Duder Think Tank: Identifying the Under-Represented Settings, Cultures & Mythologies in Gaming

In the relatively young life span of Video Games we have seen how developers can craft an experience that transports you to a different place and time. We have seen adventures through Tolkien-esque fantasy, modern military action games, and games thrusting us into the near future, apocalypse, post apocalypse, and even post-post apocalypse with the announcement of Horizon: Zero Dawn. The problem is I am noticing a reluctance, especially in the "AAA" space, to leave this comfort zone of re-tread, tired settings and mythologies to base a new franchise in.

I think back to the Quick Look of Never Alone, which explored the folklore of the Indigenous people of Alaska, and Papers, Please as games that drew upon interesting subject matter that hasn't really been tapped before. But unfortunately, these dives into unfamiliar settings do not seem to manifest themselves in big-budget games.

(Which is understandable, considering the charts and graphs of risk-averse publishers would never consider a game based on Alaskan Folklore as a good business decision)

My question is, what cultures, time periods, places or mythologies do you feel are under-represented in video games today? Are there social or political issues that have been untouched by games or just not explored to their potential the way they are in other forms of media? How would you like to see these themes present themselves in bigger-budget "AAA" releases, if at all? This medium is full of Norse and Greek mythology themes, fantasy tropes, and modern battle action dudes but I'd love to see interesting, fun games be made from source material that I am not yet familiar with.

Interested in seeing what the Duder Think Tank can produce!

@dandyboyapples: Any kind of African culture, native Australian culture, Inca culture, Native American Culture, any kind of Middle Eastern Culture, Indian Culture. Basically any folklore or mythology outside of American, Japan, and Western Europe is fertile ground. To my knowledge, there aren't many games that try to capture the modern or historical versions of those cultures either. I would love to see some non-European or Japanese mythologies explored in video games (beyond summons in FF games and personas/ demons in Shin Megami Tensei games).

Edit: It would also be cool to see a game about US immigrants acclimating to American culture that doesn't involve them immediately getting roped into organized crime.

I'd like to see a game that gets real deep into Hindu mythology. Something to the scale of God of War and Asura's Wrath (and only regarding scale), but visually more like 18 Days.

I'd also like to see more refined and low-key personal stories. I wanna see something like Telltale's The Walking Dead but without the zombie apocalypse, and more stuff like Gone Home.

I wouldn't say anything's "under-represented" though. There are topics and ideas that aren't as commonly explored/utilized as others, but that isn't unfair or anything like that.

@thatpinguino: They already got Inca culture covered.

The 1939-40 Winter War between Finland and the USSR would be pretty interesting, could work the Continuation War in there too from '41-'44

It's rarely tackled though because it occurred at the same time as another, somewhat more well known conflict...

Give me a story driven game set in the UK, but not in fucking London.

I can't recall any games covering Sami culture, which I find kinda odd since the Sami nation covers northern Sweden, Norway, Russia and Finland, all of which have really big game development scenes.

You're right, "under-represented" is poor word choice. I'm not making a statement on its fairness only suggesting that these topics aren't seen often. Thanks for the response! I wonder what it says about game development in that region when a certain culture/folklore isn't drawn upon for source material.

@teaoverlord: If more Incan representation means more festive pan flute soloing that gets Jeff to head bob like that, I'm on board.

I think you've hit the nail on the head, and underrepresented is certainly a fair word in context of the AAA games. It's important to remember that smaller games like Brothers and Never Alone prove that personal experiences can translate into compelling gameplay, but I'd love to see bigger issues and more cultures tackled on a bigger scale.

I think Assassin's Creed really could have potential to do deeper dives if they could commit more to the cultures they're exploring (thinking of the first one especially). The problem, of course, is authenticity, and I think that really comes from employing a wide range of creators. Personally, I'd be interested in seeing a AAA game that deals with humanity's relationship with the Earth/environment. Clearly, it's time for Sonic the Hedgehog to start saving animals again.

