in this powerless places in the Oldest House, it’s a fixed within a sole horizon: each If we’re to ever go beyond simply Mboussa is a writer
universe. The Service Weapon zone of concepts – impossible to shot is the result of carefully un- “looking” at games then we must and photographer
that Jesse wields makes her the imagine in any other form than the choreographed swings, where the seek different means to power— whose work centers
de-facto Director, not just of the one given by the game. Jesse was gaze of the camera acts as a pause not simply tracking the play but on the intersection
building as a bureaucratic entity always meant to be there, beyond for the occult, the missing link also acting for and against it to of landscape,
but also of the game as a whole. the placeholder—somewhere between the gunfights, and the better relocate ourselves in virtual hauntings and black
What developer Remedy proposes, along the cosmogony of Remedy. hypertext conveyed in the seams spaces. bodies. They're the
then, is not so much liberation But what of us here? If the gun and margins of those exchanges. creator of [Ghost/
as it is just another route to is the place then our location is By exploring the hereafter of these Concrete Dysphorias is a hunt for Diaphragms], a
normalization—the alienation at the mouth of its barrel and unfinished, destructive moments, this body whole. project on play and
of otherness the Oldest House only through it can we reach into the gesture of image-taking/ gaze through the
represents becoming a concrete the depths of Control's synaptic image-making offers a chance EMM wandering lens of
aesthetic for the player to inscribe incarnations. Only during those to turn acts of suppression into digital photography.
into. passages am I truly grasping what new seeds. Polygons crash out of
it means to have a body inside this their initial shapes, bodies flung
In this sense, photography feels videogame—and how to destroy in time encounter glitched pocket-
like a self-defeating notion to those around me. dimensions under the eye of the
even consider. Nothing more will camera. Every movement captured
be added or stripped from the Capturing these moments as a therein is true in the sense of
experience within the House’s photograph means to distort being faithful to an existing part of
5
BLOOMING, Control
(Elikia Mongo-Mboussa).
Defund
the
SimCity
Police
history SimCity Series | Alexander King

D
oes a utopia need over time, the role of the police unchanged for over three decades. urban theory, Urban Dynamics
police? SimCity offers within the game has been less And this is true even of its many seeks to reduce the city to a set
a power fantasy of scrutinized. In SimCity, the police competitors and imitators. While of interconnected variables that
control, allowing the are an indispensable utility, like I’ll draw from the series midpoint influence one another over time. So let’s take
player to dictate the shape and electricity or water. As real urban SimCity 4 (2003) for many The assumptions and politics a look at
form of their own ideal city. But communities strive to rethink the examples below, it’s as a stand-in of both works can be found
even in this idealized form, the role of police in our society, is it for the entire genre. throughout SimCity’s systems.
how crime
urban communities SimCity possible to defund the police in happens in
produces are constrained by SimCity? At its release, SimCity Curiously however, crime and utopia.
a power greater than even the embodied new theories of urban policing are largely absent from
player: the biases of the people While there are many SimCity development that Wright had both these influences. The
who made it. Because policing games, their similarities allow encountered while in college, with placement of police stations
too is about power, and SimCity them to be assessed as a single two works being of particular is not included among the 253
reinforces pervasive and toxic body of work. The first iteration influence. The (aspirationally) patterns described within A
ideas about crime and justice. was released in 1989 by the universal principles of A Pattern Pattern Language. And in Urban
game designer Will Wright, and Language: Towns, Buildings, Dynamics, police are included
The politics of SimCity have established the core systems of Construction (1977) by the only in an aggregated variable
been scrutinized since its initial neighborhood zoning and passive architects Christopher Alexander, along with other disparate city
release. It’s core ideology maps (and absolute) mayoral control. Sara Ishikawa and Murray services, including transportation,
to the Californian neoliberal Though increasingly less involved Silverstein provided methods fire prevention, and schooling.
consensus, which as Andy Beckett with each sequel, Wright’s initial of planning urban communities While the systematizing of police
observed in a critique for the interests and vision continue by using interlocking systemic for SimCity gameplay follows
London Independent back in 1996, to cast a long shadow over elements. Of even greater the general methods established
steers the player to particular not only the series itself, but influence was Urban Dynamics in both works, the particular
ends: “Give your city low taxes, all city builders. The sequels (1969) by Jay W. Forrester. implementation thereof appears
keep property values high, and have changed the perspective Forrester was an electrical to be original to Wright, not taken
spend lots on police and soldiers from top-down to isometric to engineer with a background in from an earlier work.
but not on welfare, and it will three-dimensional, embellished industrial supply management,
prosper.” While the series’ tax existing systems, and added new and a founding father of the So let’s take a look at how crime
policies and zoning have been complications, but the gameplay field of systems dynamics. While happens in utopia. The system
criticized the most frequently foundations have remained Forrester had no background in for crime in SimCity is simple.
Previous page: SimCity: Enhanced

Edition (Alexander King).

A “Crime Rate” is generated aren’t even driven by passion or
for every cell of land, which is need. Even with every want and
produced exogenously by all desire satisfied, human beings in
people. This metric represents SimCity are impelled to commit
all crimes, both minor (pie criminal acts.
throwing) and major (murder).
The specific calculation varies Not all people produce crime at
per game, evolving from a simple the same rate, however. Education
function of land value minus tempers the crime rate, and the
density in the original, to more more educated a neighborhood is
elaborate versions that takes (called the Educational Quotient
into account the zoning type and or EQ in game) then the less
specific buildings. But throughout, crime it will produce. Class
the denser the area then the too exists in Wright’s utopia,
more crime is produced. Left and is an important factor in
unattended, crime will radiate the production of crime. Both
from all population centers, like the Crime Rate and “EQ” are
a residential analog of industrial modified by class. Wealthier
smog. The Official SimCity 3000 citizens produce less crime, the
guidebook even refers to it, poor more. And education is less
ominously, as “people pollution.” effective on poor citizens: while
it reduces all crime, it reduces
I’m struck by what a dim it most among the wealthy. The
view of humanity this system production of crime cannot be
represents. That the natural state eliminated entirely, no matter how
of communities is the incessant much education is provided.
production of “Crime”. It’s
barbarism below even that of Citizens (or “Sims”) are assigned
Thomas Hobbes’ “war of every to one of three classes: low,
man against every man” state medium, or high wealth. This
of nature, because these crimes assignment is the input for myriad
Right: SimCity: Enhanced Edition

(Alexander King).

Education is
less effective
on poor
citizens: while
it reduces
all crime, it
reduces it
most among
the wealthy.
Right: SimCity 4:
(Alexander King).

Class in
SimCity is a
permanent
condition.
There is no
class mobility.
Right: SimCity 4:
(Alexander King).

other systems. It will determine live in worker housing, and a
the aesthetics of where they live “professional-managerial” class
for example, with poorer Sims that live in premium housing.
living in tenements and shabby
rowhouses, and wealthy Sims SimCity has been criticized for
having glittering condos and entirely excising race from its
mansions. It will also determine simulation. It’s a large omission,
where they work. Poor Sims will since it has historically been one of
work only in the lowest value the most influential characteristics
commercial sectors and most to the organization of every
polluting heavy industry. American city. But perhaps race
does exist in utopia after all,
Startlingly, class in SimCity is a smuggled in via class? Because
permanent condition. There is while race doesn’t exist in Urban
no class mobility. Sims arrive or Dynamics’ model either, in the few
are born as wealthy or not, and asides where Forrester mentions
will never become any more or race and ethnicity, and Black
less prosperous. It might seem people specifically, it is always
strange to make economic class discussed interchangeably with
an immutable characteristic, but the “underemployed” lowest
we can see the same structure in income group. Class being an
Urban Dynamics, from where it unchangeable characteristic,
is ultimately derived. Forrester’s inherited, and determining where
urban model also has a three- you live and work makes slightly
tier structure for class, and it more sense if it is understood as
is fundamental to the entire a proxy for race. SimCity inherits,
system. Forrester’s names are probably thoughtlessly, this
more descriptive than SimCity’s ambiguity from Urban Dynamics.
though, with the classes being
“underemployed”, who live Class, if that’s what it is, heavily
in slums, “skilled labor” that influences the crime system in
Right: SimCity 4 (Alexander King).

SimCity. Poorer Sims generate brutally draconian eventualities master. Reportedly, during his something connected to the actual
more crime, and education of these systems. If in SimCity first term as New York City mayor, citizens of your city.
benefits them the least in its crime is human pollution, it has Rudy Giuliani watched his then
If in SimCity reduction. Crime is a negative a simple disinfectant: police seven-year-old son Andrew playing This language, the requests for
crime is factor on neighborhood stations. A police station reduces SimCity 2000 (1993) by placing ever more funding and resources,
desirability, but more so for all crime being produced by a fixed police stations on every block, delivered with an attendant
human wealthier Sims. The poor are magnitude around its location. attempting to utterly eradicate threat of violence, is perhaps the
pollution, it more tolerant of living amid Provided their budget is met of crime with a hamfisted directness most realistic aspect of SimCity’s
has a simple crime. course, as underfunded stations even a real mayor could admire. depiction of police. The game
reduce crime less and in a smaller repeats the same “thin blue line”
disinfectant: All of these facts conspire to radius. If the player has insufficient police rhetoric real police employ. Namely,
police stations. encourage eliminating “poor” stations, the game’s advisors and that the police are all that stands
Sims from the city entirely. The simple interaction between a information displays will send ever between civilized society and a
Because they live in less naturally criminal population and more dire warnings. Likely the most descent into violent (and racially-
valuable buildings, contribute the crime-eliminating effects of bombastic iteration of these is from charged) barbarism. In SimCity,
less tax revenue, and produce the police creates a simple system SimCity Enhanced CD-ROM (1994), a lack of police does not cause a
more “people exhaust”, the that the player must balance. More which added FMV cutscenes of the devolution into anarchy, at least
game incentivizes attracting population leads to more crime, advisors to punctuate gameplay. not directly. Crime is simply a
and keeping middle and high which the player must attenuate The police chief, portrayed by negative influence that can impede
wealth Sims. So in this utopia, with further police stations. Police veteran character actor Milt Kogan, immigration and cause existing
there are no poor people, stations take up physical space issues increasingly threatening residents to become unhappy.
but not because of economic and require an ongoing cost to warnings if underfunded. While this unhappiness can lead to
equality. After the release of maintain, so the player must strive Eventually, he’ll appear with a disaster, which I’ll discuss shortly,
the 5th game in 2013, artist and to have an efficient distribution grenade launcher(!) in hand, and it does so only as a second order
scholar Matteo Bittanti collected of police stations throughout after chastising the player, says he effect. The collapse into criminal
and transcribed thousands of their city. Because it is one of the will have to fight “the crime” bare- pandemonium that is threatened
forum messages from players smallest feedback loops of the handed himself. The disembodying never actually appears.
discussing how best to eliminate game’s many systems, managing and dehumanizing language of
the ‘plague’ of homeless people. crime by placing police stations fighting “the crime” stands out to The way SimCity models crime
The resulting work, “How to Get is one of the first aspects of city me, as it emphasizes its role as a and police that I’ve described so
Rid of Homeless”, lays bare the management new players will simple dimensionless variable, not far may not strike you as especially

The collapse
into criminal
pandemonium
that is
threatened
never actually
appears.
Right: SimCity 4:
(Alexander King).

Right: SimCity 4:
(Alexander King).

problematic. All models, including out in The Utopia of Rules, movies
simulation games, depend on and shows with the police as
abstractions of reality in order heroes were rare before the 1960s,
The to function. The issue I see with but common thereafter). These
overwhelming SimCity’s modeling of crime is narratives distort our idea of what
not that it is an abstraction, as the police actually spend time
majority of the if with more detail and nuance doing. Alex Vitale, a sociologist
police’s time it’d perhaps be sufficient. No, and author of the End of Policing
is not spent the problem is that the very core (2017), explained in an interview,
assumption is wrong. “We’ve all grown up on television
on major shows in which the police are
crimes, but SimCity encodes pervasive biases superheroes. They solve every
community about where crime comes from problem; they catch the bad guys;
(all people, but especially the they chase the bank robbers; they
policing. poor) and how it is eliminated find the serial killers. But this is
(exclusively the police). Class all a big myth. This is not what
becomes the primary pivot to police actually do. They’re not out
make this assumption work, chasing bank robbers or serial
because how else can it be killers. The vast majority of police
explained that wealthy areas have officers make one felony arrest a
fewer police but are safer than year.”
poor areas? In reality however,
“crime” is socially defined, it is not The overwhelming majority of the
a fact of nature. “crime” occurs police’s time is not spent on major
where the police are deployed in crimes, but community policing:
order to witness it. Being present in communities of
color in order to enforce minor
Many people’s conception of the infractions. This compounds
police is drawn from popular over time, and interactions with
media that valorizes the police (as the police are likely to lead to
the author David Graeber points further interactions. Explaining

this phenomenon in The New Jim can be effectively reduced. Left of the summer of 2020 over the past couple decades, where
Crow (2017) Michelle Alexander unmanaged, the resulting crime George Floyd’s murder by four police acquire and deploy military
relates how in cities like Chicago, rate will increase unhappiness, police officers, police around the grade equipment completely
an “astonishing 80 percent of leading to protests and eventually country and world responded unnecessary for regular policing, What’s
the adult black male workforce” riots. brutally to peaceful protests, becomes less of an aberration in required is
have felony records. The model employing abusive violence to that light.
is exactly backwards, in that the Riots are a ‘natural disaster’ in citizens and journalists. A nearly
a systemic
police are actually the source of SimCity. When a fire breaks out, 100 page report by the Humans As police historian Kristian understanding
crime, rather than its antithesis. fire trucks must be dispatched Rights Watch advocacy group, Williams notes in in Our of police
to the location to extinguish “Kettling” Protesters in the Bronx: Enemies in Blue: Police and
Real crime reduction is effected them before they spread. Police, Systemic Police Brutality and Its Power in America (2015), “we
brutality.
by meeting community needs. But similarly and utilizing the same Costs in the United States (2020), are encouraged to think of facts
over the past fifty years, police user interface, are dispatched to detailed the premediated nature of police violence more or less
departments in the US have largely quell riots. “If your Sims get uppity of this violence response. Abuse in isolation, to consider them as
replaced urban social services, and start a riot,” the SimCity 4 of protesters is not a mistake or unique, unrelated occurrences.
and now represent the largest manual casually informs us, “you result of poor training, but the We ask ourselves always, ‘What
budgetary expense for most cities. need to be sure that you have outcome specifically prepared for. went wrong?’… Perhaps this leads
It’s this redistribution of money enough squad cars available for us to fault the individual officer,
to actual public services that the dispatch to quell the melee.” Riots But police involvement in riot perhaps it leads us to excuse
movement to defund the police is in SimCity can only ever be caused control is relatively recent in him. Such thinking… does not
all about. Due to their entrenched by poor governance on the part our history. Previously that take us far beyond the case in
nature and capability for violence, of the player, driven by extreme was a responsibility of the question. And thus, such inquiries
defunding the police is a struggle mismanagement of the game’s military, especially the National are rarely very illuminating.”
even when widely supported by a systems. So the deployment of Guard. But militaries are clear What’s required is a systemic
city’s inhabitants. police to stop these riots allows representatives of the states understanding of police brutality.
for overruling the wishes of their they defend, and thus have Although no game is more
But in SimCity, the player is able citizenry to continue playing. strict rules governing how they equipped than SimCity to educate
to defund the police as effortlessly operate. Police have largely taken a player about systemic issues
as moving a budgetary slider. The use of police to put down over this role, in part, because in urban theory, in this area it is
However, as I mentioned, police civil unrest is distressingly they are unaccountable. The critically insufficient.
are the sole manner in which crime realistic. During the protests ‘militarization’ of the police over

Am I being unfair in this close Maxis are not above criticism, but
reading of SimCity? A common should rather invite it.
dismissal of criticism like this
“It’s just the is often to assert that it’s “just This is outlined in a famous
way the game a game”. But that would be at essay Seductions of Sim: Policy
odds with how these games have as a Simulation Game by Paul
works.” been positioned by their own Starr, a senior advisor during the
messaging. Will Wright himself Clinton presidency. In the piece,
says, on an interview included he recounts watching his daughter
in the special edition of SimCity play and complaining to her about
2000 that “we want to build a the game’s (infamous) bias against
world inside the computer that's mixed use development. Her reply,
so lifelike that after a few minutes “It’s just the way the game works,”
the user stops thinking of this as a sounded all too familiar, echoing
computer game, they start thinking the way in which governments
of it as a little microcosm inside tailor plans to budgetary models.
their computer…” And, in fact, Simulations can be pernicious
games in the series have been used in advancing their “hidden
widely in education, in part due to curriculum” in this way. It was for
how closely they resemble actual that reason the computer scientist
urban planning software. A recent Alan Kay objected to SimCity’s
academic study in the 2010 Journal inclusion in the One Laptop Per
of Adolescence had children play Child project, writing that his
the game and answer questions problem “has always been the
about urban planning. Alarmingly rigidity, and sometimes stupidity,
(to me), the “results showed that of its assumptions (counter crime
students in the experimental with more police stations) and
group changed their expectations the opaqueness of its mechanism
of an ideal city to resemble the (children can’t find out what its
game.” By seeking to realistically actual assumptions are, see what
depict urban life, the designers at they look like, or change them to

Right: SimCity
3000, SimCity 2000:
(Alexander King).

