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Video games can examine colonialism responsibly when they represent specific Indigenous nations as living communities, give Indigenous people meaningful creative authority, and make the game’s rules—not only its dialogue—confront unequal power. A respectful game connects cultural details to individual characters and histories, treats land as relationship rather than empty loot, and lets Indigenous characters shape events and futures. The same tests also reveal when a game’s story condemns colonialism while its mechanics still reward conquest, extraction or forced assimilation.
Start with the game’s whole design, not its theme statement
A game may say that colonization is tragic and still teach players to behave like colonizers. To analyze it, compare the stated plot with the actions the rules reward. Can the player only attack, remove, convert or collect from an Indigenous community? Are Indigenous characters allowed to make consequential choices, or do they exist mainly to explain a hero’s mission? Does the map present inhabited land as an obstacle and resource deposit, or as a place with relationships, obligations and memory?
A useful editorial framework combines five questions: specificity, authorship and participation, mechanics and agency, treatment of land, and Indigenous presence in the future. These are practical lenses drawn from scholarship and community accounts, not a validated scoring system. A game can do well on one axis and fail on another; consultation, for example, does not automatically make every narrative decision successful.
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Mechanical language versus visual language
Western Abenaki scholar and game designer Ashlee Bird distinguishes between visual representational language (images, clothing, architecture and character design) and mechanical coded language (the rules that teach players how to act). The University of Waterloo’s summary of Bird’s work explains that both forms communicate ideas about Indigenous people: read the lecture summary.
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A character may be described as a respected leader, yet the player may receive rewards only for raiding that character’s settlement. A sacred site may be praised in dialogue while functioning as a collectible. Those contradictions matter because repetition turns an action into a lesson. Bird, profiled by the University of Notre Dame, puts the risk bluntly: “Gaming has taught people that Natives in digital spaces are the bad guys, and that you should engage with them in that way, even if the game is telling you not to” (Notre Dame profile).
Questions to ask while playing
- What actions increase the player’s power, territory or wealth?
- Who can refuse, negotiate, govern or change the objective?
- Are Indigenous characters playable or otherwise agents of the plot, or are they scenery, enemies, guides or victims?
- Does the interface label inhabited places as “unclaimed,” “wild” or “resources,” and what does that label authorize the player to do?
Specific nations are not interchangeable
“Indigenous” describes many distinct peoples and nations. A respectful representation identifies the community involved and gives characters relationships, internal differences, history and contemporary lives. It does not assemble a generalized “Native” look from unrelated motifs.
Bird’s framework warns that amalgamated visual elements can communicate interchangeability: a feather, pan-Indigenous clothing, a generic spiritual symbol and an invented language may signal “Native” to a player while erasing the differences among nations. Cultural details work better when they belong to a character’s actual circumstances—family, politics, humor, work, disagreement and hopes—rather than serving as shorthand for mystery or nature.
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The terminology used by a source or community also matters. The author of the 2023 article “Appropriation or Erasure? Imagining Indigenous Futures in Games” explains the regional terminology in that article and identifies their connection to the Dharug nation. Do not treat that terminology as globally interchangeable, and do not imply that one consultant speaks for every Indigenous people.
Authorship and participation: look for concrete roles
Credits and production accounts can show whether Indigenous people had authority as writers, performers, designers, cultural experts or approvers. A vague statement that a game was “inspired by” Indigenous culture is not equivalent to named collaboration. Nor is consultation a quality stamp that settles every criticism; it is evidence of a particular process involving particular people.
Assassin’s Creed III
Cultural Survival reports that the game’s Mohawk protagonist, Ratonhnhaké:ton (Connor), was supported by Indigenous actors and Mohawk contributors from Kahnawà:ke. The account describes translation, voice acting, singing and other consultation (Cultural Survival’s overview). Those roles demonstrate participation. They do not, by themselves, prove that every plot choice or gameplay system represents Mohawk life well; evaluate the finished game separately.
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Age of Empires III: Definitive Edition
In a 15 September 2020 studio interview, World’s Edge acknowledges shortcomings in earlier portrayals and describes work with tribal consultants. It identifies Anthony Brave, a Sicangu Oyate and Chippewa-Cree descendant, as lead cultural expert and writer of a new storyline (the World’s Edge interview). Naming the role and the resulting story gives players more information than an undifferentiated “consulted with tribes” claim.
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Land, sovereignty and the possibility of a future
Colonial fiction often begins by making land appear empty, ownerless or available for improvement. Games intensify that idea when maps turn places into tiles to claim, resources to extract and populations to relocate. Ask what a game assumes about sovereignty: who has the right to decide, who is treated as an obstacle, and whose relationship to place survives after the player’s victory?
Futurity is another test. Indigenous people should not appear only as remnants of a vanished past or as obstacles before a modern nation arrives. A speculative setting can include Indigenous governments, families, technologies, conflicts and ordinary futures without turning survival into a mystical plot device.
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The 2023 Indigenous-authored analysis of inFAMOUS: Second Son, Horizon Zero Dawn and Overwatch discusses different forms of assimilation, appropriation and erasure. It argues, for example, that Horizon Zero Dawn draws on Indigenous cultural aesthetics without including Indigenous characters, and examines varying depth in Overwatch’s cultural references. These are the article’s interpretations, not a universal verdict on the games. The same analysis notes that separating a game’s fictional framing from the real-world power relations involved in its creation and reception is essential.
Its conclusion offers a useful design principle: “Exploring the depth of Indigenous experiences, rather than relying on stereotype, and expressing culture through people, rather than through signifiers, raises opportunities even within the structures of these existing games.”
