Many sources make it clear that academic studies on video games are quite new, and studies relating them to ecocriticism are very rare. In addition, these studies often focus on the same games: Flower, Sim City, and Minecraft. This means that in all of the academic studies I have found relating ecocriticism to video games, only two even mention Rain World, and that's among a handful of other games! 

Only one of these two papers provides a more thorough analysis of Rain World and is where I'm getting my methodology. But, this paper only discusses the base game. In the last two years, Rain World has received two major expansions: Downpour and The Watcher. These easily double the size of the game and are where my primary gap exists. The second part of my gap comes from my adaptation of Joy Kumral's criteria for ecocritical games into a tally system. Joy Kumral has a PhD in literature and cultural studies from the University of Iceland, and is the author of the one paper that analyzes Rain World.