A legend of decolonial critique in play: A horror RPG in speculative worlds
Luke Hernandez
Publicatiedatum: 19 juli 2023
This paper is concerned with the online video game, The Secret World Legends (TSWL) [1] and asks the question of how game players, game developers and humanities scholars can critique western coloniality within this western Horror Role-Playing Game. This central question urges both players, developers and scholars to center non-western perspectives and frameworks in games. TSWL is a game developed by Funcom Inc; a company based in Norway. Originally released in 2012, the game was unique in how it combines folklore and urban fantasy horror elements within an online Multiplayer format. Throughout the game, references to famous horror media, such as Romero’s movie Night of the Living Dead and H.P. Lovecraft’s work, are invoked as players tour the game world which consists of New England, Egypt, Transylvania, Tokyo, and South Africa. A diverse selection of locations, but how can we generate a critique of coloniality from a game made in the West for a primarily western audience? I answer this by following what scholars in the field of critical game studies have been doing in analyzing games.
This reveals how games are media that are deeply embedded in large cultural systems of dominance of the West. It is not only important to confront the problematic aspects of colonial games such as TSWL, but critical frameworks, such as Stuart Hall’s concept of oppositional reading [2] can be used to produce a generative critique of colonialism which aids in efforts to reimaging just decolonial futures through games.
I will show how larger systems of oppression are ever present in TSWL. I will then provide a framework of decolonial critique which can be useful not only for gamers and game developers but for scholars in media and the humanities. By close reading the text, narrative, and play of the game, it reveals how TSWL both reifies and challenges symbols of colonialism. It is important to confront how western hegemony, ludo-orientalism, and settler colonialism are pervasive to the game. Yet, it is also important to highlight the genuine attempts of critiquing these very systems to lay the groundwork for more inclusive design and narrative standpoints in the future, a conversation that TWSL started in a genre so enmeshed in normative game design.
The colonial horror in play
A critical analysis of any horror media must discuss its inherent colonial roots, because it inherits, and continues, the racialized connotation of Otherness and the pervasive violence of settler colonialism in the genre of horror. The first part of this article begins with acknowledging the problematic history of both interactive role-playing games and the gerne of horror which The Secret World Legends inhabits as an interactive horror game. Due to its position within horror, the game has a structure of both Othering and extracting from non-western subjects that needs to be challenged immediately.
Figure 1 [3] shows the in-game map of the fictional town of Kingsmouth in the zone of Solomon Island in the Northwestern United States. Kingsmouth Town is the first adventure zone that player agents visit. Player characters are called “agents” in the game. On close inspection of the center of the map, we can see the street names. These names strongly signal the references to prominent horror media and culture. We see “Lovecraft Lane,” referencing H.P. Lovecraft. We see Elm Street referencing the film “Nightmare on Elm Street,” “Arham Avenue,” referencing the Batman comics and “Poe Cave,” referencing Edgar Allen Poe. This dreary northwestern setting is complemented with a population of zombies, who are an abundant source of enemies for this adventure zone.


