On Striated Wilderness and Prospect Pacing: Rural Open World Games as Liminal Spaces of the Man-Nature Dichotomy

Abstract

From colonization to (post)industrial era, recreation guised as preservation of wilderness is a concept and ongoing topic in arts and media. This paper defines the distinct staging of untamed and pristine environment in open world games as striated wilderness which is constituted by aesthetics and gazing regimes of Western culture as well as by modularity and variability of computer games as data bases. Merging the wilderness discourse with concepts of tourist gaze and prospect-refuge theory, rural open world games can be analyzed as rhythmized liminal spaces of the man-nature dichotomy. Thus, they stand in the tradition of landscape gardens and nature parks where former survival instincts and urges for exploration are experienced for recreation and entertainment. Striated wilderness has to be differentiated between place (wilderness) and practice (wildness). How do open world games regulate our understanding of landscape and longing for nature?