We must
defund
the police,
both in our
idealized
utopias and
here in real
life.
Right: SimCity 4,
SimCity Enhanced
Edition: (Alexander
King).

try other systems dynamics). So I The authors don’t encourage Virtually all city builders utilize necessary step towards dismantling
have used SimCity as an example interrogating the assumptions these same systems I’ve described the injustices of the modern police
of an anti-ed environment despite and biases of the game at all, and here. Even when the period system. The police are not a public
all the awards it has won.” instead present it as a neutral depicted is historical or fantastical, utility.
toy that can be used to better police are present as “prefects” or
These worries are not hypothetical. understand city governance. “city watch”. As police historian Utopia does not need police, so we
For instance, a 2001 paper from Kristian Williams notes, people require better utopias than SimCity.
the University of Michigan on SimCity and most all city builders tend to “imagine that the cop has Maybe a hint of that can be seen in
using SimCity in education portray police as a core public always been there, in something a different attempt at modeling the
recommends using the game to service that cities cannot function like his present capacity, subject ideal city, Plato’s Republic. At the
set up ‘experimental’ models for without. This inaccuracy is not only to the periodic change beginning of the dialogue, framing Alexander King is
students to run and compare. The an oversight, but part of a wider of uniform or the occasional the utopian thought experiment to a Brooklyn-based
example it gives is of loading the cultural valorizing of police as technological advance.” Writer and follow, Socrates asks where justice game designer
pre-made “Detroit, 1972” scenario fighting “crime”, and reinforces a activist Vicky Osterweil relates how can be found in the ideal city. His whose work
included in the original game, and systemic understanding of criminal this “dehistoricization” of police is interlocutor tells us it can be found centers on data-
using it to set up experimental justice that prioritizes police a “long and constant project” of the only in “some need that those driven design
conditions (like having no police deployment in poor communities. American state and media. very citizens have of one another.” and simulation.
stations) so students can “try out The imposition of surveillance, He works
different approaches to solving this Ultimately, I think SimCity’s The ultimate result of this harassment, and incarceration will professionally
troubled city’s crime problem.” By criminal systems deserve careful mythologizing is to make the never produce justice. It can only as a systems
comparing the results of letting the examination not because they are presence of police unquestionable. come from mutual support, public designer, and
simulation play out under different necessarily the source for incorrect Under the strict rules SimCity and services, and equitable welfare. To teaches classes in
conditions, “students could beliefs about policing, but because the like have been programmed work towards that achievement, we game design and
compare strategies of lowering it is an authoritative reflection of with, defunding the police makes as must defund the police, both in our development as an
taxes, increasing police protection, them. The core assumptions of who much sense as defunding water or idealized utopias and here, in real adjunct professor.
and urban renewal, to see which “produces” crime and how police power. If we’re unable to imagine life.
approach leads to a healthier city are necessary to stop it are part of utopia without police, then we
over a longer time period.” The fact the pervasive, idealized view of the can’t imagine alternatives in reality AK
that only one of these strategies role police serve, what Vitale calls either. Questioning the logic of this
(increasing police presence) will the “mythic understanding” of the rhetoric, or even merely pointing
actually work is left unmentioned. role of police. out that it is rhetoric at all, is a

BRUTALIA, Control
CONCRETE SEA, Control
Ever Forward
photo feature Battlefield 2042 | Gareth Damian Martin

I
n 2021 and 2022 two logistical power. There are 5,500 yard, a Chinese container port, for eager players. In Battlefield
container ships, the container ships active globally, and a storm-wracked satellite 1 and Battlefield V, the two
EverForward and the with a combined ability to ship 25 launch-site, imply a world fighting previous entries in the series,
EverGiven, both operated million containers or two billion over infrastructure, not national this fetishization was focused on The image
by the Taiwan-based shipping tons. This entire world-spanning territory or citizens. Battlefield the emergent technologies of the of a vast
company Evergreen Marine Corp, machine is an engine that drives 2042's war is one where refugee first and second World Wars, and
became beached. These two vast 90% of trade, a vast oceangoing mercenaries fight to control their impressive power. In the
piece of
vessels, the first of which blocked construction that rumbles on with shipping ports, to secure the intro to Battlefield V the narrator inhuman
the entire Suez canal, were the terrifying constancy. So while global supply chain, not to forward states with clear nostalgia: “this machinery,
subject of fascination, mockery, the specific image of a grounded the territorial ambitions of a war would prove, that from ocean-
and joy. The image of a vast piece container ship may evoke mockery superpower. War, in this frame bed to mountain-top, the greatest
comically
of inhuman machinery, comically and comedy, this is only because is logistical, it is an extension of killing machine is man”. Battlefield stranded,
stranded, resonated with a mood a functioning container ship is global trade, functional and absent 2042 expands on the “machine” resonated
of apocalyptic glee, itself a reaction a symbol of raw power and the of civilians. aspect of that claim, basking in
to the COVID-19 pandemic and the global ambitions of humanity. the grandeur of man as a machine with a
increasingly unavoidable presence This idea of a deeply cynical, that might kill the very planet that mood of
of climate change. It fueled Battlefield 2042 feels acutely aware nation-less, infrastructural war birthed him. This shifted focus apocalyptic
countless jokes about the irony of of this. A near future installment might be a heavy-handed but means the fetishization extends
these ships, their names, and the of the long-running multiplayer timely social commentary if it to the impressive power and glee.
pure banality of a stranded ship series, it sets itself within a wasn't for the perverse ways it spectacle of global infrastructure,
affecting the entire global supply speculative world where man- is deployed. After all this is an and its role in the killing of the
chain. made climate change has created online shooter that focuses on earth itself. In a game ostensibly
a new world order in which proxy absurd stunts, rattling gunfire, about climate change, this makes
Yet, while this event seemed like a wars are fought by superpowers and very little narrative beyond for a bizarre, cognitively dissonant
rare case of the spotlight of public through a group known as the the ebb and flow of a 64 player effect.
discourse being turned to the vast “no-pats”, a euphemism for a skirmish. Previous entries in the
machinery of infrastructure that displaced refugee army of multiple series are fetishizations of military In one of the TV adverts for
props up our societies, it also felt nationalities and ethnicities. Its technology par excellence, their Battlefield 2042, a man stands up
connected to a wider attentiveness climate-change focused maps, tanks, jets, and assault rifles cast from playing the game, turning
to the aesthetics of global shipping which include a sand-clogged in a car-advert sheen that makes to a plate glass window which
and representations of its sheer Dubai, an Indian ship-breaking them desirable rewards to earn shows the city of Dubai under
Previous and following pages: Battlefield

2042 (Gareth Damian Martin).

siege. “What a time to be alive” photographer Edward Burtynsky.
he states, his eyes glittering with Burtynsky, whose photographs
the warm light of firey explosions. of ship-breaking in Chittagong,
The rest of the advert returns to the Three Gorges Dam project in
this statement, showing soldiers China, and quarries, mines, and
dying and respawning in constant other vast-scale infrastructural
combat, each eagerly intoning projects are intended to invoke
“What a time to be alive”. Given the horrifying scale of human
the themes of the game, its post- environmental destruction, has
climate-change setting, this advert become a popular reference in
feels wildly cynical and perverse, contemporary speculative fiction.
turning a statement that might His ship-breaking photographs in
mean abject fear or anxiety at particular, with their abstracted
the state of a world wracked by sections of ship, rusting in oil-
climate change, war, and ringed stained sand, were reproduced
by an inhuman infrastructural in Blade Runner 2049. The same
machine of vast proportions, and aesthetic appears in Battlefield
turns it into a battle cry of YOLO 2042's “Discarded” map, a ship-
optimism. breaking yard scattered with the
sculptural remains of rusted ships.
The same dissonance is reflected But other maps too capture the
in the spatial aesthetics of vast scale and subdued lighting of
Battlefield 2042's maps. Leaping Burtynsky's shots.
on the zeitgeist by setting its
endless war in a post climate- The problem with Burtynsky's
change future, developer DICE work is that it doesn't just evoke
do the same with the games terror at the scale of humanity's
aesthetic, liberally borrowing from impact on its environment. It
contemporary visual imagery also evokes a sense of awe at the
associated with climate change strange beauty and draw of these
and in particular the work of images, their sheen of grit and

pristine lighting. This is exactly when the desert takes Dubai,
what Battlefield 2042 builds upon. turning its streets into floods of
sand. The hundred-year storms
In Battlefield 2042 we are supposed we will witness will be objects of
to be in a state of awe at the scale awe and beauty. What a time to be
of everything. The oil fires, the alive. What a moment to witness
explosions, the number of players, the scale of it all, to stand at our
the firefights, the tanks dropping plate glass windows, and watch
from the sky. What a time to be the world burn.
alive, we say. We are in awe too of
the vast container ships, and the Perhaps Battlefield 2042's
towering cranes that load them, apocalyptic glee is appropriate in
the whole incredible machine that its perversity. After all, what is
lies behind everything we buy or more perverse than witnessing
consume. What a time to be alive. in real time the grinding gears of
The storms too, their whirling global commerce that eat the very
tornadoes and vast waves of sand, ground away beneath our feet? It
the fast moving flood-waters, feels no longer clear that there will
the lighting strikes and towers of be another time to be alive, that
whorled cloud. What a time to be any other time but this one will
alive. If there was any inherent come. Better to make the most of
resistance within Burtynsky's it.
images, if there was any potential
in them to affect the flow of goods GDM
and capital towards environmental
destruction, Battlefield 2042
extinguishes it for good. It turns
out the end of the world will
look fucking cool, it will brim
with gunmetal glints in sunset
estuaries. It will be impressive

LABYRINTH, Control
LINES, Control
This
War of
Mine
materiality Ghost Recon: Breakpoint | Spencer Yan

S
omething is amiss on the sense of dispossession, especially premise of the game–a dream effect, governed solely by the mute
island of Auroa. Across for a project of its size. Doomed of transcendence, doomed from mechanical pleasure of martial
the fields and forests on arrival by an overwhelmingly the start by the very legacies and logic; and the fleshly animal bodies
stretch the appendages of negative initial reception, and apparatus which enabled that and passions which conjured it “WE ARE
strange instruments, whispering plagued by a litany of mind- dream at all. It is tempting to look into existence, and decorate its SUMMONING
amongst one another. The bogglingly weird design decisions at it and lament what could have sunken shores.
skies are abuzz with the thin that seem outright contradictory been, what should have been, or,
THE DEVIL”
hum of passing drones. There when taken holistically, it is a work perhaps most realistically, what One arrives on Auroa by way of
is something on the wind, just which seems fundamentally at war might have been—a flagship open- what can only be described as
below the rush of the leaves in with itself, trapped between dual world tactical shooter for consoles, ‘catastrophic tactical clusterfuck’.
the trees: a vague, impenetrable fictions and legacies: on one hand, perhaps, or a uniquely survival- Deployed to the archipelago as
din, reverberating and tumbling the AAA, multi-million-dollar, focused milsim title poised against part of a 32-person clandestine
through the fjords and tundras Clancy-of-franchise-bestsellers the tactical hyper-competence of mission to (notionally) investigate
and marshes, the sound of banner which lends it its namesake its genre; or at the very least, the the sinking of an American cargo
something gone wrong, of a and affords it its scale of both world’s greatest off-brand Splinter ship off its coast, the player is
process correcting itself. All vision and execution, but which it Cell LARPing opportunity. But (re-)introduced to Ghost Recon’s
across the land, signs and never seems to be quite willing to what it is now, I believe, is in fact latest poster soldier “Nomad”,
premonitions have begun to pop aspire towards, let alone embrace the most honest and interesting reprising their role from 2017’s
up, scrawled across walls and odd with the kind of reverent zeal version of it: a muddy, strange Wildlands as nonchalant DoD-
monuments of mechanical rubble: all works on such a scale both work, hopelessly incomplete sponsored hitman and one-
“WE ARE SUMMONING THE demand, and command; and on and sunken by the weight of its man state-destabiliser. Things
DEVIL”. the other, its far weirder, Clancy- own ambitions. And yet, it is in invariably, immediately ‘go
as-doomsday-preacher sprawl of this very incompleteness that I south’, in a manner of speaking:
Ghost Recon: Breakpoint is a Cold War geo-anxiety and martial believe it indirectly achieves the the entire platoon is instantly
strange, strange game. To call nihilism, towards which it reaches most competent articulation of ambushed upon arrival by a
it “haunted” might feel like a and occasionally even brushes the cycle of triumphant despair swarm of insect-like microdrones,
now-trite, over-applied critical against, but which it is condemned fundamentally underlying swiftly reducing the total
cliché, but I struggle to think by its very scale to never reach. the appeal behind games of functional personnel count of
of any other words that more its nature—the dream of the the mission to a single limping,
succinctly and immediately This tension, however willingly or mythical eternal battlefield, utterly lumbering, pathetically under-
capture its uniquely intense consciously, underlies the entire untethered from human cause or equipped Nomad.
Previous Page: Ghost Recon: Breakpoint,

(Spencer Yan).

Right: Ghost
Recon: Breakpoint,
(Spencer Yan).

Right: Ghost
Recon: Breakpoint,
(Spencer Yan).

Right: Ghost
Recon: Breakpoint,
(Spencer Yan).

