The sixth issue of Heterotopias focuses on cities and time.
How can the ageless digital metropolises of games expand on our relationship with time?
BUY NOW $6 | pdf
9 Issue Bundle: Get 45% off when you buy all 9 issues of Heterotopias together! here
006’s cover looks at the history of Gotham City, from Tim Burton’s Batman to the recent Batman: Arkham Knight, connecting that iconic city to the history of futurist and even fascist architecture that forged its design. A photo series of the city supports this comprehensive exploration of one of the most influential cities of our time.
Surrounding this essay are pieces which engage with both the relationships between environment, power and history in Dishonored‘s Dunwall and Karnacca, and the gendered representation and navigation of Yharnam which distinguishes Bloodborne‘s gothic worldview from its Victorian inspirations.
Other features include an expansion of the connections between Shenmue and the rise of Japanese Modernity, exploring the inhuman urbanity of Nier: Automata‘s ruined Earth, and a look at how Portal 2 represents an exceptional example of games engaging with the passing of time. Supporting this is a unique photo feature which seeks to document the digital artifacts of Vane‘s vast desert.
Quotes
“Heterotopias’ examination of movement and the delineation of space within the brilliant game Inside is both beautiful and illuminating, revealing (as criticism should) more angles of endearment for a thing we already love.”
-Harvey Smith, Co-creative Director, Arkane Studios
“Heterotopias is a smart and beautiful zine, the meeting point between Foucault and video games I never knew I wanted.”
-Martin Robinson, Features Editor, Eurogamer.
“What’s being created here is the long-awaited body of work to bind architecture and video games—firmly, finally—as twin studies of the play of forms under light.”
-Nick Capozzoli, Architect and freelance videogame critic