Notes
[1] Funcom Inc. The Secret World Legends. Funcom. PC. 2017. https://www.secretworldlegends.com/ [2] Hall, Stuart. Representation: Cultural Representations and Signifying Practices. Sage in association with the Open University, 1997. [3] Map screenshot available on the IGN website of Kingsmouth Town. [4] Christopher, David, and Aidan Leuszler. “The Doors of Perception: Horror Video Games and the Ideological Implications of Ludic Virtual Reality.” Games and culture (2022): https://doi.org/10.1177/15554120221097414, 11. [5] Kocurek, Carly A. “Who Hearkens to the Monster’s Scream? Death, Violence and the Veil of the Monstrous in Video Games.” Visual studies (Abingdon, England) 30, no. 1 (2015). [6] Stang, Sarah, and Aaron Trammell. “The Ludic Bestiary: Misogynistic Tropes of Female Monstrosity in Dungeons & Dragons.” Games and culture 15, no. 6 (2020) https://doi.org/10.1177/1555412019850059. [7] Smith, Angela M. Hideous Progeny: Disability, Eugenics, and Classic Horror Cinema. New York: Columbia University Press, 2011. [8] Wood, Robin. “An Introduction to the American Horror Film.” In The Monster Theory Reader edited by Jeffrey Andrew Weinstock, (pp. 108–135). University of Minnesota Press, 2020. https://doi.org/10.5749/j.ctvtv937f.9 [9] Fickle, Tara. The Race Card: from Gaming Technologies to Model Minorities. New York, New York: New York University Press, 2019, 3. [10] Fron, Janine., Fullerton, Tracy., Morie, Jacquelyn, Ford., & Pearce, Celia. “The Hegemony of Play.” Proceedings of the 2007 Digital Games Research Association Conference. University of Tokyo, Japan, September 2007, 309. [11] Fickle, Tara. The Race Card: from Gaming Technologies to Model Minorities. New York, New York: New York University Press, 2019, 3. [12] Mukherjee, Souvik. “Playing Subaltern: Video Games and Postcolonialism.” Games and culture 13, no. 5 (2018): 504–520. https://doi.org/10.1177/1555412015627258., 517. [13] Murray, Soraya “The Work of Postcolonial Game Studies in the Play of Culture.” Open Library of Humanities 4, no. 1 (2018). 2-25. https://doi.org/10.16995/olh.285, 22. [14] Gray, Kishonna L. Intersectional Tech: Black Users in Digital Gaming. Baton Rouge. Louisiana State University Press, 2020, 166. [15] Sicart, Miguel. Play Matters. Cambridge, Massachusetts: MIT Press, 2014, 4. [16] Pérez-Latorre, Óliver. Post-apocalyptic Games, Heroism and the Great Recession. Game Studies. 2019. http://gamestudies.org/1903/articles/perezlatorre. [17] Website for the Wabanaki Alliance, https://wabanakialliance.com/who-we-are/ [18] Map screenshot available on the IGN website of Blue Mountain. [19] This is shown in a picture taken by online user Syp, posted on their gaming blog “Bio Break:” Secret World: Marquard’s Mansion. Biobreak. 2018. https://biobreak.wordpress.com/2018/06/21/secret-world-marquards-mansion/ [20] Upper One Games. Never Alone. E-Line Media. PC. 2014. http://neveralonegame.com/ [21] Schulzke, Marcus. “Using Video Games to Think about Distributive Justice.” Journal of Interactive Technology and Pedagogy 2: 1-19. 2013. http://jitp.commons.gc.cuny.edu/using-video-games-to-think-about-distributive-justice/.
About the author
Luke Hernandez is a Ph.D. Student in the Arts, Technology, and Emerging Communications (ATEC) program at the University of Texas at Dallas in the United States. His research work centers on how video games impact marginalized communities, specifically online Latinx communities, in addition to how play intersects with systems of race, gender, colonization and sexuality. Luke had presented at conferences such as SCMS and DIGRA with work such as How Visual Novel Games Colonize sexuality to situating sexualities. Luke can be found on Instagram (Lukio_andrews_hernan) and on Twitter (Histokaloka).
Abstract
How can scholars approach The Secret World Legends (2017), an obscure game rooted in colonialism, as a source of critique that inspires decolonial futures in media broadly? By applying critical frameworks towards the horror genre and RPG format the game inhabits, this essay continues the work of naming and challenging oppressive systems and narratives embedded in video games and their network. At the same time this essay works to produce subversive readings where both player subjectivity and the game challenges colonialism and imagine decolonial futures through its play. This essay conclude that the combined efforts of play and critique, playing against colonial games, and playing games that deliberately center marginalized experiences, voices and communities, work towards just futures in media that players and researchers must be attentive of.
Key words
Game Studies, video game, play, post-colonial studies, narrative, representation.
Luke Hernandez, ‘A legend of decolonial critique in play: A horror RPG in speculative worlds’, Locus-Tijdschrift voor Cultuurwetenschappen 26 (2023). https://edu.nl/6j7ub
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