Ellie Chraibi Ellie Chraibi University of Krems Press 2025 This paper analyses the subversive potential of the player-avatar relationship through a case study of Inside (Playdead 2016), a cinematic platformer set in a dystopian world. With each of the three different spectra categorising this relationship (tool/character avatar, designed/desired performance, grievable/nongrievable death) is associated a hierarchised binary that is subverted in Inside. The blurring of anthropocentered categories pushes the player toward a meaningful posthuman experience. This experience relies on the embodied, double-situated, non-linear and cathartic properties of video games that the unsettling world, narrative and mechanics of Inside enhance. PDFDocument eng 2025-11-14T10:02:35.419872Z 2025-11-14 player-avatar relationship posthuman 276069 b application/pdf http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/