Nature Playing: On the Experience of Contemplating Technologically Mediated Nature within the Game World of Riders Republic

Abstract

This contribution explores the practice of contemplative play or what the author proposes to call “nature playing”. This concept marks a continuity between the literary genre of “nature writing” and the way nature may be contemplatively experienced in video games, especially those with open-world natural landscapes. The author will discuss modes of nature playing within the mediated environments of the sports simulation game Riders Republic (Ubisoft, 2022). Nature playing will be analyzed as an aesthetic practice which may be fostered by purposeful design, or it may emerge from the player's own nature-driven sensibilities triggered by the aesthetic qualities of the game world. The author frames contemplative nature playing within a variety of concepts such as in-game wandering, slow play as well as ludic boredom. The article culminates in three autoethnographic ludic interventions, in which nature playing is captured in three contemplative pieces of nature writing.