Ludonarratology and Gamevironments in Dialogue

This article argues that game studies will benefit from an acute attentiveness toward religion, and that a gamevironments approach refined by insights generated in the recent developments in ludonarratology is what we need to study religion, a phenomenon and force diffused in the technical and cultural environments of games and gaming. Kerstin Radde-Antweiler (2024) emphasizes that a research design taking a gamevironments perspective must consider gaming, gaming-related actants, and gaming-related media practices, all located in the unity of technical and cultural environments. This holistic approach resonates with ludonarratologists’ attempt to dissolve the divide between technical systems and cultural narratives. Ludonarratologists such as Brendan Keogh (2008) and Weimin Toh (2008) specify what Radde-Antweiler calls actants as mediated (or embedded, enacted, and extended) bodies beyond the human. In this light, we may consider shifting from actant-centeredness to a focus on the embodied experiences of gamers, developers, branders, and other gaming-related practitioners, and the affective force that brings them and various media objects together. Moreover, following the lead of Tison Pugh (2019) who, among many others, applies ludonarratology to the study of narratives in general, we may proceed to discuss the mediatization and gametization of entire societies, a commitment shared by both gamevironments and ludonarratology. It is to be added that while we can discern a gaming structure in all kinds of narratives and other human endeavors, gamification as a labor paradigm, business strategy, and governmentality needs to be considered if we intend to study games as not just reflections of but part and parcel of reality. To demonstrate why the study of religion and gaming needs the gamevironments-ludonarratology paradigm, an analysis of Black Myth: Wukong (2024), China’s first AAA game inspired by Journey to the West (Wu 1592), a vernacular novel that has been transforming in the environments of Chinese religions, politics, and economy, is provided.