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Never Alone (Kisima Inŋitchuŋa)
Cultural Survival describes this puzzle-platform game as produced, written and voice acted with Iñupiaq people. It is based on an Iñupiaq tale narrated in the Iñupiaq language and includes documentary “cultural insights” featuring Iñupiaq people. Thomas James Reed’s 2025 commentary also identifies it as a positive representation example made by an Indigenous-owned studio (Reed’s Eludamos article). The important feature is not simply the presence of traditional imagery; Iñupiaq participation shapes story, language and the explanatory material around play.
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When Rivers Were Trails
Cultural Survival describes Elizabeth LaPensée’s adventure game as a journey through the past that addresses land and colonization through Indigenous wisdom and insight. Its approach treats history as lived experience and relationship to place rather than as a backdrop for an outsider’s conquest. A 2026 analysis of colonial role-playing conventions identifies the game as a source of “decolonial procedures” worth learning from (Cultural Survival; Journal of Games Criticism analysis).
Hill Agency: PURITY/decay
Ubisoft Toronto’s profile describes Achimostawinan Games as an Indigenous-owned studio and this project as an Indigenous cybernoir detective mystery set in a futuristic North America (studio profile). It is a useful example of Indigenous futurity: the premise is not an archaeological flashback but a future shaped by Indigenous creators. The profile does not establish current commercial availability, so verify the platform and release status before recommending a purchase.
Independent reader supportYour contribution helps us test, update, and keep practical guides available for everyone.Compare examples with the same questions
| Game or work | Specificity and participation | What to examine in play and setting | Evidence boundary |
|---|---|---|---|
| Never Alone | Iñupiaq tale, language, voices and cultural-insight videos; participation described by Cultural Survival | How cooperative puzzle mechanics and documentary material position Iñupiaq knowledge | Positive example in Reed’s 2025 commentary; not a claim that every design choice is beyond criticism |
| When Rivers Were Trails | Elizabeth LaPensée; Indigenous wisdom and insight about land and colonization | How journey structure and encounters represent historical displacement and agency | Named as a decolonial reference point in the cited 2026 analysis |
| Assassin’s Creed III | Mohawk protagonist; Indigenous actors and Kahnawà:ke contributors reported by Cultural Survival | Whether the open-world objectives give Ratonhnhaké:ton choices beyond the series’ usual combat and collection loops | Participation is documented; overall success remains an interpretive question |
| Age of Empires III: Definitive Edition | Tribal consultants and Anthony Brave as lead cultural expert and writer, according to World’s Edge | How economy, settlement and military systems frame sovereignty and extraction | Process claims come from the studio interview |
| inFAMOUS: Second Son, Horizon Zero Dawn, Overwatch | Analyzed together in an Indigenous-authored 2023 article | Appropriation, assimilation, erasure and the use of aesthetics without Indigenous characters | Attribute conclusions to that article’s author; they are not universal ratings |
| Hill Agency: PURITY/decay | Indigenous-owned Achimostawinan Games; futuristic North American setting | How cybernoir, investigation and future institutions express Indigenous agency | Current availability is not established by the cited profile |
A practical review method for players, critics and educators
- Name the people represented. Identify the nation or community, region and time period. If the game provides only a generic “Native” identity, record that absence rather than filling it with assumptions.
- Read the credits and production account. Look for named writers, performers, designers, consultants and cultural experts. Distinguish ongoing creative authority from a single review of finished material.
- Map the reward loop. List what earns experience, money, territory or narrative progress. Note whether those rewards depend on attacking, displacing, extracting from or assimilating Indigenous characters.
- Inspect agency. Track who initiates missions, makes decisions, refuses the player and changes the outcome. A playable character is not automatically empowered if every meaningful choice is predetermined.
- Read the map politically. Check labels for “empty” land, frontier, wilderness and resources. Ask what histories and existing governance those labels erase.
- Look for futurity and ordinary life. Identify Indigenous characters’ family, work, humor, disagreement, technology and plans—not only ceremonial or tragic scenes.
- Compare form with message. Write one paragraph on the game’s explicit story and another on what its systems require. The gap between them is often where colonial assumptions remain.
Common failure modes and better alternatives
- Pan-Indigenous collage: combining unrelated clothing, symbols and beliefs. Better: establish a specific community and attach details to named people and relationships.
- Symbol substitution: using feathers, spirituality or an invented language as a complete culture. Better: show institutions, conflicts, contemporary lives and individual personalities.
- Consultation as a shield: citing unnamed advisers to end criticism. Better: identify who participated, in what role and what changed.
- Colonial mechanics under an anti-colonial plot: condemning conquest while rewarding settlement and extraction. Better: redesign objectives so negotiation, stewardship, refusal and Indigenous governance can alter outcomes.
- Vanishing into the past: presenting Indigenous people only before or during colonization. Better: imagine Indigenous futures, including disagreement and change.
- Outsider-centered empathy: making an outsider the only character with interiority. Better: distribute perspective, authorship and consequential choices among Indigenous characters and communities.
Why inclusion still requires scrutiny
The 2026 Journal of Games Criticism analysis of GreedFall argues that games organized around settling land and exploiting resources can remain in tension with Indigenous sovereignty, even when they acknowledge colonial violence. It recommends learning from Indigenous-created games and supporting the material conditions that allow those works to exist (analysis of colonial RPG conventions). That point broadens the question beyond whether a game contains an Indigenous character. Production ownership, funding, distribution and whose work is treated as authoritative all shape what players can imagine.
Respectful representation is therefore not a checklist of visual permissions. It is a relationship among specificity, power, process and play. The strongest examples let Indigenous people be authors, protagonists, neighbors, strategists and future-makers—and make the rules acknowledge those positions.
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