Call for Papers:

Resonant Worlds: Sound, Matter, and Environmental Design in Games
Edited Collection
Edited by Michael Austin and Kate Galloway
[From the Gamesnetwork mailing list]

Deadline for submission of abstracts: August 15, 2026

Resonant Worlds: Sound, Matter, and Environmental Design in Games  is an edited collection that examines how video games render environments through sound, with particular attention to the sonic expression of materiality. While game studies has long emphasized visual worldbuilding and environmental storytelling, this volume foregrounds how sound communicates the textures, behaviors, and affordances of virtual matter, including water, ice, stone, wind, vegetation, and more, as dynamic, interactive systems.

The collection takes inspiration from prismatic and elemental frameworks to organize chapters around environmental-material categories rather than genres, platforms, or franchises. Each section focuses on a specific ecological or material domain, such as aquatic, forest, subterranean, atmospheric, or frozen environments, examining how sound design produces meaning, embodiment, situatedness, ecological relations, and affect within these spaces.

By shifting attention from “green” ecologies toward a broader spectrum of elemental and material conditions, the volume contributes to interdisciplinary conversations across sound studies, game studies, media ecology, and environmental humanities. It asks: how do players hear matter and how is the immaterial sonified? How do game sounds render environmental processes, resistance, and transformation? And how do these sonic cues shape player perception, action, and identity within virtual worlds?

We invite contributions that explore (but are not limited to) the following topics:

• Environmental and material sonification in games
• Sonic representations of elemental ecologies (water, fire, air, earth, ice, etc.)
• Sound and environmental storytelling beyond music and voice
• The relationship between sound, physics, and material simulation
• Acoustic affordances and player interaction with virtual environments
• Sound design and immersion in ecological or environmental gameplay
• Sonic atmospheres and affective environmental design
• Media materiality and the auditory communication of virtual and immaterial objects
• Sound, embodiment, and sensory knowledge in gameplay
• Experimental, indie, or non-traditional approaches to environmental sound
• Historical or comparative perspectives on environmental audio in games
• Intersections of sound, environment, and identity or player experience

We especially welcome interdisciplinary approaches and methods, including but not limited to ethno/musicology, music theory and analysis, sound studies, media studies, environmental humanities, science and technology studies, and game design analysis.

SUBMISSION GUIDELINES

Please send abstracts and inquiries to: kate.a.galloway@gmail.com and submit with the email subject heading “Resonant Worlds Collection”:

• An abstract of 250–300 words
• A brief bio of 100–150 words

Selected contributors will be invited to submit full chapters of approximately 5,000–7,000 words.

TIMELINE

• Abstract submission deadline: August 15, 2026
• Notification of acceptance: September 15, 2026
• Chapter submission for editorial feedback: March 15, 2027