Circumventing Tropes

“So where are you from?” Oh, I was born down by Tauranga, and spent most of my life up in Auckland. “Ah, right.. but where you from?“ – Immigrant offspring problems 101

Video Games are pretty white-washed to say the least. I hate complaining, I really do, but I would really like some more games that don’t have the typical white-male protagonist trope. There haven’t been many games that I actually own where the protagonist isn’t a white male space marine, but I do have experience with one or two games. Alright, time to dissect one of my favourite love-to-hate-it-but-secretly-love-it games. Assassins’ Creed 3.

Stay out of my territory.

Assassin’s Creed 3 on paper seems like the perfect addition to the franchise. A Native American protagonist, set during the American Revolutionary War, killer graphics, a brand new combat engine, a Native American inspired badass looking costume, and a freaking tomahawk. That still raises the question though, why is this a universally shat-on game? Is it because they messed up the Native American-ness of the game? Was it historically inaccurate? Was it insensitive to Native Americans? Actually, no. Assassin’s Creed 3 sucks because it’s buggy as hell, Connor is a weak character, and the gameplay sucks. I was slightly surprised that no positive representations of race were mentioned in the lecture and while this is no shining beacon of hope for race relations in Video Games, it’s certainly a damn fine example.

You’ve got red on you.

Ubisoft went into really great detail to make sure they didn’t piss off anyone culturally for this game. They had a full time ‘cultural consultant’ to make sure that the Indian culture was represented in the most accurate manner. They had proper mohawk communities do voice-acting and choir parts in the musical score. Connor doesn’t speak in broken english, The villagers all speak their native language, Connor’s actual Native American name is unique. Ubisoft went as far as to nail the relationships between the British/American/Indian communities, and the rather accurate portrayal of America’s favourite first president.

Actually a bit of a wanker really.

I realize that simply one game of many isn’t going to change much. Saying “Well this game did it right, so therefore race isn’t a problem in Video Games” is kind of stupid. One thing that stands out to me though, is that this game isn’t disliked because of the cultural treatment of its protagonist. I love the fact that this game got it’s cultural treatment right and created a representation of a culture that fits within a historical context.

What does it mean though? I think it boils down to this. This game got it’s cultural treatment so right… but it’s gameplay so, so wrong. I don’t have to justify it. Play it and have your horse have a seizure next to a haystack then come back to me. I dream of Assassin’s Creed 4 gameplay, and the cultural treatment of Assassin’s Creed 3, set in a time of historical importance.