In a remarkably strange but bold moss-covered derelicts of Cold
design decision, especially for War bunkers and observation
a large-budget open-world title, posts, relics of the island’s
The player Auroa is introduced to us not as a history as an extended landing
slogs through, grand and welcoming environment strip for American forces against
to explore but as a muddy, bloody Japanese and Soviet interests
and literally place, a dim and claustrophobic in WWII. One can come across
buries bog with few roads or meaningful entire homesteads and military
themselves, in markers. The first hour of the bases which have been pulled
game is almost entirely contained into the black mud, along with
foul mud and within these unflattering environs, many, many kinds of wreckages:
tepid water. as the player slogs through, and vehicles, aerials, downed military
literally buries themselves, in foul aircraft, satellite installations,
mud and tepid water in order to ancient burial sites, fresh corpses.
both hunt and evade enemy forces. One of these provinces carries
This is abandoned land, in both a particularly apt name: Sinking
composition and history: a place Country.
where the earth is fighting a losing
war of attrition against the sea, This tension—between the
which has risen and pulled away inevitability of natural forces and
with it entire chunks of what was the greater ambitions of human
once fertile country, rendering the ones—underlies the entire realised
coast into a cluster of loose mud geography of Auroa. Unlike the
patches and gullies. We’ll later fictionalised Bolivia of 2017’s
learn that these salt marshes and Wildlands, whose vast, open
swamps serve as something of a sightlines and sweeping vistas
temporary home to one portion of invite a feeling of exploration and
the island’s security forces—the even adventure, Auroa seems to be
aptly-named international private a place almost anathema to human
military contractor Sentinel Corp navigation. Dense mountain ranges
—who huddle in the crumbling, and forests render both on-foot
Right: Ghost Recon: Breakpoint,

(Spencer Yan).

and vehicular traversal a tedious well. Nomad, who in Wildlands as an unfortunate concession to ruins of an old Spanish fort,
and often frustrating exercise was a superhumanly spry and player complaints, many of which which only a handful of centuries
in geometric exploitation. The hardy omni-athlete who could attempted to counter that a game earlier housed their spiritual
The dream clarity of vistas become easily effortlessly bound up and over about a “tactical experience” predecessors in the form of the
of new land, lost in directionless underbrush and down cliffs and mountain should not feature “clunky” or conquistadorial expeditionary
and overhead coverage. Roads ranges and jungles and valleys “sluggish” or “unresponsive” forces, driven to the outer rims of
of gold, of are swallowed up by weeds with ease, is now a defined movement mechanics that the island by indigenous resistance
wealth, of and waterways, and major physical presence in the world: “actively hinder the player movements and impenetrable
dominance, motorways—of which there are grunting and panting with effort, experience”. But this is, in fact, jungle.
two conspicuously well-paved and easily fatigued, weighed down the very fundamental friction that
of liberation, -maintained ones, which naturally with a human inertia and sense always underlies every logistical Along the western cliffs, mineral
always link only the most major industrial of balance that even causes them and tactical decision that prevents extraction facilities and aquaponic
meeting the and commercial provinces– to trip at times. A quietly radical even the best-laid plans from start-ups sit a stone’s throw away
are filled with hostile security innovation in the long-standing, consistently being executed at from 19th-century gold mines and
same end. checkpoints and enemy patrols. ongoing video game tradition 100% efficiency: that we are not fishing hamlets, whose shores
And in a somewhat-controversial of attempting to “accurately” well-oiled machines, but fragile, are still dotted with the skeletal
change of pace, road-based GPS represent the “authentic” flimsy, physical human bodies, remains of clubbed seals and
navigation—a feature in Wildlands, “tactical” experience, finally constrained by fragile, flimsy, beached whales. Deep within the
itself a bit of a strange concession capturing in full glory the oft- physical human limitations and caves, amongst phosphorescent
since much of that game overlooked yet frighteningly needs and desires. To fail to blooms and sulphur deposits, sit
consisted of flying down similarly- common danger of catching account for this element is, at best, carved effigies of animal gods,
unmarked back-country dirt one’s toe on a loose stone or in to delude oneself with a fantasy of whose names and meanings have
roads on motorbikes—has been a deceptively deep puddle and performance, divorced from the long since been lost to time, but
completely removed, forcing the tumbling magnificently, head necessary inefficiency of animal whose presences still seem to
player to navigate solely through a over ass in full battle rattle, down bodies. linger across the island with a
combination of landmarks and an ravines and sand bluffs and even ghostly animistic hue. There is
abstract topographic map. flights of stairs. Elsewhere on Auroa, QRF units a sense of profound tragedy at
piss away their afternoons work here, an unspoken, unseen
This intentional disruption of These features were later performing a litany of mind- violence which can only outdo,
clarity is carried over into the significantly toned down through numbing “inspections” and never undo itself: the dream of
game’s mechanical approach as a series of launch-week updates “observations” from the decaying new land, of gold, of wealth, of

dominance, of liberation, always The grand project of “AI research” half-realised animals. A number of one lingers for long enough in their
meeting the same end. that lies at the heart of the them, as one can learn from R&D presence, they will encounter a
game’s plot—much of it involving documents, have been repurposed startling phenomenon: a rumbling
Although the present residents ambiguously-designated “testing and redesigned from civilian begins deep within the ground, Incubus,
of the island are concentrated in zones” and “restricted areas” and counterparts as autonomous which rapidly crescendos into a Aamon,
the sun-soaked and temperate “proving grounds”—takes place pollinators and search-and-rescue roaring buzz as the sleek profiles
meadowlands of the south, where in the depths of dim rainforests vehicles and delivery systems. of the monuments suddenly
Azrael,
flights from Australia conveniently and rolling valleys cordoned off by We learn their new names, given erupt and flare like gills, releasing Stolas,
do not pass over the less ocean or monolithic security gates to them during the refactoring a massive swarm of insect-like Malphas,
presentable regions of the island, respectively, far away from human process to signify their new drones into the sky.
the itinerant, utilitarian traces infrastructure and insulated purposes: Incubus, Aamon, Azrael,
Legion.
of their day-to-day existences from overhead observation by Stolas, Malphas, Legion. These Nomad will later learn that these
can be encountered all across dense foliage. There are only a are the names of mythological swarms are the same ones that
the map, in nearly every environ, handful of major inhabitations demons, used both in the process are responsible for taking out not
in the form of striking modular that exist in the game, the largest of evocation, and to spread fear just the Blackhawks the Ghosts
buildings, conspicuously-clean being, apropos to the naïve amongst those one turns them arrived in at the start of the game,
and almost alien in their settings. techno-libertarian bent of the against. Traditionally, a demon, but all unknown entities and
The game’s asset re-use works to Skell corporation whose major by its nature, is constrained by vehicles discovered attempting
great advantage here: there is little enterprises now dominate the the will—and conscience—of its to both enter and exit the island.
to differentiate a bedroom from island, the crudely-named “Liberty master; but the more frequently There is a strong implication by
a laboratory from an observation City” in the south. The others are they are conjured, or the dirtier the end of Breakpoint that—in
post, save the arrangement of the all false facades, whose high-rises the deed in which they are to part due to Nomad’s very efforts
minimum furnishings contained and storefronts are mere mock- assist, the more porous the to “liberate” the island and return
within. These are not meant to ups, used to train autonomous line between summoner and it to American control—this
be permanent habitations, but drones in preparation for the summoned grows. quarantine has evolved beyond
temporary installations, designed imminent age of urban warfighting. the scope of human sanction.
in a lab and assembled on the Drones wander the countryside Above the snow-swept tundras and With the AI master controller
go to accommodate the animal and drift through canyon passes, lush meadowlands rise strange, responsible for enforcing it—
inconveniences of the supply chain their harsh red eyes glimmering angular towers, like gun barrels originally having been created to
at its weakest and most inefficient in the darkness as they rumble aimed towards the skies. Their autonomously oversee, coordinate,
points. and buzz and thunder along like purpose initially is unclear, but if and improve the operational

efficiency of its many subsystems, strand of animistic ambience
whose sheer breadth of activities which runs through the quieter
and calculations far exceed the and stranger elements of the
A subdued, capabilities of any reasonable game, hidden away in the crags
almost-folkish attempt at human observation— and crevices of its landscape and
itself having developed a “will” UI alike—indirect parallels drawn
strand of within its programming that between the mechanical offspring
animistic has become untethered from its of Skell’s Faustian optimism, and
ambience original end as a human utility, the unknown animal-like gods of
becoming something closer instead the island’s oldest inhabitants,
which runs to the eerie, incomprehensible whose relics and totems still stand
through the silence of animal will. How this here and there, gazing over the
quieter and happens, of course, or even churning waters at wind farms,
what is happening at all, remains and squatting in the trickling
stranger unresolved, both for the audience darkness of subterranean caverns,
elements of and the characters alike. The amidst the tumorous bloom of
the game. game seems to strongly imply sulphur crystals.
that the origins of this seemingly-
novel ‘consciousness’ are, at Ultimately though, Breakpoint,
least notionally, ‘natural’: in for better or worse, largely avoids
an ending montage, a strange, the temptation of overstepping its
swirling formation of these drones casual flirtations with the realm
is initially misidentified as an of science fiction, and dodges
unnatural flock of birds, and later, further speculation about such
Nomad is tasked with tracking philosophically fraught questions
down an entomologist, whose as the potential ‘sentience’ of
research on apine behaviour is this new intelligence, or the
believed to have been used to delineations between human and
build a newer, deadlier iteration nonhuman ontologies. Instead,
of the swarm technology. There it chooses (probably wisely) to
is a subdued, almost folklorish restrain its modes and ends of
Right: Ghost Recon: Breakpoint,

(Spencer Yan).

Right: Ghost
Recon: Breakpoint,
(Spencer Yan).

Right: Ghost
Recon: Breakpoint,
(Spencer Yan).

Right: Ghost
Recon: Breakpoint,
(Spencer Yan).

inquiry firmly within the all- act and action, liberated from the cannot bear. Vanity of vanities. dreamt of, a new justice, a new
too-familiar and remarkably smallness of human ambition, and Make no mistake, boys: this is our peace, a new frontier. We will spill
unremarkable realm of boots-on- the necessary vanity of meaning- final mission. We will die upon forth and seep into the cracks of
The insensate the-ground, knives-in-throats, making. this cursed soil. We will roam this all things, the life-blood of a new
noise of bullets-in-flesh manoeuvring: the earth as ghosts. By tomorrow, they modernity, once and future. We
soldier’s dream of tactics liberated This is, of course, a story you’ve will have forgotten us. They will are asleep in the earth, but soon,
bodies and from the political apparatus. already heard before, hundreds have expunged our names from we will be arisen. We will summon
machines in of times, about men with guns the official records. They will have the devils we named. We will rise
motion. This is at once Breakpoint’s slipping and crawling and sinking built a shopping mall over our into the air and settle like a smog
greatest success, and also the into the mud, tearing at each unmarked graves. They will have along the horizon. We will carve
very element of its identity which other’s bodies and blowing each excavated our forts and last stands twin vapour trails into the skies Spencer Yan is an
thoroughly frustrates conventional other to pieces. Like with nearly into parking lots and observation above the bay. Our gaze will sweep American video
readings. To attempt to read it as all of these stories, the “why” and posts. By winter, new ships will across the face of the earth. Our game designer and
an articulation of one particular “how” are barely relevant, and settle on these shores: more eyes will watch the stars and the developer.
argument or the other—about ‘the quickly dissolve into the fugue bodies will join ours in waiting. seas and our hands will carve
ethical risks of autonomous AI’, of battle, overwhelmed by the Mangroves will spring forth from trenches in the earth to swallow
or ‘the battlefield of the future’, mute, dumb, eternal pleasure of this charnel clay. In ten years, up young corpses. Our spirit will
or whatever—is fruitless, as the sending lead down-range, and our bones will crumble into the move across the face of the waters
game has little apparent interest dropping tangos. All that remains, fetid peat and ferns will smother and pluck birds from the air and
in any of these things: its central after all the fumbling grasps at our eyes. In ten thousand years, sink the ships gathered at our
plot so abstract, its main actors ‘transcendence’ and ‘liberty’ and our rifles will have rusted into shores. The future is ancient. The
such caricatures of their real- ‘transhumanism’ and ‘justice’ and relics, our swords sunken into the past is now. All is vanity. And the
world analogues, its visions of its ‘peace’, is the insensate noise of sand and become like skeletons waters will rise. The coasts will
primary themes so hypothetical bodies and machines in motion, smudged into the sediment. In ten recede. Our children will usurp
and divorced from any traditional collapsing in meadows exploding million years, we will be dug up us. The earth will devour us. Our
understanding of either reality, or with wildflowers and mortar shells, again as black gold, that ancient hands will be turned against us.
its own genre, as to be functionally an eternal dance beneath the pale and dormant loam, entangled with The sea will claim everything. The
illegible. It is not a work about moonlight. the roots of the earth. By then, sea will reclaim everything.
a conflict, in the sense of an history will have ended. We will
ideological or political will, but The body, as it is said, keeps the be purified and cleansed by flame SY
instead, about conflict itself, as score for that which the mind and filtration. A new war will be

MOONER, Control
TRAGEDIES, Control
Planet of
Slums
mapping Cities: Skylines | Nick Capozzoli

D
o we live in a The goal is to cultivate a city that For anyone who counts themself In not so many words then: they
dystopia? A point for maximally meets all of its citizens’ a player of citybuilders, this isn’t design. And in their YouTube
the affirmative: to various needs. But Citywok so surprising a twist. Bad cities videos and Twitch streams, what
establish an Earth instead leans into the genre’s are fun—if they weren’t, SimCity usually ensues is a description, Confessing
worth abandoning, Youtuber untapped narrative potential (the wouldn’t have from its earliest in that benign monotone of so “a sense of
Citywokcitywall barely needs to “About” page on his YouTube days included kaiju, programmed many digital DIYers, of “what
elaborate on images we’re already channel states that he is creating to heave through your creations we’ll be working on today.”
dread” at
seeing. With quick cuts that “stories and worlds”). MARS, the wrecking shop. Early on in Maybe the fine detailing on a wet working on
deliver the viewer from fighter series, chronicles the building of Skylines’ lifespan, a million people market, or routing a functioning the project in
planes, forest fires, and street one of the more recent of these: clicked to watch a video of a hyperloop. But in June of 2020,
protests—“Make Our Planet Great a colony city on the red planet, player drowning his mid-sized city after the murder of George Floyd
the wake of
Again'' graffitied across the White circumscribed by a giant dome. with a tidal wave of its own shit. by Minneapolis police and amidst Floyd’s death.
House facade—to starscapes and Anyone expecting unalloyed, the unrest that followed, Citywok
moon bases, he gives viewers the whiz-bang prosperity after the Modders like Citywok, began his video by bringing up the
space-elevator pitch for leaving intro reel is in for a surprise, Fluxtrance, or BionicDrone, protests and formally connecting
our home planet, and its various as a bit of boilerplate in the though, build their dystopias to them to his virtual Mars,
conflicts and calamities, behind videos’ description reveals: “As last. To function, even, in their confessing “a sense of dread”
for a new life on Mars. It hardly you and hundreds of others dysfunctional way. To do so, they at working on the project in the
matters which images are real, exit a tunnel into the colony, leverage extensive collections of wake of Floyd’s death.
and which are produced within your heart sinks. Sewage leaks user-generated files that reskin
Cities: Skylines. from pipes overhead, trash piles the vanilla game’s buildings and That summer was an occasion
up in corners, thousands cram vehicles into “apocalyptic” or for introspection—and in many
Skylines is a “citybuilder” game in through dirty open-air markets, “cyberpunk” variants, caked in cases, for performative allyship—
the tradition of SimCity, and thus others sleep in the streets. You rust or phosphorescents. Most in many disparate fields, from
typically played as a spooling- look up towards the glass dome also deploy mods that scythe fashion to fly fishing. Lego briefly
up of urban planning causes and ceiling. 200 feet above your head through the rules the base game suspended marketing for its
effects: “if you build it, they will a blooming jacaranda sheds its would otherwise use to govern police-themed construction kits
come” meets If You Give a Mouse flowers into a gurgling garden what can be built, and where. (it continued to manufacture
a Cookie… (... he’s eventually fountain. 'How do we get up Still more mods are available to and sell them). And yet
going to want access to good there?' you ask. Someone answers, wallpaper over the resulting tears. Citywok’s observation didn’t feel
local schools and commuter rail). 'You can't.'" perfunctory. For one, there was at
Previous page: Cities: Skylines,

(Citywokcitywall).