@teaoverlord: Wait what? When did they play that? This is litteraly a game from my childhood and I never saw them play it!

Yea its interesting that the only time I hear many people discussing cool new settings or eras in history to play around in is when rumors of a new Assassins Creed game are rumbling about. Even though most of their deep, meaty historical content is in the short blurbs describing whichever building you just scaled or figurehead you assassinated, I still commend them for cramming all that stuff in there.

And to your point about Earth/environment themes, I think a Captian Planet game that played like Arkham City would do the world a lot of good.

DreadOut was set in Indonesia, that's all I got.

At about 1:06 on this CD-i stream.

@teaoverlord: Thank you!

Ho boy, it's hard to even know where to begin. The world is so vast, the cultures so numerous and history so long.

Even relatively well known modern places in the US say like Delaware rarely appear in games.

Pretty much anything that isn't based in the US or Japan is rarely seen.

@planetfunksquad: maybe you've heard of a little game called Contradiction?

@theht: I think that the Digital Devil Saga games have actually dealt with Hindu mythology, though my uncultured brain may be mixing that up with something else.

I feel like Egyptian mythology is very unrepresented. How many games starring a Pharaoh or a Egyptian god have we seen in the last 10 years?

Northern England. Let "Contradiction" lead the way.

Yeah I'd be interested to see something that had main characters of Indian descent or somewhere else South Asia, e.g Pakistan, Sri Lanka etc. I can literally think of only one Indian video game character and that's Dhalsim.

Most anything African. There was an African RPG that was trying to get funding a while back, that I don't believe got anywhere. That would have been interesting, especially... *checks Google for the RPG*... oh, nevermind. I guess it is moving forward. Awesome.

Aurion, Legacy of the Kori-Odan

Anyway, that is but one example. It would be interesting to see more.

There's also not a lot of games that have Muslim protagonists. The topic alone would probably get a lot of press coverage, even if they game had no connections to modern politics or any themes of religious tension.

As for actual ideas that aren't just about representing a specific culture, I really like @thatpinguino's idea of recent American immigrants trying to get used to living in a new world without immediately getting roped into organized crime.

In the same theme, the ideas of humans contacting alien civilizations and not immediately being one of the most badass and common races of the galaxy. Something like a human moving to an alien world and getting accustomed to the lifestyle and culture while being seen as an unimportant backwater species. (This would likely never happen without that human becoming the savior of the galaxy somehow, sadly.)

I live in Korea, and for a country with such a huge appetite for gaming, there aren't a whole lot of games with characters eating their kimchi sitting in their hanok wearing their hanboks.

I don't honestly think the themes or settings are what's important to have good games. Games like the Souls series can be medieval dark fantasy or cosmic horror and either mold fits fine and was decided upon entirely because of what weapons they wanted to use. Bioware games are almost completely similar no matter if they are China-like martial arts fantasy, high fantasy or space opera. I don't need or want existing video game developers to go out of their way to base their next IP on Guatemalan mythology or whatever. Weird new games are probably going to be made by new studios and indie developers in countries that don't currently have a big video game industry. Like how ACE Team made first person brawlers, a Super Smash Brothers adventure mode roguelike and a Monthy Python-inspired tower defense game where you play a boulder. I could never dream up those games.

Although, it would be ideal if more character action games were based on South American mythology so I would get to beat the crap out of more giant, rainbow-colored, flying snakes.

People can probably think of better suggestions involving myths/religions, etc. that aren't tackled enough. For me I would be interested in games used to tell certain types of stories or historical periods. Two random thoughts I had were a WWI game and a game that shows what it's like to live in a totalitarian society.

I know we had Valiant Hearts and Verdun recently, but WWI is, you know, a pretty damn big war. I think I would be interested in a game set in that setting to show what it was like to fight in that war, instead of it trying to be "fun". People have said WWI wouldn't make a good video game, for all of the obvious reasons. It was a bleak, terrible war. You stick your head out of the trenches for 5 seconds and get shot. It is a constant struggle to fight over a couple thousand feet of land. Playing that wouldn't be fun, but what if the game's focus was on the narrative or just the environmental storytelling, and all of that stuff was happening in the background?

