Hello!
This will likely be a series of short highlights of different video games from multiple genres, developers and styles that aim at spotlighting and praising video games for their accurate and inclusive cultural representation.
Though video games are often set in worlds so different from ours, there is always room for some nods to different people, places or traditions that totally aren’t necessary from a mechanical or narrative perspective.
The first game that springs to mind, is Blizzard’s 2016 first person shooter: Overwatch.
Firstly, I would like to mention that though the gameplay has no need to introduce characters from different places, yet Overwatch integrates a flashy cast of international heroes and villains into the already complex ability based fast action shooter.
From France to Mexico, Overwatch’s 32 playable characters are all fun little splashes of insights into their respective backgrounds.
I’m no expert, but its nice to see people say things like “Roadhog says wopwops!” or have them explain some cultural nuance online, no matter how big or small.
One thing that Overwatch does quite well is how it doesn’t force these cultures onto their characters too harshly. Initially, this wasn’t really the case. I think you could argue that it’s easy to tell which of the initial 21 characters at launch is from which country, leaning towards a bit of stereotyping. Though McCree’s over the top cowboy aesthetic, Genji’s instantly recognisable ninja weapon set or Tracer’s stereotypical cockney accent can be interpreted as ways of building characters, Overwatch has recently strayed away from utilising cliches. Some of the newer heroes such as Moira, Sigma, Sombra and Baptiste don’t immediately scream Irish, Haitian or Dutch, but still tie in some small acknowledgements. Instead of stereotypes, the new heroes use voice lines, skins or other details that hint at their cultural background, but no longer force their identity to be a part of their character, which I think is a little more realistic.
Even in a primarily full on English game, where any voice with a stereotypical accent could do the job, overwatch takes it so much further.
Most of the voice actors are come from the same countries as their characters. For example, Egyptian Actress Aysha Selim plays Ana, a long time experienced Egyptian marksman, Irish Actress Genevieve O’Reilly voices Irish mad scientist Moira, and Japanese actor Gaku Space provides the voice for cyborg ninja Genji. Other actors either speak the same language, or are of the same nationality such as half Korean voice actress Charlet Chung who plays D.Va, Canadian born Haitian voice actor Benz Antoine who plays the Haitian support, Baptiste and German actress Lucie Pohl who plays the Swiss medic Mercy.
To make up for the few instances where actors of a different background were hired, actors such as American voice actor Jonny Cruz who voices Brazilian DJ Lucio learnt to speak a couple lines in their character’s native language.
One more thing I really love is the attention to the Chinese New Year events. Though the cliches are not uncommon, I can’t think of any other game that has a full more than week long event that celebrates CNY. There is much respect for the time and effort put into designing road hog’s 豬八戒 skin or Torbjörn’s 張飛 skin. It’s super cool to see maps lit up with firecrackers and red lanterns. Plus, it also shows how different asian cultures celebrate this holiday, not just focusing on Chinese traditions. It’s interesting to see D.Va wearing a hanbok and SanyeOrisa, a small but neat nod to korean lunar new year culture.
This event really stands out from the others, even though it comes every year with little to no changes mechanically. The sheer attention to the atmosphere, the cosmetics and music are super cool to homages to Chinese culture.
Overwatch also does a very brilliant job tackling other form of representation in video games, straying from the overly sexual portrayal of female characters, directly tackling racism with a clever analogy and having multiple unorthodox LGBTQ characters.
Though the amount of enjoyment derived from gameplay is sometimes lacklustre, the story is inconsistent and recently has slowed development due to the more story based and content heavy Overwatch 2 release, I think out of all the games I’ve played, Overwatch’s well researched and widely reaching cultural scope is truly one for the history books. It just goes to show that even in a game so mechanically disconnected from the need to introduce real world cultural aspects, it can be done. I really do wish that more games could do something similar, but it is extremely difficult for games to flesh out their core gameplay while simultaneously balancing culture or references or narrative elements.
Hats off to Blizzard.
– Max
The Big Duck 