This Page: Cities: Skylines,
(Citywokcitywall).

play a certain literalness. In the with soaring towers. Through-
undercity of his dystopian Mars, window air conditioners, cracked
protestors clash with riot cops. asphalt and chain-link security
A glowing Armored personnel carriers block fences, stacked tires, barricades,
red furnace roadways. Searchlights emanate and window guards— the Steam
from watchtowers and police Workshop for Cities: Skylines is
into which helicopters. In one corner, troops flooded with this kind of bric-a-
the poor, surround a man at gunpoint. brac, the morphemes of poverty,
presumably, because a city without them
It bears mentioning at this doesn’t quite ring true. Citywok
are being fed. point that none of these things films them at Dutch angles for his
are native to Cities: Skylines. YouTube videos, foregrounding
Most come from the Steam tangles of telephone wires and
Workshop or Nexus, platforms leaving beyond focus what might
where tinkerers have uploaded otherwise be an impeccable,
thousands of custom assets for shimmering skyline. Any view
use in modded play. In fact, most looking down at the porcelain
don’t even truly function, because skyways and spires of Mars’
they’re what Skylines calls props, wealthy upper burghs inevitably
the staple crop of the modding catches glimpses of the slums far
scene. Props account for basically below, a glowing red furnace into
everything that isn’t active within which the poor, presumably, are
the game’s simulation. That is being fed.
to say: not a sim person, not a
moving vehicle, not a functioning People can also be props, of
building. course—I’ll try to mean that
literally, and you can try to read
To complete the effect of realism it that way—and must be, in
that modders aim for requires as fact, if a modder wants them to
much of an intimacy with props, exhibit anything outside of the
particularly the shabby kind, as sim's routines of transit, work,
Right: Cities: Skylines,

(Citywokcitywall).

and leisure. For Citywokcitywall’s towards explaining how Citywok by social justice artists. It has, I us: aestheticization of the ongoing
dystopian fiction, that means recognized, below the geodesic couldn’t help but grimly note, all rot, the “Wow cool robot!” meme
dollhouse men and women dome and the holographic the improvised local authenticity for a generation just as like to
holding protest signs, and little advertisements and the Hunter- that a builder of dystopian model soon be over-policed by cool They are
armored policemen to watch Killer helicopters, something cities aims for, and finds so Boston Dynamics robots. preserved
them. He sits two prop figures of the streets of Minneapolis, elusive.
on a cascade of rocks to overlook Ferguson, or Flint, and felt But how many other stories can a
in their
his grungy cable car depot. They discomfited. And from there, to It is natural, I think, for a citybuilder really tell? An impulse moment of
resemble bedraggled cake toppers. how a street art portrait of George citybuilding modder to be towards visual drama, freedom crisis.
Floyd comes to adorn a concrete inclined towards cyberpunk- of imagination, and infinite
Such models exist as diorama: wall in an outdoor market on style dystopias. Even playing resources (the sky—or the RAM—
decorative and a bit crudely Mars. Valheim, a crafting/survival is the limit) all seem to draw the
didactic. They are also almost game about erecting Viking mind towards superstructure
definitionally insufficient—the The portrait, too, is a prop, forts, I myself contrived to make and squalor. It’s visual potential
kneeling figure held at gunpoint, offered by Citywok as a reward favela-style slums a prominent energy, that palpable voltage
for example, appears actually to for donating to a social justice feature of my Nordic superbase, difference, that provides the
also be from an asset set of army charity. It’s based on the mural with rotting wood plank and conflict of their story. Verticality
men, and in fact he seems to be installed on the side of Cup thatch as architectural calques inevitably evokes inequality
modeled after Willem Dafoe's Foods at 38th and Chicago Ave. for cinderblock and corrugated (someone gets the room with a
outstretched pose from Platoon— in Minneapolis where Floyd was aluminum, only half-conscious view and someone does not) or
and yet that insufficiency lends killed. The capture from a July as to why I was doing so. loss (in ascending, something
them an endearing kind of 2021 Google Street View shows a There’s nothing punk about such must be left behind).
pitifulness, like Hans Christian makeshift memorial garden has shallow predilections, but then,
Andersen’s tin soldier. They are sprung up around the building, there’s little punk about most If that sounds contrived, it
preserved in their moment of ringed by a henge of colorfully cyberpunk media these days. helps to understand that the
crisis, while sims privileged with painted CMUs and jersey barriers. What started as portent has unadulterated, base game is not
movement go on about their The two commercial billboards become comfortable and mutually agnostic in these matters. Beneath
routes, following the invisible on the building’s roof, which understood representation; we the pleasant user interface, the
paths that lead them tactfully used to advertise for personal might as well call it cyberfolk art Gershwinesque Americana, and
around or above the scene. injury attorneys, McDonald’s, and stitch it into quilts. This is the benign, Leslie Knope-ish
Perhaps this goes some way and the Marines, now host works the trap the genre has sprung on “chirps” from Skylines’ in-game

This Page: Cities: Skylines,
(Citywokcitywall).

Twitter feed, is a simulation not nothing wrong with opting to
much changed from the one that portray a rosier, idealized version
powered the original SimCity, a of our world. But to drape that
matrix of pointed, often specious over a black box of neoliberal
dependencies. Low taxes promote assumptions whitewashes the
growth. Educated citizens take on way the system actually functions
higher paying jobs, and happiness, and who it functions for (and who
a perpetually foregrounded it functions explicitly against).
stat, directly correlates to the This amounts to a riff on the
availability of nearby services and @crushingbort classic about the
entertainment. Mixed-use zoning fiscal conservative/social liberal:
is not really a thing, and bonuses The problems don’t exist—but
get doled out as the player hits their causes … their causes are
city growth milestones. In a very good.
piece for Logic Magazine, Kevin
T. Baker quotes a SimCity player It's a story told, sotto voce, every
speaking to the LA Times in 1992: time you press play. With that
“I became a total Republican understanding, modding a game
playing this game. All I wanted like Cities: Skylines starts to take
was for my city to grow, grow, on not only an interventionist
grow.” capability, but also an insurgent
one. It’s as Álvaro Seiça writes:
Unless they are linking pollution “Modding can be hobbyist and
to poor health, these games’ ludic,” but it can also “transgress
official mechanisms rarely and subvert the conventional
reproduce urban planning’s less uses of artistic objects and
flattering outcomes: there is no technological apparatus and
redlining in the simulation, no platforms, in order to raise
eviction, no gentrification, no awareness, resist, protest, or
over-policing, no school-to-prison revamp.”
pipeline. In the abstract, there’s
Right: Cities: Skylines,

(Citywokcitywall).

The critic Will Partin, appraising of the Whole Earth Catalogue) for ethical citybuilding: even if revert to timed-entry reservations
the building sim Prison Architect, have gone so far as to venture: the modder’s individual remains in mid-March, according to its
wrote that "It’s true that the “Squatter cities are vibrant outside the simulation—remains website. Friedrich also called
conditions of our lives are places. They’re self-organized a prop—their conceptualized Little Island “a billionaire’s bleak
produced by the systems we and self-constructed. Newcomers will might carry through in the SimCity fantasy.” If that’s our
are embedded in. Yet no one find whole support communities design of their community, a reality, at least there’s life on
experiences life as a system,” of family, neighbors, and highly hauntology of aspirations. This Mars.
and that “... to make systems the active religious groups.... The matters, because there are
exclusive locus of inquiry runs 'agglomeration economies' of competing ethos taking shape out NC
the risk of crushing individual the burgeoning mega-cities leads there. Speculators and grifters
experience, the only kind we can to the highest wages, and that’s are eyeing the genre, which no Nick Capozzoli is a
ever truly know." This gives all what draws ever more people. So doubt looks like a promising nest freelance critic and
of the modder’s prop bricolage besides solving the population in which gamification and crypto a project manager
a raison d’etre: reasserting the problem, the growing cities are real estate can wed and sire their for a historic
individual, for whom all this curing poverty. What looks like antichrist. restoration firm in
idiosyncratic detailing is the stuff huge cesspools of poverty in the New York City, and
of a life. And so the work of the slums are actually populations of "City planning, in the broad sense, chairs the Games
dystopian citybuilder necessarily people getting out of poverty as is about power over the future.” Journalism Award
involves some empathy, and a fast as they can.” Michael Friedrich wrote that for the New York
willingness to surrender lurid while describing “Little Island,” Video Game Critics
interest in the spectacle of I can’t speak to the truth a very real, $260 million dollar Circle. Tweets @
poverty. These requirements form of that (and it has a certain floating park recently erected over nickcapozzoli.
a challenge of ironic arrangement: “bootstraps” logic to it that I the river on New York’s west side.
the thoughtful design of that don’t necessarily vibe to). But it Its flared concrete base columns
which is not designed, but rather offers the dystopian citybuilder reminded me instantly of the ones
filled in ad hoc wherever neglect a potential narrative, one that at that hold up the upper plate of
has left its voids. least has the benefit of working Citywok’s model; the New York
from an initial assumption of Times’ architecture critic dubbed
Or perhaps it’s wrong to declare peoples’ inherent dignity. It's it “a park on stilettos.” Access
it undesigned in the first place. also, crucially, not inert. This to the public park, currently
Writers like Stewart Brand (he could make it a viable framework unrestricted for the hoi polloi, will

LINES, Control
NUCLEAR, Control
Freeway Teleology
photo feature The Matrix Awakens: An Unreal Engine 5 Experience | Gareth Damian Martin

D
uring the summer the time of day, and see debug of an unsettlingly real graphical the millenium onward, humanity
2020 lockdown of the layers that show off the rendering technology than using it to render entered a state of terminal decline.
COVID-19 pandemic, I methods of Unreal Engine 5. It the fictional prison city built In a post-virus world, a world that
found myself watching is incredibly impressive, both for humanity by their machine feels like decline is built in, that
videos where an unamed person visually and sonically evoking overlords? speech hits differently. The Mega
would wander a city, at night or real city atmospheres of detail City feels different too. Returning
in the rain, recording the process and depth, becoming almost When I was a teenager I loved The to it in The Matrix Awakens: An
with a wearable camera. There hypnotically enjoyable to navigate Matrix. I loved the slow motion, Unreal Engine 5 Experience, I find
was something deeply soothing around as a drone. It is also deeply the outfits, the music, but most it impossible to see it as an image
about these videos, with their unerving, both in its realism and of all I loved the Mega City. In my of progress. It seems instead to
sheen of normality and anonymity, its atmospheres, presenting a mind it was the dream city, the be some kind of purgatorial hell.
something that had drawn me to placeless city of long freeways, a amalgamation of all the American An endless city, anonymous,
cities in the first place. blank populous and streets which cities I had seen on film and TV, placeless. A roving camera drifting
always give a sense of deja-vu. part New York, part Chicago. I through its streets. I start to
These videos were the first was surpised when, as an adult, I notice the repeating details, that
thing I thought of when I begin It is a strange and yet totally found out it was filmed in Sydney all the addresses are the same,
playing The Matrix Awakens: An appropriate choice for a tech (although the placelessness of the buildings are the same bank
Unreal Engine 5 Experience, the demo, as it aptly demonstrates the an America outside of America over and over, the same burger
strange, free, tie-in tech demo power of hyper-realism, but also feels deeply appropriate). Mega restaurant. The stickers that
that released alongside the film the horror of it. It is impressive City is, of course, a horrible piece neatly fringe the windows are
of the same name in 2021. In it, in the way that the international of urbanism, with its multilane the same, and many mention flu
you take control of an unamed business district of any city is freeways, cavernous streets, and vaccinations.
character and navigate through an impressive, all towering glass high towers. It isn't a nice place to
incredibly high-fidelity rendition edifices and unsettling, reflected walk, to live, to be. Yet to me, as The city is sick, the freeway loops
of the Mega City, the endless, repetition. It attracts with its sense a child, it looked like progress. It around, progress has swallowed
placeless virtual city of the film of being the protoypical American looked like the peak of civilisation. its own tail. Is this truly the peak,
series. Like an open-world game city, the city of a thousand movies or is that still to come? This is just
stripped of gameplay, meaning and sitcoms, “the peak of your That is exactly what Agent Smith a tech demo after all, a preview of
and structure, this tech demo civilization” as Agent Smith calls it, in his iconic monologue. the future that is yet to arrive.
also allows you to freely fly as a names it in the original film. What He talks about humanity as a
drone through the city, change could be a better demonstration virus on the planet, and that from GDM
Previous and following pages: Mundaun

(Gareth Damian Martin).

Playing
in a Lost
Space
feature Riot: Civil Unrest | Hamza Bashandy

T
elling the story of a lost space. Thus, I seek compensation
revolution is a monopoly for the lost space in the imagined,
for those in power; those the virtual, and the unreal. Perhaps
who retaliated against these imagined spaces are seeds for
the revolution and uprooted the reclaiming a lost city. Cameroonian
public from their space. Although philosopher Achilles Mbembe
the Egyptian public have been argues, the imagined, the unreal,
taking to the streets to protest and virtual are where the city
notably since the 2011 revolution, started in the first place. But can
2014 was the year protesters we pretend? Can we virtually go
were ultimately excluded from back to the square and push away
the public space when the police the police? Would it matter if we
have insured their strong hold do?
over Tahrir Square, the epicenter
of the revolution. As one of those Riot: Civil Unrest and many
protesters repeatedly evicted from other videogames have emerged
Egyptian public space, I searched in in response to global and local
videogames, like Riot: Civil Unrest, protest movements. Games such
for a parallel space to outlive the as OccupyGezi (2014), Yellow
collapse of our protest spaces and Umbrella (2014), 1979 Revolution:
to explore a virtual representation Black Friday (2016), Anarcute
of these imaginations, hopes, (2016), Little Antifa Novel (2016),
and ideals, and more specifically, and Liberate HongKong (2019)
to virtually retrieve our lost are needed in a time where we
geographies. A virtual proxy are realising that the promise of
that rejects defeatist stories of the agora is vanishing and that
contemporary social movements. our public spaces are in fact
Our movement, its demonstrations, privatised properties. I saw in
and its morals have the right to videogames the potential of game
prevail beyond our protests, and for space to resist the systemic and
them to live, they need to reclaim epistemic erasure of traces of the
Right and previous: Riot: Civil Unrest

(Hamza Bashandy).

This page: National Democratic
Party building, Riot: Civil Unrest
(Hamza Bashandy).

revolution. In the presence of the playing it. I wanted my goal in the
National Democratic Party (NDP) game to be always defending the
building, the ruling party till the space gained and to push away
2011 uprising, in Riot: Civil Unrest. the police from that vital territory.
The NDP’s building, located in After all, is this not what protest
Tahrir Square and against which is all about, imposing power over
Egyptians have revolted, was set contested spaces? As Christian
on fire during the events. The Scholl mentions in his book Two
presence of the burnt-out building Sides of Barricades “space emerges
in the game is preserving an image as a site of struggle not only during
of a building that became a sign of but already before (and also after)
resistance and witnessed the fall of a protest event”. Reading the
an oppressive era. Especially, when excerpts the game quotes from
knowing that five years later, the Gandhi or Che Guevara, or the
building was demolished to uproot narrative’s text that precede the
the ‘centrality’ of the Square and to start of the story, I did not have
erase its memory, witnessing the any doubt that this game wanted
birth of a new oppressive era. to offer a different story from those
typically present in AAA games,
Riot: Civil Unrest was published where power, morality, and the
in early access in 2017. The long- state are so often aligned.
awaited game simulates four stories
from 2011: the No-TAV movement But in playing the game, my
which took place in Italy, the imagination struggled to
Keratea protest in Greece, the understand what meta-story Riot:
Indignados movement in Spain, Civil Unrest was trying to build.
and finally, the Egyptian Revolution. Why does the crowd look so messy
I found the game while doing my and lost in the space versus an
research on the role that space organised police force? Why is
plays during protest, and that the only possibility that this game
focus affected my approach to offers a win-lose scenario, and
Right: Riot: Civil Unrest (Hamza

Bashandy).

This page: Icons from Riot: Civil
Unrest (Hamza Bashandy).

if I lose, why can I not progress manage to accept that I am playing
in the game? Why must I play as the police in this scenario because
the police force to progress in the the collective spatial imprint I have
Irrational game? Why do I have to be the of this specific day can only handle
and oppressor? As Donna Haraway one, unique imagination; the full
teaches in Storytelling for Earthly defeat and the escape of the police,
unorganized Survival no matter our trials to and the full control of protesters
protesters find the neutral ground, we are over Tahrir Square. We cannot
versus always standing somewhere from lose here! But Riot: Civil Unrest is
the story. So, where does Riot: not the only game that lets players
organized Civil Unrest stand? Is it a way to be the police. In fact being the
and spatially maintain “neutrality” and to remain oppressor is the norm in most of
aware police. “unbiased”? the AAA titles that feature protests,
making Riot: Civil Unrest’s position
What is the point of the police part of the natural order of things.
winning in Riot: Civil Unrest? Is
this not this what we face in our A scanning of titles such as
live almost every single day? After SimCity (1989-2014), Tropico (2002-
winning all the five “Arab Spring” 2019), Emergency (1998-2018)
stories in Riot: Civil Unrest, I or Assassin’s Creed Unity (2014)
decided I wanted to know what produces a narrative that reinforces
it feels like to be the police. I the concept and image of irrational
managed to pass the first story. and unorganized protesters versus
The second one—Friday of Anger organized and spatially aware
Part 1—depicts the events of the police. This narrative frames
28th of January 2011 that took “protest” as a crowd of neutral and
place on “Qasr El Nile” bridge. irrational NPCs that only serve as
But suddenly, I stopped playing a background for the events of the
the game, and I let the protesters plot. Riot: Civil Unrest is one of the
cross the other side of the bridge few games that depict protests in
to reach the square. I could not which the crowd is considered an
Right and following: Riot: Civil Unrest

(Hamza Bashandy).

