The concept of the game is simple: players play as settlers that land on the “new world” of Aeternum. They then team up with other players to settle the island, scavenging supplies, building walls, farming, or defending the settlement from invaders.
Now, this gameplay centered around settling a pristine land ripe for exploitation veers dangerously close to a colonialist fantasy on its own, but it is not especially egregious compared to, say, any 4X game. However, New World fully embraces the aesthetics of European colonialism as well. The settlers in the game wear Spanish morion helmets, doublets, cavalier hats, and other clothes worn by various European colonizers in the seventeenth century. Weapons similarly include the flintlock pistols and rifles of the era.
The comparison between New World and colonial history runs deeper than just aesthetic. The game is literally set in the 1600s and Aeternum is a fictional island in the Atlantic Ocean near Bermuda, a real-life target of colonization by the English Virginia company in 1609. Even the title New World, is rooted in colonialism, as it was the name given to the Americas to differentiate them from the “old world” that was known at the time to European explorers. The fact that the game is about settling a “new world” island in an era where similar colonial actions resulted in the death and impoverishment of untold amount of similar islanders is too much of a coincidence to dismiss.
This destruction cannot be understated, which is why New World’s trivialization of colonialism should not be ignored. It is estimated that European colonization of the Americas killed 10% of the world population, which is why the subject of colonization should be treated with the gravity it deserves.
Indigenous islanders do not appear in the game, but a horde of shuffling zombies provides an endless amount of conquerable enemies. These zombies are, based on the lore provided by the game, “former settlers” who have been corrupted by the island. Still, fact that the game presents the only people standing between settlers and the pristine landscape they intend to conquer as mindless zombies is suspicious, to say the least, and much too reminiscent of how 17th-century Europeans saw indigenous people.
Even taking the lore that these zombies are former settlers at face value, New World reflects colonialist concerns about “going native.” These fears can be found even in works that ostensibly criticize colonialism, such as Heart of Darkness, and are rooted in a fear that white people will become “corrupted” by the lands they conquer and exploit.
It is worth noting that there is a character creator in the game, which presumably lets players design their avatar to be any race or gender. It has a thin layer of diversity that, along with a magic system and other fantastical elements, serves to distance it from the colonial past that it draws from.
However, this does not actually improve the fact that the game is recreating acts of colonialism for players to partake in. This sort of token diversity does nothing to address the harm caused by the colonial history New World aestheticizes. There’s no use in making systems of oppression more diverse, and making a game that is “colonialism but woke” is no more progressive than celebrating women concentration camp guards. The fantasy elements don’t help either, since minimalizing the horrors of colonialism as a fun fantasy adventure is not a good look.
Source: Polygon
