Agency and directionality in circular futures: Evidence from a serious game–based scenario exploration

Circular futures scholarship has begun to unpack the contested notion of the circular economy by articulating a range of plausible scenarios. However, much of this work remains conceptual, focusing on describing end-state futures and the actors expected to dominate them, leaving the question of how actors could navigate these scenarios underexplored. This article addresses this gap through an empirical foresight action mediated by a serious game. We apply a circular-economy adaptation of the European Commission Joint Research Centre’s Scenario Exploration System (SES) to explore four scenarios that combine (i) centralised versus decentralised governance and (ii) growth versus post-growth orientations. Two participatory workshops (Brussels and Pontevedra) generated evidence from game traces (resource and influence tokens, collaboration patterns, and scores) alongside qualitative observations. The findings show that scenario framings redistribute actors’ influence; participants tend to enact agency through pragmatic adaptation; cooperation is typically pursued through alignment rather than self-sacrifice for collective benefit; and, despite initial constraints, agency is not fixed but evolves through time and interaction among actors and context. Regarding directionality, scenarios initially channel transition pathways, social acceptance becomes a key mediator of both individual and collective expectations, perceived moral thresholds can pivot trajectories, and overall directionality is continually reshaped through interaction. The paper provides evidence on how serious-game design features connect to workshop outputs and how games can mediate foresight actions. It also argues that circular futures research should move beyond scenario conceptualisation towards analysing how different circular trajectories are enacted and stabilised in practice.