This page: Qasr El Nile Bridge, Riot:
Civil Unrest (Hamza Bashandy).

active agent. During gameplay, bodies of protesters during the
the player usually controls four 2011 protests at Zuccotti Park,
groups of crowds. Each group is New York and Tahrir square, Cairo
We cannot equipped with tools (a camera, rearranged the space to function
deal with an a microphone, social media, as their occupied realm. These
Molotov etc…) depending on the spaces of protest had strategically
ephemeral act objective of the mission (e.g.: positioned sleeping zones, on-site
like protest protect tents from being destroyed hospitals, art spaces, different
as a space of or peacefully occupy the space as circles for speeches and debate,
protesters) and some choices the and lavatories. Such zones and
improbability. players make before the start of spaces can fluctuate and transform
the game will affect the number instantaneously upon the need for
of protesters and their level of protection or change of function.
peacefulness and violence. This is a performance that if only
seen from a macro top-down still
But Riot: Civil Unrest fails to
view, will render an image of a
understand the spatial awareness
messy and irrational crowd.
of protesters by disconnecting
their equipment from the
One can argue that videogames are
surrounding, built environment,
a space for spatial improbabilities,
especially when placed in
but for me and for anyone who
opposition to police forces armed
witnessed these events, this
with a set of spatial tactics and
is not a space of improbability
strategies. The game misses the
but a spatial imprint of events
opportunity to address the micro-
in which my ludic approach
spatial stories of protesters that
cannot be neutral. I find myself
render the larger story visible,
incapable of disconnecting my
and to understand how space
practice of playing protest from
shapes the bodies of protesters
my experience of being a body, an
and how these bodies inhabit
active agent, in the real protest
these spaces. Such as how the
spaces this game depicts. We
Right: Riot: Civil Unrest (Hamza

Bashandy).

cannot deal with an ephemeral neglecting the capacity of bodies
act like protest as a space of of protest to develop spatial
improbability. I found myself strategies and tactics that cannot
wishing that Riot: Civil Unrest be separated from the noises and
would have avoided the police cacophonies they make, which
versus protesters dichotomy, are vastly more complicated than
which in its limited understanding an animated crowd with a voice
of crowd spatial dynamics and ‘loop’ code that repeats the word
innovation, ultimately glorifies ‘resist’ eternally. To echo Donna
police spatial tactics. The virtual Haraway's calls for other kinds
reconstruction of those spaces of stories; we must change the Hamza Bashandy
triggers my memory by recreating stories of protest in videogames. is an architect
the original events, but I wished We need to develop other kinds who is turning
the game was able to engage of stories, in which crowds are an into a game
with the space, to link the stories integral part of both the narrative maker. Looking
together, instead of simply and the space. We must change at videogames as
presenting fragmented spaces with the violent story, the story of potential spaces
fragmented stories. the irrational bodies, the neutral of resistance, his
story, the dichotomy (protesters ongoing research
After all, what I have realised vs police) story, and the story of examines the
is that if videogames can tell the superficial noise. Without this representation of
us something about social change, protests within games will spatial claims from
movements, it will be that protest forever be condemned to being the margins.
and riots are predominantly little more than spatial noise.
‘irrational’ acts. Developers’
approaches to crowd simulation HB
are stuck in theories developed
by sociologists and psychologists
until the mid-twentieth century,
when studies focused on crowd
behaviour defined it as irrational,
Left: Riot: Civil Unrest (Hamza

Bashandy).

SACRED NOISE, Control
THE LIGHT, Control
The Master Clock
mapping The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask | Richard Bingham

P
ulses to switches to Power is the hint of panic in at the expense of execution and that of the calendar, that of the
registers to processors the voices of the armed guards play. Narrative, code, production, clock, and that of the processor.
to the jagged heights at Clock Town’s gates. It’s the context, reception, modification. Each regime bears its own face,
of Snowhead that crest dread of the workmen as they put Every dimension offers a site for regulating and standardising life Every
out of clear-blue skybox. Termina, up scaffolding in an evacuated registering and questioning power through its structures, distributing dimension
the world of The Legend of Zelda: town. It’s the panic the postman in a gameworld. time unevenly.
Majora’s Mask, is a flickering being suppresses as he strives to keep
offers a
in time. Every year, “when the sun to his delivery schedule. Power Instead of stacking these Majora’s Mask dramatizes the site for
and moon are in alignment”, its cannot be presented to us whole; dimensions into levels of clashing of these three regimes registering
people gather in Clock Town for as if it’s the code rather than the significance, we can read as they are wielded by different
the Carnival of Time. There, they execution, as if time doesn’t exist. narrative, gameplay, and code on characters to maintain and exert and
“pay homage to the way that both single plane, one continuously power in Terminian society. The questioning
nature and time are tirelessly in How do videogame worlds address expanding and folding in on itself game’s story begins when this power in a
the process of progressing”. As the power? They allegorise ideologies in surprising ways. Doing this conflict has reached a head. An
unpredictable and ever-changing and clashes between them. They provides a “weird” experience outsider, a travelling salesman, has gameworld.
state of the natural world, time enable and constrain interaction, of game architecture, of the kind released a chaotic element into
appears to exert its own power. encoding a limited array of Mark Fisher describes, “impl[ying] Termina. By way of a cursed mask,
The tall clock tower that looms political possibilities. They can twisted forms of time and the demon Majora has possessed
over the centre of Clock Town even be political acts themselves, causality that are alien to ordinary the mischievous Skull Kid and
stands as a monument to this. It’s products of cooperative labour perception” and bring[ing] “to started pulling down the moon.
there that Terminians make their rather than capitalist exploitation. the familiar something which We have just three in-game days
annual appeals—wondering at, In this way, gameworlds have ordinarily lies behind it”. In what to defeat Majora, return the mask
pleading with, and fearing time multiple dimensions. We might follows, I use tools and discoveries to the Salesman, and save Termina
itself. be tempted to sort these into a shared among speedrunners and before impact. The calendric cycle
hierarchy: the visual environment modders to read computation as is disrupted by the countdown of
Yet power is not a building. We a surface that reflects a deeper a powerful force within—rather the clock.
can’t stroll around it, inspecting system of rules and code, itself than behind—the represented
its walls and admiring its design. is a product of certain labour gameworld. I flatten out Termina’s A foreigner to Termina, the Mask
Nor is power a blueprint. We relations and their social context. clock tower onto a single plain, Salesman makes this rupture clear
can’t lay it out, static and inert, However, this surface/depth where it embodies the intersection when he rejects local beliefs about
tracing its lines with our fingers. model overemphasises design of three timekeeping regimes: time’s tireless progression. “Time
Previous: The Legend of Zelda:

Majora’s Mask, (Richard Bingham).

This page: The Legend of Zelda:

is not eternal,” he tells us. On its Carnival of Time is founded on
face, this statement is tautological. another calendric timekeeper.
Time names the changing state Calendars present irregular
Power of the universe. Things that exist cycles of days, months, and years
makes itself in time emerge, grow, multiply, structured around the movement
degrade, perish, and disappear. of the cosmos, the seasons,
known Anything eternal exists entirely and associated cultural events.
through outside of time, remaining fixed Historically, calendric events reflect
clock time. and whole. Time and eternity are the concerns of a community and
therefore mutually exclusive: by their environment: crop rotation,
definition, eternity is not temporal, regular weather events, holy days,
and time is not eternal. Yet, surely etc. Despite these organic referents,
time itself is eternal, even as however, calendars are human-
whatever exists within it is not? made, artificial instruments of
Time marches on, witnessing power. In pre-Meiji Japan, calendars
the rise and fall of kingdoms like were produced by governments
the game's ancient Ikana Castle, to coordinate social activities
whose once-impenetrable walls across multiple timescales, from
now crumble. Clock Town’s clock designating the current era down
tower symbolizes this ceaseless to pointers on how to manage
progression, encouraging a day-to-day activities. In 1685, the
certain passivity by casting time Tokugawa shogunate decreed
as eternal, eternity as powerful, that Japan's feudal lords must all
history as inevitable. The Mask restructure their local calendars
Salesman’s remark challenges this around an annual template
belief. If time is not eternal, it not designed by shogunal astronomers.
only contains historical events but This centralised economic and
undergoes them itself. cultural authority, dictating the
regularity of communal gatherings
Despite being physically centred and associating the shogunate’s
around a clock tower, the power with cosmic design.
Right: The Legend of Zelda: Majora’s

Mask, (Richard Bingham).

In Termina we see a similar wheel turns clockwise to mark
calendric regime. Recurring the passing minutes, while a
without fail, the Carnival of Time larger inner wheel turns anti-
solidifies a rhythm through which clockwise with the hours. Within
people reaffirm their ties to the the latter is a hole containing a
gods, the cosmos, the land, and disc that flips at dawn and dusk,
the current government. The displaying either a sun or moon.
date of the carnival is dictated by This complex, multi-directional
astrological calculations made in design replicates the face of the
the Astral Observatory, a guarded ceremonial clock tower at the
building whose location outside town centre. Each household clock
the Clock Town walls signals its therefore performs a symbolic
historic authority over it. The function, reminding citizens of
power of Clock Town’s Mayor time’s ceaseless flow.
Dotour is called into question
once the calendrical regime is Termina’s emphasis on dawn and
challenged by the falling moon, dusk at six o’clock invokes the
and he proves unable to protect it. “variable-hours” timekeeping of
pre-modern Japan. Under this
Yet the rituals of the Carnival of system, daytime hours lengthened,
Time had long been papering over and night-time ones shortened
another rupture in calendrical as Summer Solstice approached,
timekeeping. Enter most of Clock and vice versa into winter. Far
Town’s buildings and you’ll find from reflecting natural rhythms,
the same colourful wooden clock. however, this system was complex
Larger than your usual household and artificial. Out of public view,
timepieces, these clocks don’t astronomers defined the duration
tick so much as they clunk and of variable hours in units called
groan, throwing their weight. koku, named after the rōkoku
Beyond their size, they are striking water clock from which they were
for their design. A thinner, outer initially measured. Bell towers


then rang out the variable hours action. Stripped of religiosity and self-preservation. Enter the Post is even introduced as a narrative
throughout the day. An interplay local cultural concerns, it defines Office on the final night, with the theme, that we are presented
of hidden time-keeping and productivity and generates a moon’s impact imminent, and the with its material operation—and,
public time-telling, the system uniform, unarguable measure Postman is crouched on the floor. curiously, it’s water-powered. Clock time
justified and exerted power by to signify value. For this reason, A letter lies on the bed, written An underground stream pushes can be
dictating the rhythm of everyday the mechanical clock proved by and addressed to himself, a wheel, which turns giant cogs
life while displaying nothing of instrumental in the global spread expressing his inability to abandon that move the top section of
applied to
the astronomical calculations of Western capitalism. Termina’s his schedule and flee. Here, power the tower—a lighthouse—as train bodies
that justify it. However, following mechanical timekeeping exhibits makes itself known through clock well as the wheels on its east in efficient
the US Navy’s 1854 demand its own imperial dynamic. The time. The Postman’s orders need and west faces. Yet nothing
that isolationist Japan open few mechanical clocks that exist not come directly from Termina’s appears to perform the key role action.
itself to trade, the Meiji-era outside Clock Town hang in the municipal government because of escapement—the halting
government abandoned variable outposts of its human society: they make themselves known in mechanism that translates the
hours for Western timekeeping. the Swamp Tourist Center, the every tick of the clock. Seconds, turning of the cogs into the regular
This provoked riots in several Mountain Smithy, and the Marine minutes, and hours are a prison “ticks” of the clock.
prefectures, yet the reforms Research Lab. They remain absent that sentence his body to ruthless
endured. Rather than surrendering, from the homes of Termina’s efficiency and, ultimately, death. With players happy to accept
the government saw themselves as nonhuman races—for now. nonsensical mechanical worlds
wielding a technology of imperial At the clock tower, the traditional like Super Mario 64’s “Tick
power to compete in a changed The artificiality of Termina’s power diffused through the Tock Clock”, the developers
world. Time itself was pulled clock time reveals itself most traditional cycles of calendric needn’t have offered any physical
under by history. clearly in the rigid routine of the time meets the modern power explanation at all for the clock’s
Postman, who commits his life enforced by the regular ticking functioning. Rather than ignore
Collectively, the regular ticking to its intervals. When not out of the mechanical clock. Yet this incomplete engineering, we
of Termina’s clocks generate an making his rounds, he can be something about the tower’s own might use its inclusion to expand
abstract procession of numbers found in the Post Office, his home mechanical workings seems off. the surface of the gameworld.
that measure events, rather than and workplace, training his body We first emerge into Termina from Take a dip in the stream powering
naming them as in the calendar. to the rhythms of the clocks and a dark, mossy area beneath it. This the clock tower’s waterwheel and
With small units like minutes timetables that adorn its walls. area is easily forgotten amid the you’ll see several blurry textures
and seconds, clock time can be This commitment to a schedule hurry to push beyond the tutorial suspended in the gloom. Fans
applied to train bodies in efficient even overrules his instinct for sequence. Yet, it’s here, before time have suggested these resemble

Nintendo 64 controllers. Not to enormous storm. The sun vaults there that moves time. In other instances of the actor file 019C,
put too fine a point on it, but over the world in an instant. words, time is not a measure assigned differing textures and
they clearly don’t. Maybe this Meanwhile, certain Termina but an instruction. Editing these scale values. In other words,
hallucinated hardware sublimates inhabitants flicker as they rocket time variables, however, also the clock tower looming over We can
a deeper fracture, an awareness through their customary paths. reveals that the domain of time is Clock Town’s public space and identify
that something’s in the water. Set the value to 0000 and this limited. Certain bodies, from the the clocks hanging inside private
After all, we know exactly what sharply decelerates. Clocks catch builders carrying timber in circles homes and workplaces are 111
a third
makes Termina tick, only we’re up to the current instant then to the enemies you encounter, faces of the same being. timeframe—
repressing it—but what if we stop ticking. The sun hangs static continue to move at their own computational
didn’t? in a motionless sky. The Postman pace, regardless of the value or Moreover, when we examine
jogs on the spot. speed of clock time. From this we the “heap” of actors loaded into time—within
Running the US release of might also conclude that time is a given space, numerous other the field of
Majora’s Mask on an emulator, we Here, rather than penetrating assigned to bodies unevenly. entities associated with time meaning.
can use debugging tools to view the visual gameworld to view crawl out of the woodwork. Actor
active Random-Access Memory. the “deeper” reality beneath, we As we expand Termina’s 01AB handles countdowns to
There, time is represented as can see ourselves as expanding surface to include RAM values, times at which we are no longer
a hexadecimal value that, over Termina’s surface, letting memory meaningful distinctions between allowed to be present in certain
the course of a gameworld day, and visual space intermingle. humans, animals, and inanimate spaces. In the Post Office, three
increments from 402D to FFFF Doing this, we can identify a objects diminish. Our perception of these actors kick you out at
and then from 0000 (midnight) to third timeframe—computational of a being’s individuality is different times in the three-day
4000 (6 a.m.). Elsewhere, another time—within the field of meaning, complicated by our awareness cycle. Another actor, 015A, is
variable dictates time’s speed. rather than ignoring it as a silent of its role as one instance of an loaded into almost every scene
Usually set to 0003, using a hex technical backbone. Viewed in “actor” file. Clock Town’s Mayor to run operations that dictate
editor to change this value to the hex editor, time does indeed Dotour exerts as much influence the passing of global time. Our
000F or even 00FF causes time seem connected to the natural as a pot. Flattening Termina this awareness of this actor further
to kick into overdrive. Termina’s world. When the value of this way scrambles power relations, separates our understanding of
clockfaces, including that of the variable changes, so does the exploding the temporal regimes clock time from the clock tower.
clock tower, accelerate, skipping movement of the sky and the sun. of the calendar and the clock. No longer a disinterested measure
minutes and entire hours to catch Yet this relationship is directional. Termina’s wall-clocks are not of movement or value, time itself
up with a receding present. The Changing the time variable moves mere reproductions of the central exists within space. We can
sky spins as if we are caught in an the heavens, but there’s nothing clock tower, but rather 110 other even identify its coordinates in

