Trains, Stations, and Railways as Harbingers of Biopolitics in Digital Games: From Governance to Hauntology

This article presents research on the digital game representations of trains, stations, and railways from the perspective of the biopolitical theory. We aimed to analyze and depict different elements of life governance mediated by games that use rail infrastructure in their main narrative arcs, mechanics, and esthetics. We chose rail because of its well-documented role in colonial and imperial projects of modernity which have become the objects of game representations. Analyzing how games mediate rail infrastructure is therefore important for understanding how they mediate biopolitical projects, which elements can be traced as manifestations of biopolitics in these games, and what role they play in representations of ideas such as nationality, progress, history, and modernity.