For the totalitarian game, I'm not sure what would be the best example (East Germany, the USSR, China, based on something like 1984 or something entirely original), but I think it would be interesting to play a game where you have to worry about constantly being watched. Or if your neighbor sees you doing something suspicious, you would get reported. I never played Papers Please, but it suppose it could be something like that. Where the "game" has you go about your day, but you were part of a resistance movement, or trying to defect to another country. Meanwhile underneath the surface there's this aspect that you could get thrown in jail based on what other people think you're doing. (Like you are caught walking around at night after a meeting, or a coworker catches you not working and looking at something you shouldn't be looking at)

I don't know. I would like to see some more experimental games like that.

Anything set in Ireland would be nice, | mean we only have 1000s of years of history, a rich culture of myths and legends and some of the greatest minds of literacy who ever put pen to paper.

Edit: Well I mean anything other than this.

@skullpanda1 said:

I still remember that one Splinter Cell game that was set in Indonesia, but since it's Splinter Cell it's all about terrorism... Pretty decent game though.

Honestly, there's so much in this world that listing under-represented settings would take forever. I saw that Tree of Savior is inspired by Lithuanian mythology, how would I even come up with something like that. If I have to pick, I hope we could have more games like 80 Days and Civilization that cover cultures from all over the world.

The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt had an amazing sense of European culture and place, tapped into something that we don't normally see- but then, the whole internet shat on it for not having black people -.-

Journey had an really interesting middle eastern vibe throughout it- I wouldn't mind playing games taking part in that part of the world from their perspective...

@avantegardener: Ku: Shroud of the Morrigan

Ah! Thanks for the heads up.

@giantstalker: The Winter War could make for a very interesting setting because it could feature the Nazis as allies. It would then be interesting to advance that storyline as WWII progresses. I would love to see more underground/hidden/resistance stuff for WWII in general.

Kingdom Come: Deliverance is definitely one of those cases for me and in many ways maybe similar to Witcher, because it is based of Bohemia. It is not out yet (should be late 2016), but it is open-world RPG made by guys who worked on Mafia, Operation Flashpoint or UFO.

As to why is it one of those cases? I’ve played the alpha they released for Kickstarter backers, and there was one moment that stunned me. And it was nothing less ordinary that just walking along the path in the fields and meadows. It was very much reminiscent of the surrounding i am currently living in and have seen my entire childhood. Something like this. It may sounds weird, but i have never ever experienced that with any other videogame.
And then it gets even better when you notice the architecture (of both common housing and castles) or clothes, because they are very much going the most realistic way they can (even combat). That area the game is set in is actually a real area in Czech Republic, they mapped and transfered to videogame form. They are consulting historians about this stuff.
I am looking forward for this one and hoping it turns out great.

I definitely think games along the lines of This War of Mine where they place the conflict in the background and look at war from a new perspective to be refreshing. I'd love to see more games that dive into either the homefront (and I don't mean Homefront) or the subversion and espionage that went on between both sides during a war.

And for WWI games I think Velvet Sundown set on the Lusitania with the looming threat of a U-boat attack would be RAD

@avantegardener: I agree. The only game springing to mind at the minute (although it's 4am and I haven't slept) as being set here is Folklore on the PS3. The only accurate thing about it were the folk...

Great Derry accents in Witcher 3 though.

Just about any war apart from WWII and anything from the last twenty five years or so would be fascinating. I've said this elsewhere, but a game based on the Sharpe's Rifles novels would be all sorts of kickass.

Qing Dynasty China. Hands down. My dream game is basically an open-world Shaw Bros game. I think classic Hong Kong martial arts films deserve a loving homage like Westerns got in Red Dead Redemption.