This page: The Legend of Zelda:

different spaces: in South Clock coincide with his business plans.
Town, 015A crouches just above
the clock tower; in the Mayor’s That the Mask Salesman chooses
From Office it lurks by a plant in the to remain inside the tower,
within, hallway; in Ikana Canyon it’s directly beneath where the moon
poised on an inaccessible ledge. is due to hit, belies the fact that
the clock he is not himself subjected to
tower is a Perhaps this is what the Mask time as others are. Despite actor
monument Salesman means when he says 015A’s presence under the tower,
that time, or what we understand global time does not increment
to a to be time, is not eternal; it’s an there. The clock’s huge gears keep
temporal actor, executing code. It of course turning but time remains still,
regime that follows that the Mask Salesman a visual representation of clock
is himself merely an actor, as is time becoming unstuck from its
is void of our avatar, Link. Yet both have computational implementation.
power. an unusual relationship to time, From within, the clock tower is a
as is made apparent in the game monument to a temporal regime
narrative. We first meet the Mask that is void of power. 015A skulks
Salesman after the Skull Kid has around, its impotence mocked by
already robbed us of the Ocarina the Mask Salesman. Time is not
of Time and transformed us eternal.
into the form of a Deku Scrub.
He offers to transform us back Once we manage to get the
if we can retrieve the Ocarina Ocarina, we can play the “Song
and return Majora’s Mask to him of Time” to return to the day we
quickly, as he “must leave this arrived, taking key items we gain
place in three days”. He initiates back with us. We thereby make
the game’s infamous three- progress even as we repeatedly
day countdown then before we wipe clean our positive impact
learn of the moon’s falling. The on Termina. Time, as the Mask
apocalypse just so happens to Salesman suggests, is not eternal;


we can change it at will. As where time does not pass, he up to the eternal movements of the visual timeframes of the
promised, he restores us to our does not even need to wait to the heavens. On this calendar calendar and clock that govern
previous form, then asks us to see a thirty-fold return on this event, Clock Town’s inhabitants the everyday lives of others.
“give me that which you promised risk without so much as lifting declare their vulnerability before
me…” Discovering we failed to a finger. In the final cycle, when nature, accepting the protection RB
recover the cursed Majora’s Mask, we finally stop the moon falling of their government in exchange
he instructs us to go back out andand are transported into its for obedience. Meanwhile, with
get it or “something terrible willinterior, we encounter a group of its analogue clock face, the tower
happen!” The game’s premise is masked children who resemble also represents time as a pure,
therefore not primarily structuredthe Salesman. Asking whether abstract form separate from
around preventing the moon’s we will be “a mask salesman”, whatever it describes. With its Richard Bingham
impact but rather a debt incurred they demand we give them the minutes and hours, it provides lives in London,
when an exchange fails to be masks in return for playing with a fixed and reliable measure for where he teaches
repaid on time. us. This playing culminates with driving bodies towards greater and researches
the battle with Majora, in which efficiency. Finally, as a computer digital cultures.
It’s the Mask Salesman who first the narrative themes of good and simulation, the clock tower Twitter: @binghari
sets the countdown, marking evil are ultimately restaged as a embodies the variable time of
a point in the future towards childish game. The staging of this the processor, which schedules
which the value of global time fight reveals the hollowness of the events according to the logic
increments. It’s also he who apocalyptic countdown around of its own execution pipeline.
suggests manipulating time. Using which Majora’s Mask is premised. This timeframe declares and
the Ocarina of Time to subvert generates movement rather
and manipulate the regime of Time, then, is distributed than measuring it, arranging all
the clock, we extract masks unevenly in Termina. Using entities—including time itself—as
from people who are time poor, emulator tools to expand the variables that can be manipulated.
convinced their hour is up. We gameworld’s surface, we can When we shift our perspective
might view the entire game from view the clock tower at the to see computerised time as an
the Mask Salesman’s perspective: intersection of three timeframes, active element within Termina,
on day zero, he allows Majora’s and therefore three modes of a being whose power is wielded
Mask to be placed at risk. Then, power. As the setting for the by vampiric visitors, we find a
from within the clock tower, annual Carnival of Time, it points tool that disrupts and controls

REBIRTH, Control
FIRST BREATH, Control
Empires of Future Past
history Star Wars: Jedi Knight 2 - Jedi Outcast | Maria Bonete

S
tar Wars: Jedi Knight II One of the characters from that end nowhere. It's filled with Wars is the media behemoth it
- Jedi Outcast was first this Expanded Universe is weird shortcuts and hidden lifts. is today. Roger Christian, A New
published in 2002 by Kyle Katarn. He and the games Everything’s grey or brown or a Hope’s set decorator, along with
Activision and developed he appears in are very much mix of the two, and the lengths Ralph McQuarrie and the rest of Star Wars's
by Raven Software Corporation. a product of their time, for it goes to in order to make Lucas’s team managed to create Imperial
It’s an instalment of the Jedi better and for worse. Katarn things harder for the player are a world that was unlike anything
Knight—formerly Dark Forces— is a main character in the vein both frustrating and hilarious. else seen in science fiction and
design is the
series, which follows the rise of Luke Skywalker. He's the This is a feature, not a bug: the fantasy media until that moment, outlier to this
and fall and rise again of one kind of hero who, until pretty game is weird and frustrating and one that now reads as trend.
Kyle Katarn, former imperial recently, populated most genre and confusing, but it works. Kyle distinctively Star Wars.
agent turned farmer turned Jedi fiction: a straight white boy who Katarn spends a long time in
(turned smuggler and mercenary progresses through Campbell’s Imperial bases and prisons. They The Galaxy Far, Far Away feels
and Jedi once again). classic hero's journey, and are purposely claustrophobic inhabited in a way that many
whose sameness is supposed to in order to make advancing— science fiction products just
Jedi Outcast was released a make it easier for the audience moving on and completing your don’t, even today. The Millennium
few years before Revenge of to feel empathy and project objectives—harder than it should Falcon is grimy and lived in; the
the Sith hit theatres in 2005, themselves onto the character. be. Lars’s farm on Tatooine is small
and almost fifteen years before Despite this, the world of and tidy but rundown; in more
Disney bought Lucasfilm. As Katarn's games, and the way they This level design compliments recent media, like Disney+’s
such, it makes use of what in both expanded and referenced the kind of story Jedi Outcast cartoon The Bad Batch, Cid’s
Star Wars fandom circles has the Star Wars universe, still tells through its setting, which club on Ord Mantell is cramped,
come to be known as "Legends" resonate. The Jedi Knight series is modeled on the aesthetics dark, and greasy, and every time
or the "Expanded Universe": perfectly encapsulates the films’ first found in A New Hope it appears on the screen you can
all the material—the books, the atmosphere, especially regarding (1977). Thirty-five years later, almost smell it.
games, the comics—published the Empire and its aesthetics— the Death Star hallways’ design
between the release of the and it does this much better than is still iconic: those long, twisty Star Wars's Imperial design
original trilogy's films in the late more recent games, like Star corridors, grey and red and black is the outlier to this trend.
seventies and early eighties and Wars: Jedi: Fallen Order. and white, with their harsh lights Stormtrooper armour in The
2014, when Disney acquired the and shiny floors. They’re one of Mandalorian might be scuffed and
franchise. Jedi Knight II - Jedi Outcast is a the reasons the films still survive blackened, but Gideon’s destroyer
game made of twisty hallways the passage of time, and why Star is still a sleek war machine,
Previous: Star Wars: Jedi: Fallen Order,

(Maria Bonete).

all straight lines and hostile Abrams, director of Episodes VII
hallways—and this translates and IX, spoke in an interview with
to Imperial constructions in- Empire magazine in 2015 about
universe, too. From the Death how the inspiration for the First
Star to the Imperial Navy, to the Order “came out of conversations
mines and bases that appear in about what would have happened
media like The Bad Batch and if the Nazis all went to Argentina
The Mandalorian, Star Wars Jedi: but then started working together
Fallen Order or Jedi Knight II, again,” and Inverse published
the Imperial aesthetic sticks out a (very, very short) piece on
like a sore thumb. The Empire's the parallels between the First
constructions are big and dark Order shots shown in the trailers
and discombobulating, and and surviving images of the
they don’t seem to be actually Nuremberg rallies.
inhabited by either humans or
any of the many alien species that These references are built into the
populate the galaxy. They also tell base of the franchise. Christian,
us everything we need to know A New Hope’s set decorator, was
about the Empire. inspired by Nazi architect Albert
Speer’s work when designing the
In the wake of Disney’s Death Star:
sequel trilogy, much has been
written about the First Order’s "When it came to the Death Star,
inspiration—what in Legends that was inspired by the Reich
and, somehow, The Mandalorian, architecture of Albert Speer,
used to be called the Imperial obviously. When you look at Nazi
Remnant. Most of these pieces architecture, it's very black with
are focused on what it meant red on it. Very simple and very
for a Star Wars movie to include daunting—and strangely beautiful.
them—not about what they And that's exactly the Death
signify in and of themselves. J.J. Star."
Left: Star Wars: Jedi Knight II - Jedi

Outcast, (Maria Bonete).

This page: Star Wars: Jedi Knight II -
Jedi Outcast, (Maria Bonete).

Subsequent iterations in the understood archictecture and the conflict between the rebels Cal Kestis, who survived the
franchise have followed in urban design. As Julia Hell writes and the Empire was the Vietnam Jedi purge and has been hiding
Christian’s steps. An entire in “Imperial Ruin Gazers:” War, with the US as the villains— on the planet Bracca, posing as
Being in two generation of set designers, and thirty years later, we can stilla scrapper. The new Empire has
places at artists, and creators have looked “The Nazis set out to build an see this influence, both in the its eyes on all Jedi and other
to both the original Star Wars empire knowing that empires general aesthetics of the franchise unaligned Force sensitives,
once, in my trilogy and Albert Speer’s designs crumble and that their enemies and in the way Imperial lairs, requiring them to either join
body and in order to build their fantasy might one day gaze triumphantly bases, and spaceship interiors are the Empire as Inquisitors—
on screen, worlds. They are immediately at the rubble. Their scopic designed. Jedi hunters—or die. Kestis is
recognisable and iconic, reinventions represent scenarios eventually found. After a high
is indeed impressive and imposing, but of identity—that is, scenarios Older games, such as Jedi Knight speed chase through Bracca, he
engaging. those are not the reasons they in which the ruin gazer in the II, use this influence effectively, is rescued by a ragtag group of
are so effective as worldbuilding present imagines another ruin translating it into elements of heroes. He joins them and their
tools. All of those red and black gazer like himself looking at the the game, like its level design, travels take the group across the
colour schemes, cruel angles, ruins in the future.” that matter more than surface- galaxy, to different planets with
and imposing concrete buildings level aesthetics. This especially very different environments, from
remind us of a time and a place Their vision and plans may have applies to Jedi Knight’s industrial the lush forests of Kashyyyk—
that is very much ingrained in failed, as photographs of Berlin at exteriors, both in the base in the Chewbacca’s homeworld—
(Western) popular consciousness: the end of the Second World War first mission and the Imperial to Dathomir—Darth Maul’s.
World War II and the Third Reich, can testify, but the ruins were mining facility and prison in the Despite the obvious differences
and of the stories and narratives always the intention, and this one that follows it. And it’s also between these environments,
both history and other media architectural goal is reflected in interesting to compare the way the key elements used in order
have told about their era. the way the Empire’s designed in the complex appears in that to construct the levels stay
the Star Wars franchise's many game to how a similar location pretty much the same. The
Nazi architecture is built with a iterations. is depicted in a later game: Star enemy classes are similar—
reminder that everything must Wars Jedi: Fallen Order (Respawn, fast opponents, big opponents,
end and dies sometime as part The original set decorators for 2019). optional minibosses—and the
of it; the fascist worldview is Lucas’s first trilogy looked to Nazi level design is as well.
obsessed with death, its own and design and architecture in order Set five years after the fall of
the Other’s, and this is translated to build their evil space empire— the Republic, Fallen Order casts Fallen Order’s levels are hard
to the way the Nazis built and even if the original inspiration for players as former Jedi Padawan to navigate: there is a map that

sometimes is more a hindrance own personal playground. And it
than a help, and it rewards works!
return trips. The environment's
construction is reminiscent of However, despite the fact that
games like the Souls saga or the game also takes its design
Metroid. There are dozens of cues from the original trilogy and
locked doors, elevators, and that its set pieces are what we’ve
hidden passageways you can come to expect from the Star
only open from one side, or with Wars universe, they nonetheless
abilities you don’t yet possess and have lost some of what makes
that you won’t possess until later Jedi Knight compelling. This
in the game. difference is most clear in two
specific locations: one of them
Despite their many twisty turns, is the Imperial refinery on the
I found Fallen Order’s levels aforementioned planet Kasshyyk.
much less frustrating than Jedi The other is the Fort Inquisitorius
Knight II’s. The map helped, but on Nuur.
the biggest difference might just
be modern game design: Fallen In recent years, a kind of
Order is more forgiving and ‘user environmentalist message can
friendly.’ You’re guided through be inferred in some Star Wars
the game’s environment via properties. (The planet Lothal’s
visual cues and other tricks; the devastation in Star Wars Rebels
puzzles—if you can call them comes to mind.) Fallen Order
that—are of the “push that until it continues this trend. The refinery
moves” variety. Fallen Order isn’t and the subjugation of the native
a mean or cruel game. It wants Wookiees are at the centre of
you to have fun, to feel like a rebel the narrative, and the set pieces
Jedi on the run from the Empire, are designed to drive this point
cutting down stormtroopers and home. However, despite the
using the setting as your very lush environments, the oil-slick
Left: Star Wars: Jedi Knight II - Jedi

Outcast, (Maria Bonete).

sheen of the lakes and rivers, hurt you if you stay there too area, but the way you’re forced of the saga. It's hostile and
and the smoking chimneys, it long. Now and then, the earth to interact with it, and how the aggressive—and reminiscent of
falls short. These details drive shakes. This is a harsh, cruel combination of gameplay and Speer’s designs for the new Reich.
I am not sick, the point home, and the setting environment, and the gameplay aesthetics make you feel: as if
but healthy is believable—or as believable as is unforgiving. If you aren’t you're witnessing something However, despite this somewhat
Star Wars can be—but the overall careful, the camera will see you dangerous and oppressive and effective first impression,
in my home sense of destruction isn’t as and alarms will blare; the turrets ugly—and, at the same time, the menace stops there. The
and virtual emotionally affecting as it could mounted on the walls will shoot, fascinating. aforementioned walkway and the
environments. be. and so will the stormtroopers surrounding area are just a set
patrolling on the walkways. In Fallen Order's Inquisitorius—a piece. Respawn knows how the
On the other hand, the Imperial Crossing the chasm over the pipes wedge-like monster of a fortress Empire is supposed to look, but it
mines on Artus in Jedi Knight is hard—they shake and shudder, built deep under the seas of feels like it doesn’t know why.
II create a feeling of natural and the controls and the camera Nur—Respawn takes the dark and
ruin much more economically are finicky whether you play in sterile hallways first encountered It could be argued that the
and effectively, and with fewer first or third person. in the 1977 film’s Death Star to Inquisitorius's design is just doing
resources. new heights (or should we say its job. It’s there to make you
It’s a relatively short sequence: all depths?) and somehow fails to stop and stare at it, up and up
The beginning of the Imperial in all it doesn't take longer than make them interesting. Like the and up, while you walk towards
mines mission takes place in a five or ten minutes, depending Death Star, the Inquisitorius's the place where the actual fight
barren, dark canyon. Once you on your ability level and how size is the most shocking thing will take place. That may be its
find your way outside, you find long you take to look around. about it. It feels like an enormous objective, but it is disappointing
yourself standing at the edge of a Nonetheless, it’s effective and sea monster, a biblical leviathan and indicative of the rest of the
chasm. Pipes and ducts crisscross striking. It shows us a kind of transposed to Star Wars, game that it only does that—that
the void. Beyond them, you can place we didn’t really see in the crouching in the dark. Especially by then we know very well not
see the concrete construction original movies, and builds upon interesting is the walkway that to expect anything else. The final
of the mines' entrance, dark that material and its inspiration takes you to the setting for the walkway that connects with the
against the sulphurous sky. There to construct something that feels final boss fight against the main area where you fight the game’s
is a camera watching over the like Star Wars but which doesn’t antagonist, the Second Sister. last boss is designed to do two
area, and deep below, under the mind going a bit beyond Lucas’s It’s black on red and yellow, the things: take you from point A to
pipes, shines something green movies and taking chances. It’s colours associated with the Dark point B without shortcuts, and
and viscous, whose fumes will not just the aesthetics of this Side and therefore the villains make you feel small, but in the

This page: Star Wars: Jedi: Fallen
Order (Maria Bonete).

way you or I will feel small when disorient and confuse on a deeper
looking at an especially big lorry. level, too. The Death Star isn’t
scary because it’s big and grey
And that is very much not the and red and black: it’s fearsome
point: the Death Star and other because its design, its behaviour,
iterations of Imperial architecture and the way it interacts with the
in the Star Wars series don’t movie’s characters let you know
impress and intimidate just that it can and will hurt you. Like
because of their size. Instead the Empire itself, the Death Star
of driving home the horror of is a death machine, and it looks
the Imperial machine through like one.
environmental storytelling and
level design, Fallen Order’s Jedi Knight II's Artus mines
Inquisitorius feels like the prison camp is an Imperial base
lovechild of a Binding of Isaac that manages to much more
level and an Ikea. The only real effectively express what the
challenge is the sheer quantity of Empire is—or was; the game is
enemies you are supposed to mow set a few years after the death
through. Everything else is just of the Emperor and the Battle
set dressing. of Endor—through a clever
combination of level design, game
Fallen Order reproduces Roger mechanics, and set design.
Christian’s very inspired set
designs but forgets or refuses to The final chamber in Fallen
engage with why they were so Order’s Inquisitorius finds its
effective in the first place—that visual precursor in the gate
they're meant to tell us something puzzle in this level. But while Jedi
about the world, its history and Knight forces you to outsmart this
its characters. Simply showing area in order to move on, Fallen
that the Empire's buildings exist Order believes that its job is just
is not enough. They need to thoughtlessly replicating what
Left: Star Wars: Jedi: Fallen Order

(Maria Bonete).

