A storied history: Americana in video games

destructoid.com:

It was fun to sit on my rooftop and watch the fireworks over the Los Angeles cityscape for the Fourth of July this year, but I gotta be honest — it didn’t feel like there was much to celebrate this year. Regardless of the depressing state of our country, the holiday got me thinking about Americana in video games and how they depict our country, for better and for worse.

Aside from Japan, the United States is the world’s leader in video game production, so it makes perfect sense that developers would borrow themes, imagery, and iconography from their country of origin. Sometimes it’s to pay homage to where they came from, other times it’s with the express purpose of critiquing the systems and ideals that run our nation, and sometimes it’s a mixture of both.

Having grown up in one myself, games that take on the American small-town setting will always hold a special place in my heart. One of the series that portrays the classic “small down with a dark secret” trope well is Life is Strange — and it does an excellent job of capturing on a smaller scale that America has a lot of dark secrets hiding under the surface, many of which have come to light over the past few years. For so long our country pushed this narrative of being an ideal, almost utopian place (at least for some), but the whole thing was built on a broken system to begin with.

Night in the Woods nails this theme as well. Most of the game has the player making friends, hanging out around town, and dealing with the fallout of poor decisions that are really manifestations of trauma. However, there’s a cult running around murdering people because they think they’re doing their part to keep the town running. Sounds a little familiar, right?

Another classic tale of