Games That Haunt Us

Games That Haunt Us: Gothic Game Space as a Living Nightmare is an examination of how the Gothic appears in game space to interrogate an area of substantial importance to contemporary games, with a focus on environments, bodies, and defining the Gothic in games.

The Gothic, both as a literary and videogame genre has increased in prominence amongst literature, media, and culture scholars globally, as games studies becomes a more recognized and exciting field of study and as Gothic scholars find new ways to apply their works across emerging mediums.

But why have Gothic games risen in popularity since 2010? What do players feel when they play these games? Why are themes surrounding fraught identities, mourning, and monstrosity gaining so much attention? Games That Haunt Us investigates the very nature of the Gothic and how video games provide new ways of connecting with the genre. The scholars in this collection look at why Gothic games are having their moment of popularity, the unsettling themes they evoke in unstable times, why we are fascinated with death and decay, theories surrounding body horror, and how games transform avatars and ourselves.

Games That Haunt Us is arranged into three sequential themes: what makes a Gothic game; Gothic environments in game space; and how Gothic bodies are approached and utilized in ludonarratives.

Author Biography

Stephanie Farnsworth is a PhD candidate at the University of Sunderland, UK. She is founder and Director of Events for MultiPlay, an international community of games scholars and researchers that hosts 4-5 online conferences each year. On the editorial board for MultiPlay, Stephanie is currently working on the Liberate Me Plenty anthology (2023) on queer game studies as well as a special edition journal on The Last of Us. Her research focuses upon ‘mutant theory’, expanding upon monster theory and examining the relationship audiences have to biotechnology. She writes about body horror, bodily transformations and biofuturism.