This page: Star Wars: Jedi: Fallen
Order (Maria Bonete).

Respawn knows has worked in looks like it was designed by the much rubble, concrete grey and
previous iterations of Star Wars same people who designed the pockmarked, steel beams and
games on an aesthetic level alone. Death Star’s hallways, and what’s dust. Just ruins, forgettable and
It feels more, it feels like it belongs to cheap, under an alien sky.
dangerous Both games make use of the same universe as the movies.
blueprints inherited from the The twists and turns along the MB
and original material. The building way, the hidden levels and arcane
oppressive; blocks are the same. But while puzzles, the harsh grey and white
it makes you Fallen Order uses them to build and red of the environment:
a glorified hallway between point they transcend nostalgia and
feel hunted. A and point B, Jedi Knight II’s in turn feel more rooted, better María Bonete
developers allow themselves to connected to the world of Star Escoto (Elche,
have fun. The aforementioned Wars. 1993) is a US-
Jedi Knight II gate puzzle is based Spanish
byzantine and requires quite a Because of this, Jedi Knight writer and scholar.
lot of lateral thinking, and then II’s developers demonstrate a Their interests are
it takes you all around the area, better understanding of both climate fiction, the
up and down dozens of hallways the material they’re working gothic, pop culture
and hidden elevators stuffed with and its original inspiration. and videogames.
with enemies and hidden turrets. Their Imperial bases feel like
Visually they’re similar, but the they’ve been built by an Empìre
way you’re forced to navigate in decline that, while it thought
these areas couldn’t be more it’d last forever, couldn’t help but
different. Jedi Outcast's level foreshadow its own demise. These
makes you think and keep moving, bases are imposing and hostile
counting down your blaster packs and byzantine all at once. They
and shuffling around narrow make you, the player, feel hunted
walkways in order to avoid and harried. And nonetheless
enemy fire and shoot back. It their eventual destruction is
feels dangerous and oppressive; inevitable. Once they’re gone,
it makes you feel hunted. It they look like what they are: so

FUNGAL DANCE, Control
HOUSING REPUTATIONS, Control
Transparency /
Opacity
feature Lucas Marques dos Santos

A
ntica is relentless. On Coming back to the game world walking, socializing, or sleeping. characteristics. Transparency
the oldest continent of Tibia was fascinating. The But who are they? What are the and opacity are keywords to
of the medieval MMORPG, created by German stories of their items? How were understand the mechanisms of the
world of Tibia—a company CipSoft in 1997, was they acquired? current ideology. Neoliberalism Connected by
1997 MMORPG—bodies pile my first experience in the genre shapes every aspect of our the way we
up on the cobblestone streets — one that I share with many Transparency and opacity existence, including our focus
of Thais, also the oldest city in Brazilians. It's an aesthetically categories are intrinsic to here, cities and videogames.
perceive the
the world. If you're not in a safe minimalist game, with simple gaming. Games have both To investigate how neoliberal contradictions
zone, you can get killed among pixel graphics and no sound. Even invisible processes and visible ideology and material problems of power in
monuments of kings, in alleys, though having a home computer representations. But in virtual manifest within these subjects,
or on dirt sidewalks. The face of was a luxury in the early 2000s worlds, transparency and opacity we can look at two Brazilian virtual cities.
your executioner is impassioned. in Brazil, people played Tibia in are especially apparent in public online gaming experiences: Tibia
You probably just crossed internet cafés, workplaces, and and private spaces. Michel and Grand Theft Auto Online,
someone's path and heard a spell anywhere else with a functional Foucault uses these terms to especially its role-playing (RP)
cast. That's all you read in the PC. Today, most of Tibia's 40,000 outline the opacity of power community. These games are
chat. Communication in Antica is daily players, in its official and and the transparency of the separated from one another by
opaque for a beginner. alternative servers, are Brazilians. individual. The Czech-Brazilian many years, unlike each other
Tibia's houses, however, are It has a reasonable number of philosopher Vilém Flusser in many ways, yet connected
transparent. As we approach viewers on Twitch, but on the articulates their opposition to by the way we perceive the
the inhabitant's residences in a Brazilian-dominated streaming understand technical images, from contradictions of power in virtual
top-down perspective, we can platform Booyah, Tibia is the photography to computing. The cities.
see the entire interior. Pixelated second most-watched game, brilliant geographer Milton Santos
thousand-dollar helmets side by behind only Free Fire and toe to writes about luminous and opaque We begin our journey in Tibia's
side with worthless chainmail in a toe with Grand Theft Auto V. areas of cities, marked by the continent of Antica. I’m in front
clumsy arrangement. Or colorful In my adolescence, the game's presence or absence of technical of Alanui Institute, located in
floor patterns made with cheap houses fascinated me. They rationality. the southwest of the city of
furniture, stones, and other items. seemed unreachable because they The notion of power and Thais. While on a search for an
The combinations are multiple, represented a unique relationship ideology is at the heart of these interlocutor, I came across the
but the principle is always the between transparency and opacity. contributions. All of them Institute. The institute works with
same: anyone can see. Yes, we can see their interior, reference neoliberalism, either “leaders and social organizations
maybe even see characters nominally or in their genesis and a global network of supporters
Previous page: Tibia (Lucas Marques

dos Santos).

to promote equality, social justice,are subtle and don’t break
and opportunity in [the] form of character. I explicitly mention my
art for all players”. From outside, old experience with Tibia to her.
I observe all four floors of the Analui's answers transform that
Institute. There's an entrance hall information into diegesis, making
in which a non-player character me implicitly understand what
(NPC) greets you. language to use as we continue.
Tibia’s “king,” for example, refers
I let Alanui, my interlocutor, know to developer CipSoft in some
I have arrived, and follow her contexts.
descent from the upper floors.
She greets me and invites me She mentions that rents in Antica
to enter. As I lay on a chair, she went up in the last few years for
goes to the oven and asks if I many reasons. There are inactive
drink tea. I accept, wondering properties owned by retired
how I would sip a virtual cup of players. Even with the inhabitants'
tea. Alanui is remarkable at role- warning, the king does not act and
playing. Her language is poetic and does not provide transparency.
hopeful. She recalls when a group The real estate market is strong
of players created the Institute, in Antica. Recently, the game
unhappy with some of the Antican saw transactions of 700 million
citizens' actions, to include more gold coins, the equivalent of
people in culture initiatives. She US $1000, in its property sales.
laments the loss of soldiers. “Time Buying houses in Antica almost
passes, people come and go ... But guarantees a return on the player's
the outflow has been greater than investment since CipSoft promises
the inflow.” Analui wants to help it will never junction with another
people by creating purpose. continent. (In real life terms, this
means that servers often merge
There’s elegance in role-playing. over the years if the player base
References to the exterior world decreases, which can interfere
Right: Tibia (Lucas Marques dos

Santos).

with the real estate merchants in houses was a waste of time.
who make their living trading Houses, with their transparency,
houses.) I heard about players were a means of displaying
earning 1 billion gold, more than rare items and trophies from
$1,400 per sale. quests. Suzy, along with other
The Alanui Institute resides in a characters, began a new modality
very privileged place. Thais is theof gaming. In the beginning,
players combined items dropped
center of all lands. Alanui tells me
that people have offered fortunes by monsters and quests to design
to buy the Institute’s building. shapes. CipSoft noticed this
They refuse to sell. Tibia's money movement and added decorative
is impossible to separate from realobjects in its official store. Today,
money, so the dynamics of the it’s one of the company’s most
neoliberal real estate market stillreliable income sources. Each
apply in the virtual world. update adds dozens of items,
bought with Tibia Coins, to
“Anything in Tibia can be charged the game's stores. Over time,
to do”, says Suzy Kill, Tibia’s habitants have been given more
most famous interior decorator, reasons to stay at home through
when I talk to her in-game. She items like dummies, which are
and Paollah run the fan page Tibia used to train skills.
Home, where they share houses,
advertise contests, and teach Suzy’s decorations range from
decoration. They, however, never the usual collections of rare items
charge for their services. to branded figures, like Disney’s
Ariel and Ronald McDonald.
When Suzy began to experiment Some of these house creations
with objects in her Tibia house, draw inspiration from the cities
decorating was not a consolidated they occupy, like the pyramids of
activity. People thought creating Ankrahmun and glacial structures
patterns and new configurations in Svargrond. Another source
Right: Tibia (Lucas Marques dos

Santos).

of decorations is furniture behaviors vary from server to always come up with creative empty of its sociopolitical context,
(wardrobes, statues, cabinets) and server, so we shouldn't take ways to role-play and positively that ultimately functions as a
plants that spawn in specific areas. these practices as homogeneous. change their communities. simulacrum of Grand Theft Auto:
You can’t put them into your Ultimately, the company-king sets San Andreas’ Los Santos, too. The They
backpack, so you have to push the conditions in the world and Now, I ignore all the burden of new city iterates on the old one. trusted
the objects to your destination. it will always regulate only what hunting and leveling, and discover It has its version of bourgeois
It takes a lot of time to move benefits accumulation and only my new favorite way to play: Beverly Hills, of police brutality,
me to
them, so some players will take gives players liberty within those walking on foot from city to city. of 1992's Los Angeles riots. Jon comprehend
on the task for money. Some game systems. The king’s power is Not fearing being killed. Enjoying Bailes, author of Ideology and the new ways
paths contain bridges activated by opaque, it’s limits difficult to grasp only the different environments Virtual City, notices that even the
levers. Players can charge a toll to in the world. and sneaking around the streets. act of moving through the game to play, to
activate them. is aggressive and confrontational. engage with
It’s strange how Tibia’s players “Los Santos appears as a the world.
In Tibia, everyone can be an face scammers and hackers as an convincing urban space," Bailes
entrepreneur. The most common inescapable fact. Suzy's account writes. “Yet its inhabitants are
way to make a living from the has been hacked twice before. never friendly and can be nothing
game is farming gold coins. This She lost a large amount of money Grand Theft Auto V is full of more than service providers,
isn't new for MMOs titles. And, in the last one. Players in Antica contradictions, though the competitors or victims.”
as in Runescape and Axie Infinity, are even more paranoid of heists. cynicism of its single-player Released in 2013, GTA V is still one
it's usually players from Venezuela Hyperlinks from within and campaign is firmly entrenched in of the most played and watched
who take on these laborious tasks outside the game can always be a neoliberal ideology. Rockstar games, especially its multiplayer
as a principal source of income. tricks by hackers. Knowing this, I Games acknowledges the myths versions, which sees Los Santos
Guilds may also issue polemics was surprised by the confidence of capitalism and its power host real players and open up a
in some servers. There are Alanui, Suzy Kill, and Paollah relations but sees the only myriad of new perspectives on
accusations of players being showed when inviting me to visit solution in conforming with the power.
extorted to join guilds, for their houses. I could've been a system, joining it in an act of self-
instance, made to pay a monthly scammer. But they trusted me to preservation. We begin with GTA Online,
fee just to walk freely in guild- comprehend new ways to play, to Los Santos, where the game Rockstar’s official multiplayer
owned land. Most of the servers engage with the world. Despite the unfolds, manifests neoliberal mode. Its key feature is a series of
have a hegemonic guild, the king’s opaque efforts to manage power in each of its components. heists, carefully created missions
winner of wars. Community what players develop, people will It’s a simulacrum of Los Angeles, with cutscenes, planning phases,

and coordination between and-seek games.
players. The game also presents
other tasks, like deathmatch Of course, there are plenty of
competitions and car races. pleasures when playing GTA
Playing GTA Online for the first Online. But perhaps the whole
time is overwhelming. There is of Los Santos can be loosely
a stream of phone messages, compared to what Milton Santos,
and pop-ups signaling events. in the book The Nature of Space,
The streets and sidewalks are calls luminous urban zones.
awkward: while NPCs have their Places where the ordinariness of
programmed routines—cars “technical objects create a routine
stop at red lights, workers don’t mechanics, a system of gestures
sleep on their job, passersby are without surprise”. Zones where
just passersby—random players the middle class and elite are
in your city run, bumping into softened by technical rationalism
whatever is ahead of them. Cars and mass culture. Spaces of
recklessly cruise the streets, exactness, of closed structure.
without much notice of non- Getting to the top is only a matter
human citizens. Communication of time and knowledge in GTA
by voice is possible but almost Online. Numerous GTA Online
absent with strangers. “solo” guides teach optimal
investments to create wealth.
Without friends, Los Santos seems While 30 players can gather
cold, more artificial than its single- around Los Santos in a public
player counterpart. It’s designed multiplayer session, your private
only for crime logic. Its urban property and sense of individuality
ruins provide a stage for killing are always secure. You can activate
hordes of enemies. The acquisition a passive mode, which ensures
of gradually fancier headquarters that other players can’t harm
marks your financial progress. you as long as you do the same.
Prison buses are objects of hide- Multiple players can own the same
Right: Grand Theft Auto Online (Lucas

Marques dos Santos).

property in a session because the These kinds of places are opposed
game automatically separates each by opaque urban spaces where
one’s places. creativity assumes its true form.
Poorer zones, not completely
GTA Online's passive rental touched and shaped by technical
properties best embody the rationalism. Their population
aspects of transparency and presents new debates and ideas.
opacity, and its crime logic “This is how they re-evaluate the
meritocracy. When you acquire technosphere and psychosphere,”
a business property, a new set Santos writes, “finding new uses
of contraventions open up. and purposes for objects and
Every building is a façade for a techniques and also new practical
more thrilling illegal operation. articulations and new norms in
Bunkers stock weapons for sale. social and affective life.”
Motorcycle clubs hide cocaine labs
where workers in underwear—in GTA role-playing (or “RP”)
Breaking Bad style—manufacture is far from being a perfect
the product. The undergrounds representation of opaque
of nightclubs, the ultimate stage urban spaces, but it offers
of ownership empire, host money counterhegemonic and affective
laundering, drugs manufacturing, responses to GTA Online. The
and other criminal operations. GTA RP scene takes place on non-
Although these places inform official servers, powered by a mod
the main GTA message about called FiveM, which have specific
what makes a rotten society— rules and systems for role-playing.
crime reigns even more where Most of them simulate realistic
you can’t see it—everything behavior and quotidian work. Its
works according to expectations, popularity has surpassed GTA
in a mechanical, repetitive, and Online on streaming platforms.
transparent way. Before joining any notable RP
servers, players must typically
Right: Grand Theft Auto Online (Lucas

Marques dos Santos).

pass a trial. Every role-playing the collaboration of other players: Santos plays itself. From this point role-play servers. Players must
city has a set of rules, which must bus drivers, food delivery bikers, on, trying to establish a hierarchy fear for their existence. It's no
be studied in order to succeed electricians. And there are jobs in the simulacrum is a hopeless different from reality. These
I tried to in a bot test, an interview with that put you under a hierarchy: task. rules—like the prohibition of
negotiate. the staff, or through practice medics, nurses, car mechanics, anti-RP, when players break
demonstrations in mirror servers. lawyers, police, and professional What Brazilian servers also share diegesis with references to
My death Cities like Cidade Alta and NoPixel, criminals. is the logic between places and the outside world—are what
was where famous personalities play, roles. Safety zones—places where both limit and enable creative
educational. have long waiting lists and detailed Work is where players solidify killing, stealing, and shooting expression within the city. For
selection processes. bonds and create consistent RP are prohibited—are established starters, killing has a purpose,
stories. Unlike Tibia, most GTA at open-air public spaces or and criminal activities acquire a
In my first RP experience, I land RP servers don’t allow in-game institutions like the hospital. level of bureaucracy, with steps
in Los Santos wearing underwear, currency selling outside the game. Brazilian favelas at the periphery to obey. Talking to other players,
a jacket, and sunglasses. I have Devoting oneself to a job is a moral of Los Santos are a common creating communities, dancing,
some money in my pocket and a duty, an implicit agreement not to feature. They are gang territories. flirting, filming, writing, drinking,
free bicycle to take into the heart abandon your coworkers. It can be One day at dawn, I entered Roxos’ eating—everything, from the
of the city. But I didn't know that a burden, too, an obligation to log favela, judging no one was there. extraordinary to ordinary in-game
bikes have locker alarms, so I take into the city every day. A gang member found me beside narratives—become a necessity to
the journey by foot. I notice that the football field. At first, they live in Los Santos.
pedestrians are the last priority Role-playing itself is the best way thought I was a police spy. It
of Los Santos' urbanism. The city to understand the ideologies at was on my face that I was merely These infinite possibilities,
is a bit empty. The most reliable play in GTA RP. Our experience a noob. I received the most combined with its vast ecosystem
place to start a conversation is in the real world molds what we common metalinguistic threat— of characters and landmarks,
the central square, where citizens consider acceptable in role-playing, “You should have love for your probably explain the incredible
gather. At some point, in all of my showing us the snippets of reality life!”— and was told I shouldn't success of GTA RP. It’s impossible
interactions, the question emerges: that are worth representation and enter every open area just to grasp the enormity of the
“What’s your job?” interpretation. Social conduct because I can. I tried to negotiate. role-playing servers' popularity,
passes from server to server, My death was educational. but their amalgamation with
Occupations are essential in creating invisible norms. Gangs streaming culture is a relevant
GTA RP experiences. There are like the Laranjas, Rosas, and Roxos This kind of “love for life” is factor. Steamers like xQcOW
automated jobs that don’t need exist on different servers. Los the golden rule of hardcore and Loud Coringa, constantly in

