"A train is passing through Stardew Valley": Post, Complex, and Cyberpastoral Video Games

Abstract

This article extends existing scholarship on the pastoral video game Stardew Valley (ConcernedApe 2014), highlighting the diffuse ways in which pastoral video games act as sites of encounter between oppositional impulses of nature and technology. Drawing on diverse literature, including Leo Marx's ([1964] 2000) description of the American pastoral, Paul Martin's (2011) idea of the video game landscape as a garden, and Amanda Phillips's (2014) concept of "algorithmic ecologies," this paper proposes the term "cyberpastoral" to capture the nuanced interplay in how these games articulate the relationship between the natural and the technological. This framework is further tested through a close playing of Satisfactory (Coffee Stain Studios 2024), demonstrating the utility of the cyberpastoral in understanding contemporary video game environments. The analytical approach applied here has implications not just for scholarship of similar titles, but for wider study of games engaged with ecological and environmental care.