Not Going Home: Transgeneric Elements and the Exploratory Branches of Walking Simulators

Abstract

The term ‘Walking Simulator’ surfaced after the release of its acclaimed educer Dear Esther (The Chinese Room, 2012). Since then, the term became a genre that raised questions on what constitutes a videogame, the narrative potential of the medium, and its societal possibilities. While responses to these questions have been given by a broad variety of people, when it comes to what constitutes a Walking Simulator, scholars, critics, and gamers hold on to a handful of early, now-canonical titles. Thus, our expectations of the genre stem from the qualities that have been found in and through a small percentage of its earlier examples. Throughout this thesis, I expand our understanding of Walking Simulators by analysing two more recent and divergent titles: Paratopic (Arbitrary Metric, 2018) and Eastshade (Eastshade Studios, 2019). After problematising the concept of ‘genre’, outlining genre as interchanging, and stating generic experiences with canonical titles, I analyse Paratopic’s and Eastshade’s textual and discursive dimensions. This analysis is guided by a theoretical framework that consists of the ‘lyric, dramatic, and epic position’, ‘affordances of aspects of actions’, and ‘patterns of spatial use’, as well a Critical Discourse Analysis that enables engagement with ergodic media. From these findings, I argue that the current conditions of the genre - and by this part of videogames as a medium - to be silently expanding yet vocally restricted to the perceived limits of Walking Simulators’ earlier titles.