Its such a rich untapped vein of pop culture. I mean, just picture it. depending on when exactly it was set It could have rival kung fu schools, Shaolin monks on the run from the government, folk heroes like Wong Fei-Hung and Beggar So, Taoist priests battling hopping vampires, bandits, ruffians causing trouble in the tea house, assassins, hidden (usually old and drunken) masters, ghosts, magic, and any number of other radical elements that would be fucking perfect for a video game.

I've always wanted to see more Irish/Celtic myth in things. We got some pretty great stuff going on there and I've excited when I see anything that vaguely even references.

Mayan Empire - Very sophisticated people with math, writing. Astronomy, and crafts. Extremely complex and interesting social and economic structure as well as interesting gods and rituals. These were the first people to plan crops, irrigation, create cities, create walled cities, to raise organized military forces not just warriors, and to develop the chariot.

The Akkadian Empire: Really the result of the first cities in the near-east and what we think of of the Fertile Crescent region. The earliest cities of the near east has a very complex and interesting society. You can't have cities of any large size without government, laws, and people to keep the peace. What is known about these cultures is increasing every year. The first stories like Epic of Gilgamesh, come from this area and much of the early Bible is copied from these people.

The Mali Empire: Otherwise known as the Mandinka/Bambara Empire in West Africa from c. 1230 to c. 1600 was amazing. The empire was founded by Sundiata Keita and became renowned for the wealth of its rulers. The Mali Empire profoundly influenced the culture of West Africa through the spread of its language, laws and customs along the lands along the Niger River and extending over a large area that consisted of numerous vassal kingdoms and provinces. Much like the Middle East Africa was far more educated and civilized than Europe at this time. The scholars and libraries of Timbuktu were famous across the known world

The problem with most game worlds is they very oddly ignore the historical reality and make up stuff that is nonsense. What early civilization across the globe created is often BETTER than the stupid BS most game-developers think up. Just a tiny bit of research yields very rich worlds that merely need the artist hand to make real.

What we forget when we look at history is ancient peoples were very smart, they were often very meticulously groomed, and they had complex cultures and social rules. There were likely smarter and more socially aware then we are today - you cannot run a city if you are an idiot. A true view of the Mayans, Akkadian, or Mali as scholars believe they lived would be a fantastic and complex worlds worthy of any game

Ancient history is general is pretty much ignored, there are a few games about the Romans or the Greeks, but I feel that is usually only in strategy games (such as Civ 5, total war series and so on), or about mythology. I would really like a narrative game set in the Ancient World, it was a fascinating period in time. It would be awesome to have a game were you can visit ancient Greece, Mesopotamia, Egypt, Persia and the like. People forget how epic some historic evens where during the Ancient era, like when Hannibal cross the Alps with frigging elephants.

I think a Final Fantasy Tactics type game would be great that used other settings and mixed them with FF trope like FFT did. FFT did a great job of representing War of the Roses era England and pairing it with Chocobos.

After playing EU4 a good bit last year I got really curious about the Ottoman Empire. It surprised me how I pretty much knew absolutely nothing about this massive empire that lasted for centuries. Same thing goes for the Mongol Empire. I'm thinking some of the reason why they are so under-represented (unlike things like Roman/Greek/Egyptian culture) probably just comes down to poor preservation of history. Though I still find it very strange how my ancient history (vikings) is so main-stream, while these other massive empires seem to have vanished with history.

Honestly?

Anything.

Games are such a young medium, and games still give in to tropes that so often destroy any suspension of disbelief. It would be easier to point out the handful of historical/cultural settings that have been done before, and the rest might as well be considered uncharted territory.

I wouldn't mind a game where the enemy is America or in general just the west. It would be interesting to see how that would be handled and then received by the majority of people. I have been shooting so many North Koreans, soviets and Chinese over the years that its gotten a bit old.

@fisk0: YES, that'd be amazing to see. A big Sami RPG would be awesome!