Walking based place-making experiences in competitive FPS game maps: The case of Valorant

This study examines how the player's act of walking in first-person shooter (FPS) video games transforms the designed game space, the maps, into a meaningful and experienced "place," using VALORANT as an example. The game's narrative and competitive structure guides how the player experiences and constructs "place" through walking. The theoretical foundation of the study aims to understand how place is constructed through the practice of walking. The concept of place discussed here refers to environments to which actors feel a sense of dwelling. These environments are constructed in line with post-anthropocentric thinking, based on the affordances that "we" - both human and non-human actors - offer each other. Walking is a practice that shapes the earth as a concept that brings paths with it. The action-object-purpose reading presents the components of walking, showing that actions occur with or towards an object, in pursuit of a purpose. Therefore, the act of walking, within a relationship established with actors, redefines the concept of "we" as "walking-with". This practice of place-making through walking, which occurs in everyday life, can also be observed in video games: The player, teammates and opponents, along with the avatar, equipment and environmental elements, constitute the "we" at the core of the "walking-with" place-making experience. VALORANT's narratively rich maps and team-based tactical structure were examined through the visualization of two distinct individual gaming experiences, revealing how walking mediates the construction of place in the virtual environment.