Abstract
In this thesis, I explore digital worlds as spaces of cultural reclamation, reimagination, and resistance, focusing on the unique interplay between simulation, videogames, and Indigenous identity. Instead of focusing solely on how videogames represent Indigenous peoples through visual aesthetics or narrative tropes, I shift the focus toward how they actively simulate culture through systems, mechanics, and player behaviour. What if indigeneity in videogames was not just something to be passively observed, but something that could be enacted, embodied, and even reclaimed through the act of play?
Drawing on insights from simulation theory, Indigenous game studies, and postcolonial critique, I argue that videogames are not passive visual artefacts but behavioural systems, engines of action and interaction, which are capable of shaping how stories are told and how culture can be experienced. The analysis centres on a selection of games—When Rivers Were Trails (2019), Guardian Maia (2018, 2022), Umurangi Generation (2020)— analysing not just what they say but how they are played, and how their mechanics and systems resist (or reinforce) dominant ideologies. Through engaging with how these games are played, not just how they are interpreted, this thesis also asks what it means to make Indigenous sovereignty something that can be enacted through play.
This exploration unfolds across three chapters—“Reclaiming,” “Reimagining,” and “Resisting”—which examine how games can reclaim histories that have been erased, reimagine oral storytelling traditions in interactive videogame forms, and resist colonial paradigms by indigenising the very structure of gameplay. Here, simulation is not just technical: in this context, it is also a tool for meaning-making. It is a way of experiencing cause and effect, of navigating systems that echo real-world relationships, values, and epistemologies. Simulation is thus a cultural force. By centring Indigenous perspectives, this thesis positions videogames as vehicles for cultural survival and resurgence.
I argue that to play is not always to escape: it is also to remember, to restore, and to refute. By embracing the complexity of Indigenous identities and narratives within the logic of games, this work explores and offers visions for what decolonised digital futures might look like: worlds in which our ancestors’ stories are not only told, but lived, felt, and shaped, one decision, one interaction, one simulated step at a time.