Crab-Rangoons in Kyrat: (Re)Writing South-Asian History in Far Cry 4. Issue 8 (December 2021)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Mukherjee, Souvik
• Is Part Of: Games and culture. Volume 16:Issue 8(2021)
• Page Start: 1065
• Page End: 1086
• Publication Date: 2021-12
• Subjects: minor history -- border-thinking -- subaltern pasts -- postcolonial -- South Asia; Games -- Social aspects -- Periodicals; Video games -- Social aspects -- Periodicals; Computer games -- Social aspects -- Periodicals; Interactive multimedia -- Social aspects -- Periodicals; 303.4834
• DOI: 10.1177/15554120211005240
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 1555-4120

Abstract

Recent research has started focusing on the representation of history in videogames. Such representation is almost always of mainstream history and usually presented from a Western perspective. Set in a fictitious Himalayan kingdom in South Asia, Ubisoft's Far Cry 4 is arguably a crucial example of how history is represented using Western and even colonial frameworks and where the narratives that do not emerge from conventional written history are almost always rendered invisible. Using the frameworks of Subaltern Studies and "border-thinking, " this essay attempts to unpack issues of Orientalism and "colonial difference"; it then engages with postcolonial digital humanities and postcolonial game studies to comment on how history is represented in videogames and how the neglected gaps and silences in the game are important in constructing the historiography in videogames. In the process, the essay engages in a debate with current notions of videogame-historiography.