Constructing Posthuman Worlds with The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt

Interpretive Player Positioning in Digital Fantasy Role-playing Games

Abstract

In this article, I introduce a methodological approach to video games I call interpretive player positioning. It foregrounds the speculative worldbuilding techniques of fantasy worlds in digital role-playing games whose game mechanics fundamentally invite the player’s agency and active interpretation of the fictional world they build with their choices. With these entangling perspectives, the gaming experience of digital fantasy RPGs is portrayed here as mimetic and world-affecting. This concept is applied to a posthuman reading of The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt (2015), which highlights the potential of what I call critical mimesis: a re-interpretation of reality that foregrounds the player’s active interpretive role in critically examining various themes within the fictional world that they recognize from their reality.