In March, Tyler Kynn shared his experiences of incorporating video games into history classrooms as a creative method to re-evaluate non-Western narratives of the past. Similar reflections by Kynn and scholars like James Harry Morris have been posted elsewhere on DO. These discussions not only illustrate the potential of video games as effective tools for conveying alternative histories, but also introduce practical tools for creating interactive stories and games like Twine. Their experiences resonate with the interdisciplinary aspirations of digital humanities, where video games are envisioned as valuable media for engaging with alternative modalities of knowledge (e.g. Clulow, 2023). While recognising their importance, given my own experiences as a gamer and researcher, I also wonder: is genuine engagement with diverse narratives through games truly feasible, especially in areas which often appear as the objects of imagination in games? This article explores the representation of colonial subjectivities in Far Cry 4, an AAA game set in the fictionalised Himalayan region of Kyrat, developed by the leading global game company Ubisoft. It investigates how, for many non-Western actors, so-called alternative narratives may merely represent another facet of a dominant hegemonic narrative.
Far Cry 4: Shangri-La as a War Zone
Far Cry 4, an open-world survival shooter video game developed by Ubisoft Montreal, was released on November 18, 2014, for platforms including PS4, Xbox One, PS3, Xbox 360, and PC. According to the game studio’s official website, “Hidden in the towering Himalayas lies Kyrat, a country steeped in tradition and violence. You are Ajay Ghale. Traveling to Kyrat to fulfill your mother’s dying wish, you find yourself caught up in a civil war to overthrow the oppressive regime of dictator Pagan Min.” The fictional land of Kyrat is based on Nepal in reality.
The Himalayas, including Tibet and Nepal, have frequently served as settings in popular culture and video games, featuring in titles such as Tomb Raider 2, Uncharted 2: Among Thieves, and Overwatch. What distinguishes Far Cry 4 within its genre is its emphasis on ‘authenticity’ and the efforts made to manifest this authenticity within the game’s constructed open world. Rather than depicting a mythical version of Nepal, the studio opted for a less commonly explored theme—the ten-year civil war (1996-2006) between the royal government and Maoist guerrillas. During the game’s production, the studio sent a team to Nepal, not only to capture local cultural elements and landscapes, but also to conduct interviews with individuals who had experienced the war. This research was proudly claimed to contribute to the construction of an ‘authentic’ environment and society in the game, despite the in-game land being presented as a fictional place.
In Far Cry 4, players around the world control Ajay Ghale, a young South Asian man from the USA, who is drawn into the local conflict upon his return to the homeland he has never been before. The game navigates his decisions, which will ultimately shape Kyrat’s future. Despite the studio’s emphasis on authenticity, the representation of Kyrat/Nepal in the game has only superficial connections to the actual Himalayan country. The cultural aspects claimed to be local—including language, landscapes, political movements, people, and their daily lives—are presented in an imagined, distorted, and inconsistent manner. For instance, the game displays what it calls local languages; however, despite resembling Devanagari script, the text is grammatically incorrect, forming a bizarre amalgamation of Hindi and Nepali languages. Furthermore, the real-world socio-political dynamics behind the civil war are oversimplified as relentless battles between freedom and dictatorship, democracy and tyranny, as well as liberation and oppression. The game’s binary storytelling casts neither local parties (neither the rebels nor the dictator) as inherently good, while the Western-returning protagonist, controlled by the players, assumes the role of liberator and saviour.
In addition to depicting themes of real-world conflict, Far Cry 4 also emphasises the mystical, Shangri-La aspect of Kyrat/Nepal. One of its downloadable content (DLCs), titled “The Valley of Yetis”, crudely awakens global players’ memories of the Himalayas and the mythical Yeti. Additionally, to dramatise and entertain through the depiction of serious political and military movements, the so-called authentic open world is structured as a large, landscaped map dotted with numerous locations where human activities are either scarcely perceived or portrayed in a ‘primitive’ manner. In this way, the ostensibly authentic in-game land oddly and regrettably mirrors the problematic images of Nepal constructed by decades of work by Western anthropologists, invoking stereotypes of “Shangri-la,” “fossilization,” and “exoticism.”
What is thought-provoking is that, despite the numerous flaws of the game mentioned above, the local reception of Far Cry 4 is generally positive. Local people are not offended by the misrepresentation and cultural appropriation in the game; rather, they appreciate that it introduces Nepali culture to a broader international audience. These narratives imply that the current approach to globalising Nepali culture through video games still largely caters to superficial Western perceptions and fits into their exotic imaginations. As Gregory Grieve notes regarding the game industry in Nepal, “in the Kathmandu valley these flows are often focused on a fantasy of Shangri-la that poses Nepal as an underdeveloped traditional nation, full of picturesque poverty, and over-determined with religious culture, but blessed with beautiful Himalayan landscapes.”
Similar observations have been made across the broader South Asian gaming industry, where not only are game developers repeatedly exploring themes of localness, but state governments are also actively encouraging the domestic games industry to incorporate local culture, folktales, ethos, and values. However, as these games aim to reach a wider, eventually global audience, the question remains: to what extent is local culture preserved as truly local, and who controls its definition? This issue highlights the complex dynamics between cultural authenticity and commercial appeal in the global marketplace.
Gaming Trans-local Everyday Life
Despite the ongoing questions mentioned above, I concur with scholars like Tyler Kynn that video games are valuable conduits for engaging with alternative voices, provided they are utilised in appropriate contexts, such as the classrooms of decolonisation, non-Western histories and cultural studies. Games like Far Cry 4 are high-budget AAA titles targeting an international market, with the primary goal of maximising sales. Operating within the global capitalist framework, they often cater to market demands, which frequently involve exploiting an exoticised, non-Western world riddled with stereotypes. However, these norms need not necessarily apply in other spaces, such as educational settings, where the allure of exotic stereotypes is unnecessary. Simple games, such as visual novels, especially those of non-hegemonic characters, with their interactive and multimodal functions, offer promising and effective avenues for deconstructing hegemonic narratives in these contexts because they can efficiently re-direct our pre-occupied attention to “challenge and diversify our understanding of history and culture”.
Currently, I am in the preliminary stages of designing a visual novel game that explores the modern Chinese presence in Nepal. The narrative is centred around a detective story set in a hotel inspired by the Hotel Royal, the first major hotel in Nepal developed by Boris Nikolayevich Lisanevich in the mid-20th century. I envision this hotel as a crossroads for encounters among diverse transnational characters. As I continue to refine the game design, I look forward to sharing my experiences in a future post.
The Digital Orientalist 
