“What is the Avatar” is part genre study, part theoretical discussion of fictionality and embodiment in gaming. Its topic is what I call “avatar-based” singleplayer games, with particular emphasis on the kind of navigable real-time 3D graphical environments that were spearheaded by Doom, Mario 64 and To mb R a i d e r in the mid-nineties. The avatar is that which extends our embodie…