'Civilization 7' Devs Are Working Extensively With The Shawnee To Represent The Tribe In The Game
Image Source: Civilization
The seventh iteration of the best-selling Civilization series of 4X games on PC is still a few months out, but details emerge every week. It’s an incredibly well-researched and detailed game, something games are trying to do better at each time these days, and the Civilization team is no stranger to the presence of historians and experts advising them on their games.
The games are known for featuring numerous famous civilizations from across human history. This time around, Firaxis decided to include the Shawnee tribe of Native Americans. After facing some backlash on the inclusion of the Pueblo and the Cree in earlier games, Firaxis really wanted to get the full approval of the tribe they are featuring this time.
That tribe would be the Shawnee, whose featured leader will be the famous Tecumseh (voiced by Shawnee actor Dean Dillon).
Firaxis approached Ben Barnes, current Chief of the Shawnee, and having played games as a kid, even Civilization, Barnes was excited about the prospect of accurately representing his people and having his people see what they could achieve in the game’s imagined futures.
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There are some gaps and missteps in the games’ past: generalized assumptions about cultures, caricatured racial features, monolithic Westernized treatment of cultures, etc. A Cree leader complained in 2018 when Civilization 6 was released, pointing out the game’s mechanics of conquest and land grabs, stating that is a gross over-generalization of Western concepts of a nation that were placed on the representation of his culture in the game.
This time around, Firaxis and Meier, the series creator, are working even closer with the Shawnee leader and his people to best represent them in the game. They approached the Shawnee with questions about what they would need to be in partnership. Barnes knew what to do: language preservation. He commented that one of their biggest struggles is preserving their language, and in conjunction with Firaxis, they just opened a new language education center in Oklahoma. Barnes hopes that with their efforts, the Shawnee language will be around for centuries to come.
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Source(s): AP News
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