Civilization 7’s developers are working closely with the Shawnee Tribe to bring sincere representation of the Indigenous tribe to their games, according to AP News.

Civilization 7 is the seventh installment in the Sid Meier’s Civilization series, a video game franchise that allows players to guide civilization’s throughout history, according to Civilization’s website. Players get to choose “leaders” to represent their nation in gameplay, each based on a real-life historical figure.

One such leader is Tecumseh, a Shawnee chief who challenged westward expansion of the U.S. by spreading messages of unity throughout indigenous communities, according to Civilization’s website. The developers of Civilization 7 worked with the current Shawnee Tribe Chief, Ben Barnes, to ensure that Tecumseh’s portrayal in the video game was an accurate representation of him and his tribe, according to AP News.

The Badger Herald spoke to Neil D’Souza, the programming lead for Playing For Real, a University of Wisconsin student organization dedicated to video game design, about how video games can represent diverse groups and cultures.

D’Souza said video games have a poor historic track record when representing people of color and women. Video games that have included these groups often portray them in a stereotypical and unrepresentative way, but Civilization 7’s method of representing the Shawnee Tribe through close interaction is a positive step toward correcting many of the stereotypes represented in gaming, D’Souza said. 

“It’s a really interesting, powerful way to use games for better representation,” D’Souza said.

When asked about how video games can represent minority groups more broadly, D’Souza said that video game characters can represent LGBTQ+ and ethnic groups in a way that is not directly tied to their identity. Video games such as Celeste have characters who are transgender, but they are not defined by their sexuality, D’Souza said. While a story can be about how a character is transgender, it can be more meaningful when the character’s identity is not the most salient part of their role in the story.

For aspiring game developers hoping to represent different groups in their creations, it is important to bring members of those communities into the creation process, D’Souza said. When representing groups that one does not belong to, it is important to not attach characters’ identities solely to their community.

Another example of representation in video games is Venba, a narrative cooking game in which a family of Indian immigrants rediscovers family recipes, D’Souza said. Games that represent specific cultures can be empowering to players from those communities. Video game developers can take multiple avenues to represent groups, such as through different game genres.

“There’s an infinite amount of routes you can take toward representation through a lot of really creative ways,” D’Souza said.