Twitch's top 10 most-watched Showrooms appear in Los GTA RP creates radical turns embodies neoliberal power and
streams, often draw more than Santos' main plaza, events in Grand Theft Auto's legacy. its relation with the city. In any
100,000 viewers to their GTA RP gather influencers outside the Its players and viewers bring case, we should always watch
A complex, livestreams. Since servers allow, game, even the in-game jobs the experiences of neglected the creative ways in which
opaque, new at most, a few hundred players emulate real ones—like food urban zones into the game, players surpass vicious norms,
simultaneously, RP is watched delivery. Although the market from narratives based on real- introducing new modes to engage
interpretation more than played, and streamers wants these places and objects life behavior to music blasting with the ambient. If they maintain
of Brazilian are the most prestigious stars and to be seen and integrated into in car sound systems. But RP transparency, whether that's
reality assets. game narratives, brands draw cities can advance beyond through houses or avatars, that
While the promises of metaverses the line at criminal and violent infinite reproductions of Los domain is a player's vehicle for
seem omnipresent in gaming situations. Rather than being fully Santos and familiar ideological expression. Lucas Marques is
news, few are concrete. Between incorporated into the setting, systems. When GTA shows its a journalist from
Mark Zuckerberg's enthusiastic these brands' attempts to merge artificiality, it also debunks the LMS Brazil. He studies
promises regarding Meta and with the digital environment often value of conforming to hegemonic and writes mostly
the billion-dollar speculation results in the creation of strange, ideological models in the name of about videogames,
deserts of Decentraland, GTA obtrusive bodies in the city. Their realism. Perhaps now's the time autobiography,
RP is a more vivid yet less purpose is too transparent. It's for game players to experience and culture.
celebrated phenomenon. In Brazil, too different from, for example, the city and their virtual body in
big brands are entering virtual the favelas, which blend into creative, disruptive ways.
cities (Jeep, Trident, Tinder, and Los Santos's topography of
Corsair, to name a few.) Alongside mountains, and its city borders, Tibia and GTA RP offer different
membership programs and the its mirrors of reality. The perspectives on how neoliberal
selling of items, sponsors are abandonment of the State, the power is reproduced. Tibia
one source of income for servers. drug traffic, and the war on drugs and its big external market
Is it illegal since everything are all here, but also the funk replicate both internal issues,
runs through Rockstar Games' parties, the community, and the like real estate speculation, and
moderation? No one knows for art. Unlike the brands' presence, outside problems, like informal
sure. Rockstar hasn't made a these elements create a complex, real jobs. We began with how
clear statement. For now, RP is opaque, new interpretation of the transparency of the house
still growing and becoming more Brazilian reality. uncovers the fallout of opaque
professional. power. In GTA RP, role-playing

Ashina’s Nightfall
photo feature Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice | Autumn Wright

"
W
hat is an irrevocably altered by siege and
ideology by fire. But it was not the Foreign
without a Ministry’s rats that disarmed the
space to castle of its natural and manned
which it refers, a space which it defenses, who killed the guards
describes, whose vocabulary and in the outskirts, defending the
links it makes use of, and whose broken bridge; the serpent, its
code it embodies?” ravine left open to the Ministry’s
–Henri Lefebvre, The Production engineers; the retainer, who
of Space would not let any past the castle
gates upon his breath.
At the end of Wolf’s quest to
acquire the Divine Dragon’s And with the heretical power
Tears, we emerge atop the he pursued in the name of
tenshu we had once fought motherland, Genichiro—student
so hard to climb. Entering the of Tomoe, adopted son of the
commandeered loft of our young Ashina, her greatest swordsman
lord, we find the patriarch of the and heir apparent—does not fight
besieged kingdom succumbed these Foreign invaders. He waits
to illness or to age, it is not yet outside the walls by a broken
clear. Then, stepping out upon bridge pointed west. Not for
the tiled irimoya roof, smoke enemy forces, but for Wolf and
obscures our vision. Night his vassal lord.
has fallen on the kingdom of
Ashina, and so have the Foreign The themes of Sekiro: Shadows
Ministry’s forces. The sky is dark, Die Twice are mediated through
the castle alight. such movements, through the
motion of power in land and
The awesome sight continues body. But to read meaning in
below Wolf’s perch. The land movement through space we
outside the castle’s walls totally, must first make a rhetorical turn.
Previous and following pages: Sekiro:

Shadows Die Twice (Autumn Wright).

Disability rhetorician Jay Dolmage the decrepit fishing hamlet built to Sekiro in FromSoftware's Emily Grabham describes how
has defined rhetoric as “the of straw and mud brick beneath gameography. The game is defined such prosthetics worn by veterans
function and circulation of power the grounds very depths, the game by its movement. The verticality, can ‘flag’ the nation on the skin,
in language.” Rhetorical space space is thus constructed by the speed, and maneuverability of aligning self and state through a Through
is then the material shaped by consequences of social production. Wolf’s grappling hook, afforded by reproduction of bodily likeness. repetition,
histories of power, described by As player and infiltrator, we the prosthetic he inherits, grants
rhetorician Roxanne Mountford navigate this heterotopic kingdom. what we could call “freedom of Wolf’s prosthetic can then be
space can
as “a physical representation of Any movement must itself be movement.” But we cannot truly imagined as an extension of state also erode.
relationships and ideas” and by rhetorical in such a space. In understand the movement without violence. This problematizing
Richard Marback as a “physical Ashina, power (as life and wealth) the body that moves. of the prosthetic, what David
representation of...injustice.” is concentrated upwards and T. Mitchell and Sharon L.
As divine water flows from the nearer the center. We begin on the Philosopher Sara Ahmed writes, Snyder would describe as a
mythical Fountainhead Palace, outskirts—the periphery—and just “bodies take the shape of norms character-making trope, prompts
rhetorical space too “carries below the ground floor. There is that are repeated over time and an interrogation of Sekiro’s
with it the sediment of cultural always cause to look up in Sekiro, with force.” For as ideology mechanical and narrative conceit.
tradition, of the social imaginary.” to castle and monastery and shapes space, space shapes What is this really freedom
Much like the kingdoms' palace. Where the landscape does the body. In Sekiro, Genichiro from? In a world where power is
Rejuvenating Waters, rhetorical not conform to social hierarchies, materializes this violence, enacted portrayed through the ability to
spaces, Mountford writes, “carry man builds its own pedestals of through a narrative prosthesis, prolong life, Wolf is reduced in
the residue of history upon them.” wood and clay. in which Wolf’s acquired limb form to a sword.
Indeed, Ashina is constructed difference is solved by a prosthetic
through the residual distribution But we also look up to transgress that grants him hypermobility. Play in Sekiro becomes a
of power, which takes the form these hierarchies, enshrined both Wolf’s disarmament by the state negotiation of Wolf’s disabled
of a vampiric immortality. Critic through architecture but also level made as an attempt to keep him subjectivity and the architecture of
and archaeologist Justin Reeve design. We will not fight our way domesticated, human, for we the built and natural environment.
has described the placemaking through rank and file, march past see what he could become in the The body resists; It does not just
of Ashina as “a series of spatially the gates and up the stairs. We Sculptor, what happens when fold. Through repetition, space
overlapping polarities in the will stealth, and trespass, and, the old shinobi picks up the can also erode. In his new form,
architecture and urban planning of course, grapple. The title's sword having relinquished the Wolf comes to possess metis—
of its world.” From the timber hallmark grappling hook is the contraption described in the text both a kind of knowledge as well
peaks of its sukiya style castle to central mechanical conceit unique as “a replica of a human arm.” as a quality of movement. Dolmage

describes metis as “an embodied movement, all of which—however
intelligence” that “illuminates a different—return to the body as
shadowy tangle of body-values, the place where metis becomes
body-denials, and body-power.” apparent.”
The intelligence symbolized by
the Greek goddess of cunning And as Wolf maneuvers his way
who birthed Athena, goddess through Ashina, metis as a tactical
of wisdom, from her confines mode of negotiating a specific
in Zeus’s head; represented in bodily subjectivity begins to make
the Greek world by the crafty, sense of Sekiro’s use of non-human
disabled Olympian Hephaestus or animals. Monkey and ape and bull
the trickster hero Odysseus; and and serpent all inhabit different
observed in the natural world in forms, employ different modes
animals like the sly fox or elusive of attack, and each necessitates a
octopus. Metis is intelligence that different response which Wolf can
flows through the body and is in turn overcome through his use
made available by its very shape. of metis.
Rhetorician Debra Hawhee writes
that “metis, by its very nature, Humans like the Nightjar dawn
needs to be deployed.” Wolf’s animalistic forms, none more
prosthetic then functions as a imposing than the Owl and
symbolic vehicle. It represents his Butterfly, while others are fully
embodied metis, which is then transformed—the Orangutang,
employed with his Shinobi Tools, Cephalopodic nobles, and,
allowing him to circumvent both of course, the big koi—each
the contours of the social space employing tools and tactics not
as well as mechanical challenges, found in merely human foes.
“turning the tables” on greater Perhaps the Snake Eyes leper
foes. This mode of interaction colony of arquebus-wielding,
exhibits “an affinity for tricks and bandage-clad warriors living in the
disguises, a twisting and turning Ashina Depths best evince this

culmination of body, environment, of bodily becoming, insofar as it ideology that shapes them. But in
and tactics described by metis. In is transmitted through a blurring game space, the world is never as
each case, Wolf responds in kind of boundaries between bodies.” it is. Though its historicity may
with his various tools, adaptability Indeed, Isshin, as the game's final in the literal sense be lacking,
the key to his continued survival. boss, expresses his cunning and the conscious and unconscious
adaptability through the mastery decision making of design
Fall to winter, day to night, the of different weapons, forms, and mimics the very real effects of
space responds to Wolf's advance. styles, synthesizing all the modes placemaking in our own. And
Though the Fountainhead Palace we have yet addressed. we are in need of interrogations
remains in a permanent moonlit that, beyond a single analysis,
spring, Wolf makes his fantastical The invasive, disabled by the “transform the ordinary,” reveal Autumn Wright is
traversal to the Divine Dragon’s state, marked by his disability, the surfaces of the world at their a games critic and
sanctuary when the land below attempts to flee the burning land, seams and rough edges. There anime journalist.
is in autumn, the sky the golden his purpose as a tool through is hope in such intervention that They studied
hue of magic hour. In every ending which the nation will refigure itself we can see the world as made; the rhetoric at the
that extends this far, his journey in opposition against made clear. body as constructed. Mutable, and University of
into the fantastic realm ushers in The Ashina could not keep the plastic. Central Florida.
an evening that Ashina does not Foreign Ministry’s advances at bay, You can find their
survive. but they could create a foreigner, We have been worn down enough writing on games
an intruder, an Other, to destroy in pursuit of far less. across the internet
The metic metaphor materializes in its place. Thus, Sekiro emerges and at Unwinnable
in full during Sekiro’s particularly as allegory for a contemporary AW Monthly, where
gory final battle. Isshin Ashina, the anxiety—immigration, and other they are a
body of the nation, is rebirthed Others, represented by animalistic columnist.
through the decapitation of forms as less than human.
Genichiro. Built on the sacrifice,
the nation emerges rejuvenated There is no more convincing an
in the face of its self-imposed argument than a space which
threat, the scene invoking the manifests as is. And at the end
birth of Athena, Metis’ daughter. of history, spaces conceal their
As Hawhee writes, metis “is a kind own creation, the influence of

Capture and Control
photo feature Umurangi Generation | Gareth Damian Martin

H
eterotopias began of refugees leaving, soldiers focus for the past five years, to posters, the soldiers and the
with me searching arriving, monsters attacking, riots capture the ways in which game citizens, the weapons and the
for agency through ongoing. Our role in these scenes spaces can represent, contest tools. While the initial power
photography. In 2017, is to photograph them, to be the and invert reality. By doing so dynamics are obvious, it feels like
there seemed so much potential witness to this world on fire. It's a I, and the writers and artists the camera gives you the chance,
in taking images inside a game. In game I thought about a lot when who have been published in this through cropping and controlling
the idea of redirecting the view, editing this issue, an issue which zine have been undertaking our the image, to forge new ones.
zooming in, cropping, revealing, perhaps more than any other, own representations, our own There is a limit, of course, to the
obscuring. A form of visual seems to paint a grim picture of contestations and inversions. We expressive possibility of a single
criticism that might unearth the what power means. have flipped worlds, broken them stage, but somehow that never
hidden materials, the ideologies, open, twisted and bent them. We feels like a problem. Perhaps
the meanings available to the But Umurangi isn't grim, not in the have taken critical control of the because, as time goes on, the game
player in all these incredible least. It is filled with neon-hued material and made it our own. doesn't change, but we change
spaces. But it isn't just about being anger, with stubborn hope and a This process is an addictive one: instead.
critical, it is about being present. belief in the importance of taking there is so much to unearth and
Getting as close as possible to pictures. So, in knowing that this is expose in game worlds, so many Things have changed since I began
entering these worlds we are the last issue of Heterotopias in its connections to reality and fantasy, this project. Since 2017, it seems
trapped outside, so as to imprint current form (though not the end to art history and ideology, that I like an age has passed, both in the
ourselves into their structures of the project as a whole), I wanted feel like we have only just begun world and in my own life. For this
of meaning. In short, taking to end things with Umurangi. I this process. reason, I am ready for something
images, and game photography in wanted to end things with anger new. But before we get there, let's
particular, allows us to take power. and expression and an eagerness Umurangi improves over time. have one last set of images, from
to look closer, and interrogate the The longer you spend in each of Umurangi itself. One last attempt
No game encapsulates this better digital spaces in front of us. its scenes, the more images occur to take control, to tell a story and
than Umurangi Generation. A to you, the more ideas start to to express something that cannot
2020 indie hit that arrived into Michel Foucalt describes flow. Once you no longer have the be expressed with words. Thank
this new world of ours with game heterotopias as spaces where real pressure of the timer, the game you, once again, for the chance to
photography as its central idea. spaces are, in his own words becomes a critical inquiry into do so.
In Umurangi we are presented “simultaneously represented, the tableux in front of you. You
with the apocalypse as a series contested, and inverted.” This look for new relations between GDM
of vignettes. Mostly static scenes is what we have taken as the the grafitti and the recruitment
Previous and following pages:

Umurangi Generation, (Gareth Damian
Martin).

Heterotopias 009 | August 2022
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Heterotopias 009

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Heterotopias 009 | September 2022 | games + architecture

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7 Defund the SimCity Police

50 This War of Mine

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That means we are turning our Perhaps unsurpisingly, player

Back cover: The Matrix Awakens: An

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Previous page: SimCity: Enhanced

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Right: SimCity: Enhanced Edition

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Right: SimCity 4 (Alexander King).

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Right: SimCity 2000 (Alexander King).

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Right: SimCity 3000 (Alexander King).

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Previous and following pages: Battlefield

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Previous Page: Ghost Recon: Breakpoint,

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Right: Ghost Recon: Breakpoint,

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Right: Ghost Recon: Breakpoint,

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Previous page: Cities: Skylines,

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Right: Cities: Skylines,

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Right: Cities: Skylines,

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