ABSTRACT
This chapter begins by introducing the concepts of phenomenology and dark tourism, and then traces a methodology for applying these to the case study The Town of Light. It aims to explore a phenomenology of virtual space and place and how it could be applied to dark tourism in video games. The chapter explores how the dark heritage of the non-fictional asylum in Town is presented through an understanding of a virtual sense of place, the recreation as digital doppelganger and queer phenomenology. Further qualitative research into player phenomenological experiences of potential virtual dark tourist sites will be recommended. The phenomenological experience of the embodied past of the Ospedale is disoriented in relation to the present-this is the virtual dark tourism of The Town of Light. If the embodied experience of dark tourists is integral to dark tourism research, then the assemblage of play is a productive approach to virtual dark tourism.
