Promoting empathy and empowerment through video games about refugee experiences

Kseniia Harshina (Department of Information Technology) is developing a virtual reality game that explores issues of forced migration and flight. The project is part of the Ada Lovelace Programme, which supports young researchers who are conducting interdisciplinary research in the context of “Humans in the Digital Age”.

When Kseniia Harshina saw images of people sheltering in Kyiv’s metro stations during the Russian full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, she also noticed some holding their laptops and playing video games. Far from surprising her, she saw it as a testament to the role games can play in difficult times. ‘Video games offer a safe place for people,’ she explains. ‘Everyone turns to them for their own reasons—whether to find distraction, comfort, or even a sense of normalcy amid chaos.’

The young Ukrainian came to Klagenfurt in 2020 to pursue a Master’s degree in Game Studies and Engineering after graduating from the National Technical University of Ukraine with a Bachelor’s degree in Computer Software Engineering. She is now a doctoral student in the Ada Lovelace Programme at the University of Klagenfurt (supervised by Judith Glück, Department of Psychology and Mathias Lux & Felix Schniz, Department of Information Technology). As part of her doctoral project, she is investigating how video games can help people reflect on their experiences of displacement and how they can foster empathy in people who do not have a migration background.

Kseniia Harshina is conducting interviews with people who have experienced forced migration to understand their perspectives on what a video game about this topic should include. She emphasizes that war and displacement are often accompanied by feelings of powerlessness. Video games, however, can offer players a sense of agency within similar contexts. For many, the pain of these experiences is profound and difficult to articulate. Through interactivity that video games offer, it becomes possible to reimagine these experiences, providing a space to process emotions and explore feelings that are hard to express otherwise. For instance, reencountering a border guard in a game—this time from a position of empowerment—might offer a therapeutic way to rewrite such interactions.

Once Kseniia Harshina has collected sufficient data from her interviews and questionnaires, she would like to use these findings to build a prototype of a video game that addresses the issues of displacement and migration. When asked whether such video games already exist, she explains: “Yes, there are video games covering every kind of topic. In Vienna, there is even a company that specializes in games that explore experiences of migration.”

For those without personal experience of migration and displacement, she also anticipates a broadening of horizons: “Those who feel what people go through on this journey can develop empathy.” The fact that video games are particularly suitable for this purpose is explained by their interactive nature. Unlike a novel or a movie, you are not just an emotionalized spectator or reader; instead you can act yourself and thus help shape the story of the game. “Video games are unique in this respect,” says Kseniia Harshina, who is a keen gamer herself. We ask which games fascinate her most and find out: “I’m so fascinated by them, I love them all. And also from a scientific perspective, I’m really excited by so many of the things that video games can do.”

Kseniia Harshina chose the Master’s degree programme in Game Studies and Engineering because it examines various aspects of gaming culture – from technology to the humanities and social sciences. Moving from Kyiv to Klagenfurt was a big change, but video games remained a constant source of connection and comfort for her. As she explains with a laugh: ‘No matter where you are, as long as you can play, it feels like home.’