Open Letter to Sony and Guerrilla Games

Thank you for Horizon Zero Dawn. The game was important for me personally. The story’s science fiction was astounding; Aloy is complex, heartful, and a powerful lead.

I eagerly await Forbidden West. Now that the secret behind the first game has been revealed, I think that it would be in Sony’s benefit to acknowledge the story’s debt to Native communities in America.

The dress, the face paint, the ceremonies, the weapons, the religions, the communities all reference Native peoples in the Americas. Also, the land in the first game, from Utah through Colorado, is a part of the sacred land of many peoples. While Horizon is a computer generated artifact, its land is a facsimile of Native land.

I bring this request to you because Native communities, like many across the United States, are suffering during the pandemic. A similar pandemic led to societal break down in Zero Dawn. This is the time for companies who have vocalized a commitment to equality and inclusion, like yours, to provide some concrete steps to demonstrate this.

Reaching out to Native communities in the West would provide a great opportunity to acknowledge your game’s appreciation of their cultures and also lend support where requested as they manage this public health challenge.

Think and Feel

With games, Indigenous creators contribute to a revitalization

Petersen believes video games are an ideal way to not only teach Lakota, but revitalize it. “In video games, you can put every medium you can think of on a screen in an interactive manner at the same time,” he says. He intends to immerse players in “the experience of being in a culture where that language is alive, and not just history.”

Molly C. Beer from The next chapter of Indigenous representation in videogames
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Categorized as Creation Tagged