Right-Wing Images of Space and Völkisch Identity Constructions in ‘Heimat Defender: Rebellion’

Through plot, game play, and design, computer games can convey spatial images and notions of identity that are especially problematic when they involve right-wing propaganda. The following analysis explores the question of how these images are discursively produced and represented in the 2D jump-'n'-run digital game ‘Heimat Defender: Rebellion’. The game provides insights into how German right-wing extremists imagine a dystopia in 2084 and what role migration, globalisation, urbanisation and liberalism, among others, play in shaping public space. The analysis shows that, using the concept of ‘Heimat’, Germany’s Far Right justifies social demarcations, spatial classifications of the own and the foreign, as well as resistance and militant self-defence against ‘the other’.