Aesth(ethics) in Ludonarrative Experiences: 11Bit’s Frostpunk

This article addresses the way Frostpunk’s saga highlights the semiotic nature of video games by establishing an aesthetic and ethical link in its ludonarrative mechanics and storytelling, which, in turn, may engage with the player in a debate where the identitarian discourses of both the fictional entities encoded within the game and the player (that is, of both functional and fictional agents) are put into question and thus may be reconfigured. To understand this connection between aesthetics, ethics, and identity, affect is central: through affect, players establish empathic links towards the encoded agents (including, but not limited to, the encoded citizens, the encoded setting, and the encoded avatar of the player within the game world), which in turn allows them to interact with them as if being real, at least while the playthrough is active. To achieve this, this article will first offer a theoretical review of the terms mentioned above (identity, affect, aesthetics, ethics), and then will apply them to 11Bit’s saga, Frostpunk. The article finishes with some conclusions regarding the semiotic nature of the video game and the universality of these analyses.