This production looks to build on concepts of aesthetics, the subaltern and future imaginaries in the cultural studies of videogames. These include: future imaginaries surrounding energy security, and the aesthetics of future, urban, military, or rural renewable energy technology. This work will also consider the subsequent effects of: perceived canonical inconsistency and; affect (e.g. valorization, frustration, etc.) resulting from narrative. The Halo franchise will be used to situate the former, and the game Halo: Reach, for the Xbox360 will be used as a lens to explore the remaining concepts through its narrative-laden campaign mode. A novel contribution is made at the end of the discussion of futurism aesthetics. This is that inconsistent experimentation with a future imaginary aesthetic, produces a specific, visual, tokenism.

Halo: Reach’s opening level renders several small wind-energy harvesters across the landscape of what appears to be a dedicated farming planet (named Reach). This is familiar territory, as It is through this representation of a future setting that persuasion and direct engagement challenges are bypassed (Abraham 2018). Abraham’s work is based on the game ARMA 3, as an island setting which represented a number of large, centralized renewable energy facilities and systems (solar arrays, wind farms, etc.). One can argue that in reality, from a functional standpoint: rural communities, and – more specifically – household units are the setting for the most effective present implementations of renewable energy generation. Certainly, such units have been a major factor in the genesis, and growth in popularity of such technologies for pragmatic factors such as distance/inefficiency in traditional access of centralized systems, spatial seclusion, etc. Distributed, smaller-scale implementation such as on Reach is just as likely (if not more so) a scenario for near-future energy generation capacities, relative to large-scale facilities.

Halo: Reach’s opening level renders several small wind-energy harvesters across the landscape of what appears to be a dedicated farming planet (named Reach). This is familiar territory, as It is through this representation of a future setting that persuasion and direct engagement challenges are bypassed (Abraham 2018). Abraham’s work is based on the game ARMA 3, as an island setting which represented a number of large, centralized renewable energy facilities and systems (solar arrays, wind farms, etc.). One can argue that in reality, from a functional standpoint: rural communities, and – more specifically – household units are the setting for the most effective ''present'' implementations of renewable energy generation. Certainly, such units have been a major factor in the genesis, and growth in popularity of such technologies for pragmatic factors such as distance/inefficiency in traditional access of centralized systems, spatial seclusion, etc. Distributed, smaller-scale implementation such as on Reach is just as likely (if not more so) a scenario for near-future energy generation capacities, relative to large-scale facilities.