I looked at the mythology and cultures used in the Lara Croft: Tomb Raider franchise (1996-2015). These games have an emphasis on action-adventure and use different cultures as a basis for the game narrative. Lara, an archeological explorer faces an exciting variety of beasts from myths and legends. For example, Tomb Raider: Underworld explores Norse myths and legends, whereas other Tomb Raider games look at Mayan civilisations, Greek, Aztec and Egypt. Most recently the Tomb Raider games have used Japanese legend, set on the island of Yamatai, and ancient Siberian culture. However, it is arguable that many of these myths and histories have already been explored many times, some several times throughout the franchise. The Mayan, Egyptian and Norse cultures seem to act as a type of 'fallback' as a basis for the game narratives commonly in games, especially of this genre. For example, Skyrim, God of War and Uncharted have utilised all three, as well as many other examples. Despite these cliches, there are more unusual cultures that have been used in the Tomb Raider games, such as the Ancient Ghanaian temples in Tomb Raider: Legend (that I have recently replayed) and Ancient Japan. Moving away from cliches in games is likely to attract more players who are interested in the archeological and mythological factors of the franchise, and is better portrayed by art teams who want to produce something fresh and different. There is more ground to discover and play around with different mythical beast character concepts and fantastical elements, which have always been a part of Tomb Raider games.
Like the Tomb Raider series, Uncharted is an action-adventure franchise that explores both factual and fictional elements of different cultures. Perhaps inspired by Tomb raider, the first game 'Uncharted: Drake's Fortune' explores Mayan civilisations and mythical beasts, almost as if the creators have stuck to a 'safe-zone' for the debut of the game. The game was nevertheless successful, and despite initially appearing very similar to Tomb Raider, the franchise became more adventurous with unrepresented cultures and folklore, establishing its individuality amongst other action-adventure games. To illustrate this, Uncharted 3 looks at the Rub Al' Khali desert to find the City of Brass, Yemen, and even old France, and Uncharted 4 and the Lost Legacy use Madagascar and The Indian Hoysala civilisation as inspiration.
The Witcher games are largely based around Scandinavian folklore, such as 'The Witcher 3: The Wild Hunt''. CD Projekt Red, a Polish game developing company, takes many myths from folklore and creates very stylised and terrifying, as well as very beautiful and serene, creatures. The Wild Hunt, a group of supernatural malevolent beings in the game, is taken from German folklore and set in a fantasy world. They are spirit hunters that return the living to the world of the dead and are presented as dark skeletal and heavily armoured figures. The game also features Botchlings, the undead spirits of aborted or killed children with no name, similar to the Douen in the Caribbean myth. Both have malevolent intent to the living. It was fascinating to see that there are some similarities between different cultures and their folktales. The 3 Crones in the game are reminiscent of the Baba Yaga, a European myth of a witch that lives in the forest, and are depicted as grotesque faceless old women with malevolent intent.
Lastly, I looked at 'Until Dawn' (2015), a horror game thats outcome is based on the player's decisions throughout the game. The game uses the idea of the 'Butterfly effect', a native American belief that each small decision directly effects the events of the future, which can cause minor or major events to occur. The aesthetics of the game are derived from Native American folklore, most particularly utilising the horrific forest Wendigo creature that hunts down the characters in the game. The Algonquin people described the Wendigo as a human-like being, much like the one presented in the game. However, it is crucial that I understood that depictions of the Wendigo differ between tribes- much like the Caribbean folklore that can be so varied from island to island. The Chiweppewa, Saulteaux, Cree, Naskapi and the Innu peoples in America all have differing descriptions of the Wendigo. From this, it is clear to see that one single description of a folklore myth does not necessarily resonate with another person's or group's perception of the myth. This was reflected especially well in the Interview with my grandmother, who used slightly different names and descriptions for the creatures in the Caribbean myths.
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