37: Erasing the Native Middle Ages: Greedfall and the Settler Colonial Imagination

37: Erasing the Native Middle Ages: Greedfall and the Settler Colonial Imagination

Thomas Lecaque @tlecaque Grand View University Greedfall (https://youtube.com/watch?v=_if32pyZP2w) is a Baroque-themed roleplaying game of colonization, with the player building reputation and power for himself and his country, intent on uncovering the riches of the mythical island of Teer Fradee (a stand in for the Americas). While the game presents itself as giving choices to take the side of the native inhabitants , the Yecht Fradí, or the colonizers, the story only allows the player, via the diplomat De Sardet, to act in colonial interests, either through destruction or manipulation. There is a LOT to say about the game, but I want to focus on how it handles the idea of the past in the game world, specifically the Yecht Fradí (who are the native inhabitants) and their history—or, more importantly, the way we don’t get their history. First and foremost, while there are architectural examples of their history in the background, almost all of the sites the character investigates on the island, the history they uncover, is really that of previous continental colonizers. The continental kingdoms are very much based on specific Eurasian empires—Ottomans, Spanish, something akin to London—and many of the “ruins” you explore in game are very clearly (architecture & storywise) really products of secret previous continental colonizations. The developer, Spider, imprints myths of pre-Columbian European exploration and settling of the Americas into the gameworld and especially into the quest lines. There are a handful of important Native sites, largely places the player goes rather than investigates. Instead the places whose history must be looked into, that expand the story and reveal key details of the plot, are all locations of previous continental settlement: the ruins of Didrí, the Didgídensen Camp, Díd e Kíden Nádaigeis—large ancient continental settlements. Secondly, there is a questline showing that the founder of the pseudo-Catholic faith, Saint Matheus and Thélème, settled on Teer Fradee at the end of his life, preached there, and built a syncretic faith there. (minutes 10-13 here https://youtube.com/watch?v=kCBDE-gtuVk ) Third, for all that the game very deliberately is modeled on European colonization of the New World, the Yecht Fradí are not based on any Native American cultures, but modeled on the Gauls and Celtic nations, including their language (https://vg247.com/2019/04/19/greedfall-an-rpg-where-spokenlanguage-is-actually-important/ ). This is actually an old English settler trope, comparing Natives to the Irish or ancient inhabitants of the British Isles. Combined with the depiction of Yecht Fradí guardians as woodland monsters—giant Green Man figures—makes the Native-as-Celt even more problematic.

Rather than deal with the colonial history of England (or, given Spider’s French headquarters, France), they recreate settler colonial imagination but as in-game truth (See https://daily.jstor.org/theconstruction-of-america-in-the-eyes-of-the-english/ and https://bl.uk/collection-items/colouredengravings-of-native-americans-and-picts and https://americanantiquarian.org/proceedings/44517785.pdf for ex.) Greedfall presents a world to explore with indigenous people, settlements & history to learn, and then overwhelmingly makes it Eurocentric, in game and out—the idea may have had merit, but the game is a series of erasures in the guise of nuanced colonial roleplaying.

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