Imagining Extinction in Video Games

https://networks.h-net.org/group/announcements/20026808/imagining-extinction-video-games-international-symposium

Video games have spent the last few decades (re-)imagining dystopian and post-apocalyptic scenarios, as in, e.g., Fallout (1997-2018), The Last of Us (2013-2020), Horizon (2017-2022), Plague Inc. (2012), AWAY: The Survival Series (2021), Stray (2022),  Endling: Extinction is Forever (2022), or Frostpunk (2022). Often, these scenarios enact fantasies of (de-)extinction, requiring the player to actively participate and embrace their own agency within the game world. Yet, what exactly is the place of video games in the Sixth Mass Extinction? How do video games depict extinction, and how does the player experience it? What can be learned from these playful representations of annihilation? The international symposium Imagining Extinction in Video Games aims to bring these questions to the forefront and to provide fresh perspectives on the subject. This one-day event will take place online on Friday, April 26, 2024, and it will feature special guests Benjamin Abraham, Edmond Y. Chang, and Patrick Whitmarsh, and dialogic sessions at the intersection of game and extinction studies.