Cursed: A Ludic Genealogy of the Myth of El Dorado

This paper offers a critical genealogy of the El Dorado myth as it has been remediated across board and video games, drawing on Foucault's approach to history as a series of interpretations shaped by power. Using interaction criticism as its methodological frame, the authors trace how the legend, which originated in European accounts of gold and exploration in the Americas, was reshaped by both Spanish and Indigenous storytellers and later transformed in contemporary tomb-raiding games. The analysis concentrates on the relationship between players, cultural artifacts, and the social contexts in which those artifacts circulate, and it argues that games carry forward colonial assumptions even as they appear to be neutral entertainment.

The paper's central claims rest on close readings of two case studies. The board game The Quest for El Dorado is examined for its depiction of El Dorado as a real, winnable city of gold, its casting of predominantly White expert characters, and its implicit treatment of Colombia's sovereignty as irrelevant to the expedition's claim on the riches. The video game Uncharted: Drake's Fortune is analyzed for its inversion of heroism and villainy, its portrayal of mestizo and Indigenous-linked characters as threats, and its blending of colonial tropes with White saviorism. The authors also argue that the Indigenous origins of the myth as a tool of deception represent a form of subversive "dark play" that game studies has largely overlooked.

The authors conclude that iteration within the tomb-raider genre, which they note includes over thirty titles played in their research, serves to legitimize colonial narratives by repeatedly recasting Western actors as heroes. Drawing on theories of games as instruments of enculturation, they contend that such narratives carry real consequences, linking the fictional curse of Uncharted to documented environmental and health harms from mining expansion in Colombia. The scope is primarily interpretive and centered on Western-produced games, and the work is best understood as a qualitative critical reading rather than a systematic survey.