Ecomods: An Ecocritical Approach to Game Modification

This article takes brings an ecocritical perspective to the environmental mod scene around games like The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim to explore the various ideas about ecology, nature, and human-made environments. I use the term “ecomodding” in this article to describe these practices and the ways that they do (and do not) encourage modders and players to reflect on as well as perform ecology. Are ecomods simply expressions of terraforming already human-oriented environments towards human-centered aesthetics, or can these practices embody a form of digital gardening that allow for environments that resist, challenge, and escape ways of seeing and being that tend to define them? This article provides some initial readings and definitions to help start conversations around this topic.