November is Native American Heritage Month, making it is a perfect time to review games that got Native American representation right - and one such game is Assassin's Creed 3. In the game, players got to play as a half-British and half-Mohawk man named Connor as he fights off Templars that are trying to gain control over American colonies in the mid-1700s. The representation was a risk for stereotypes and factual error, but Ubisoft did its homework by hiring a Mohawk cultural consultant to help make their game.

Assassin's Creed 3 came out in 2012 and still stands above most other games in terms of well-done Native American representation. Games before it have done a lot wrong by portraying old damaging stereotypes such as the character Nightwolf from Mortal Kombat, and general characters from the Oregan Trail, Beyond Two Souls, and Civilization 6. The only game to stand above Assassin's Creed 3 in terms of Native American representation is Never Alone, which was made by the first indigenous-owned video game publisher and developer. However, Assassin's Creed is unique in the fact that it is a huge franchise and reached the eyes and ears of millions of gamers.

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How Ubisoft Dedicated Itself To Truthful Representation

Conner in field of battle.

Despite obviously being a work of historical fiction, Ubisoft's Assassin's Creed games have always strived to be as accurate as possible in their details, ranging from the historical characters down to their clothes and weapons. For Connor's story, Ubisoft was aware that it could be opening a can of worms in terms of falling into misinformation and stereotypes about Native Americans and their diverse tribes and customs. The creative director of the game, Alex Hutchinson, even admitted in an interview with Time Magazine that most of their team are early to middle-aged white men. As such, they hired Thomas Deer from the Kanien’kehá:ka Onkwawén:na Raotitióhkwa Language and Cultural Center to provide assistance.

According to Hutchinson, Deer's advice helped them make decisions on what was and what was not appropriate to depict in the game such as clothes, jewelry, and music. They also hired a Native American voice actor for Connor, Noah Watts. Watts was from the Crow and Blackfeet nations, though, so he was coached by Deer about the Mohawk language. The Kahnawà:ke Mohawk community near Montreal also had some of its residents help sing and voice act for other characters in the game. Even Connor's Mohawk name, Ratonhnhaké:ton, was treated with a careful hand, as every name must be unique in Mohawk culture. Due to this, Ubisoft's lawyers made a promise to never trademark it.

Another important detail is that Ubisoft writers made sure that Connor was not only defined by his Native American heritage, which is a mistake many writers make when writing about minority groups. Connor is thoughtful, idealistic, never killed civilians, and also had some personality traits similar to Desmond. These personality traits were also well-chosen, because most Native American characters in video games are unfairly portrayed as more violent.

Native American Representation In Games Today

Child and artic fox from Never Alone.

The 10 year anniversary of Assassin's Creed 3 is coming up, and not many other games have successfully tackled Native American representation in earnest since. However, two years after Assassin's Creed 3 was released, Never Alone came out and stands as one of the best indigenous video game stories to date. Unfortunately, though, Never Alone is a far lesser-known game than Assassin's Creed.

While big game companies have not appeared to have followed in Ubisoft's footsteps, there is still good news. Small publishers and developers have been creating indie games with unique indigenous representation. One example is Hill Agency, a cybernoir detective game made by an indigenous video game company called Achimo Games that currently is raising money for itself on Kickstarter. Hopefully, representation that is on par with what is seen in Assassin's Creed 3 will become more common going forward.

Assassin's Creed 3 Remastered is available on PC, PS4, and Xbox One.

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