Speculative fiction writer, sustainability researcher and friend of the blog Andrew Dana Hudson pointed us towards a show piece he wrote on the new gameplay footage for the new VR FPS shooter ‘Solarpunk’
Perhaps I’m being ungenerous to an early-stage trailer for a game that will eventually be very different. But in less than three minutes, the gameplay video seems to embrace most everything solarpunk as I’ve known it has been reacting against: soulless corporate aesthetics (covered up by plants), a future empty of diverse peoples and cultures, gunplay as the answer to delicate social and environmental problems, the centering individual heroes rather than collective action.
Worth a read if you are interested in the future of Solarpunk and how its aesthetic will get used as it moves into its new more widely known phase in culture, out in the sun. I think it speaks to our communities need to continually restate our commitments to create a multitude of spaces for indigenous sovereignties, reproductive justice, and radical queer politics.