The State of Native Representation in Videogames

Native representation in videogames has been dominated by negative, stereotyped, and often exploitative depictions, according to this analysis of the medium's treatment of Indigenous peoples. Drawing on examples ranging from the 1982 title Custer's Revenge to Red Dead Redemption 2 (2018) and Horizon Zero Dawn (2017), the author contends that such works erase living Native communities while appropriating their cultural symbols. The argument is grounded in a Native perspective, and it frames the issue as one of authorship and self-determination as much as of individual content choices.

The analysis also recognizes more positive precedents, including T. Hawk in Super Street Fighter II, whose defense of his homeland resonated with the author in childhood, and Never Alone (2014), the first game produced by an Indigenous-owned studio, which is presented as a model for the industry. Exemplary titles such as Raven and the Light, Mulaka, and Aztech Forgotten Gods are cited for humanizing Native characters through Native casting, consultation, language, and culture. Mulaka is singled out for directing sales proceeds back to the Sierra Tarahumara community, a practice offered as a benchmark for ethical development.

The central conclusion is that games are most respectful when Native peoples tell their own stories. The author recommends decolonizing approaches, greater Native authorship, and developer practices built on consultation and community benefit. A further call is for more contemporary, present-day Native protagonists, to counter the persistent framing of Indigenous people as existing only in the past or in fiction. The work's supporting bibliography spans games, academic studies, and demographic sources from Canada and the United States, though its evidentiary base rests primarily on qualitative critique and case examples rather than systematic data.