The Unnatural (Eco) Narrative of Biomutant

The focus of this paper is the use of unnatural narrative in digital games (Ensslin & Bell, 2021), analyzed from the perspective of the econarratological proposition of the Anthropocene narrative theory (James, 2022). I argue that the presence of unnatural narrative in a game, by drawing the player’s attention to the environmental issues present in the storyworld, can invoke ecological thinking (May & Hall, 2024), and thus motivate the player to examine their own attitudes towards the environmental crisis troubling the actual world. This is exemplified in the game Biomutant (THQ Nordic, 2019), analyzed here as an ecogame (Milburn, 2024). Milburn argues that certain digital games, ones he calls neo-Lamarckian ecogames, “by tasking players to take responsibility for the evolved, transformative features needed for the continued inhabitation of a damaged planet, […] allegorize—and make actionable—the imperative to change tactics, to reconfigure and renovate in response to speculated futures” (Milburn, 2024, p. 395). By turning degraded environments into playable storyworlds, neo-Lamarckian ecogames invite the player to reflect on their own agency in a situation of environmental crisis, showing that action is possible if we accept our current biological conditions and take responsibility for our evolution. Among others, Milburn evokes the example of Biomutant, a game notable for the presence of a narrator, who not only explains and describes the world in the voiceover but also translates the speech of the storyworld inhabitants from their native languages to the language of the game (meaning the language selected by the player in the game settings)—both for the player and for their avatar. Notably, the narrator speaks in a way that makes it unclear whether he means to address the player or their avatar, creating confusion for the player, and as a result contributing to the unnatural character of the game’s narrative. This paper explores the use of unnatural narrative in digital fiction from the econarratological perspective, using Biomutant as a model example. Adopting this perspective, it draws from econarratology and the Anthropocene narrative theory on the one hand, and the ecogame scholarship on the other. In my analysis, I focus on the three elements of Biomutant’s narrative layer—the narrator, the narratee, and the narrative itself—and their mutual relationships. Considering the narrator, I question his role as a translator and a guide, both for the player and their avatar. I argue that through the use of double-deixis, which Ensslin and Bell (2021) call after Herman “the most ambiguous form of the second person” (p. 154), the narrator addresses both the player in the actual world and their avatar in the storyworld at the same time. The implications of the narrator’s role as a translator are also taken under consideration. By acting as a translator, the narrator remains in control of the narrative, influencing the player’s understanding of the game’s morality system, the environmental crisis, but also the military conflict that the storyworld’s tribes are involved in. Drawing from the translation studies scholarship (Baker, 2006), this paper takes note of the dynamics of translation between the player, the avatar, and the narrator, and recognizes how such dynamics contribute to the unnatural nature of the narrative and the ambiguity of the figure of the narrator. Being addressed directly by the narrator, the player is encouraged to reflect on their own position in the actual world and their attitudes towards the environmental issues that trouble it. In my research, I analyze ways in which such use of unnatural narrative influences the player to question the cognitive frameworks through which they read the storyworld of Biomutant (Hegglund, 2020), invoking ecological dynamics emerging through the experience of play (May & Hall, 2024). Lastly, I look to the Anthropocene narrative theory to ask, after James, “how do narratives provide us with safe contexts in which to explore how humans make and inhabit worlds in their own image?” (James, 2020, p. 185). From this perspective, I analyze how the storyworld of Biomutant reflects on the possible future of the actual world’s present, speculates about our future memory (Gülüm et al., 2024), and how the game’s theme of genetic and biological mutation plays into reflection on the player’s agency and attitudes towards current environmental issues (Milburn, 2024).