LOST WORLDS OF ANDROMEDA
LOST WORLDS OF ANDROMEDA

Summary/Abstract: The paper offers a reading of Mass Effect: Andromeda (BioWare, 2017) vis-à-vis lost world romance (also dubbed“lost race romance”, or “imperial romance”), a late-Victorian era novelistic genre originating from H. RiderHaggard’s King Solomon’s Mines and serving as a major tool for British Empire propaganda and a source ofearly science-fiction conventions. We claim that the narrative failure of this ill-received game stems from itsadherence to the rigid principles and forceful themes of the genre and the colonial and imperial imaginaryinforming it. Our analysis aims at highlighting the way 19th-century novelistic convention can be remediatedas contemporary digital games, and to expose the link between the imperial imaginary and the ways in whichopen-world digital games are structured, on both the narrative and gameplay levels, even when they do notdirectly refer to the historical colonial legacy.

• Details
• Contents