The present and future of Indigenous video games in Canada

As befits an avid gamer, my Steam library is vast and eclectic. A sense of homegrown pride ensures Canadian-made games hold a special place there, especially games that aren’t as widely known or talked about. Games developed by Indigenous creators are among them, too—you don’t get any more local than that.

Unfortunately, in Canada, finding them isn’t easy.

Canada often flies under the radar of the gaming world, despite being home to numerous studios and development teams responsible for countless runaway hits of recent years. According to the Entertainment Software Association of Canada (ESAC), video games contributed $5.1B to Canadian GDP in 2024.

Out of the many thousands of games being worked on in Canada, only a tiny fraction have Indigenous creators at the helm. Very few projects make it onto the radar of the general gaming public. The 2024 hit Two Falls (Nishu Takuatshina), developed by Montréal-based Unreliable Narrators, and Hill Agency: PURITYdecay by Achimostawinan Games from Hamilton are notable exceptions. Yet, if you only have a passing interest in games, you might not even be familiar with those two, let alone other titles that exist.

Challenges include access to training, funding, and more

Jeremy Nelson is the producer and designer at Little Buffalo Studios, a remote-first Toronto-based studio currently working on its first title, the cozy survival game Akiiwan: Survival. His experience of being one of the very few matches my Steam library’s reality.

Akiiwan: Survival.

“It’s weird being the only person and the only team that I know of at the moment. It’s similar to other industries that historically didn’t include a lot of us. There haven’t been a lot of folks working in tech. It takes a long time to develop the skills to run a studio. It’s changed now with remote work, but I think it was very difficult to do that in a previous time outside of a few cities.”

Access to training, funding, skill development opportunities, and professional networks are challenges familiar to game developers industry-wide. Yet, Indigenous-led projects also have structural barriers and cultural nuances to contend with. The perception of the medium as low-brow is one, and the lack of representation—seeing other First Nations folks—working in the field and succeeding, is another.

“Anyone who doesn’t play games only thinks of games as first-person shooters and having little cultural value,” says Nelson. “Anyone who does knows that’s not the case. There’s this huge divide… that doesn’t lead to as many people thinking of the different possibilities in the way that games could be able to tell a lot of different stories. There are just so many urgent stories to tell that sometimes there are faster mediums or more abstract mediums that could be easier to tell them in.”

Akiiwan: Survival.

The choice of medium is an interesting problem that also affects funding availability for Indigenous-led interactive projects. When the goal is to tell their story authentically, in the right way, Indigenous creators gravitate towards media that make it possible, which includes getting money to finance it. Nelson’s experience with obtaining funding for Akiiwan is that video games do not receive the same recognition as other media do. “Quite honestly, the funding you could get for the longest time was definitely geared towards film, TV, and visual arts, and music. Certainly, the amount of money that goes to video games compared to other areas is still very, very small.”

This is in line with what Jean-François D. O’Bomsawin, director of communications and Francophone initiatives at the Indigenous Screen Office, told me. Indigenous Screen Office is an independent national advocacy and funding organization serving First Nations, Inuit, and Métis creators of screen content in Canada. While they currently do not collect specific data on video game development nor directly assist video game makers, a portion of their funding is allocated to “Interactive and Immersive” projects, which do include video games, according to their regularly published lists of funding recipients. (Akiiwan: Survival is one of the recipients.)

Publishers can inadvertently “water down the Indigeneity”

Even when funding is available, be it in the form of grants or private investment, preserving the authenticity of the story turns into a challenge that not every creator manages to overcome. Publisher involvement in the project may inadvertently “water down the Indigeneity of it,” as Josh Nilson, owner of Maskwa Investments and creator of the Roblox-based game The Métis Life, puts it. A passionate game developer and investor, Nilson is acutely aware of how quickly projects may lose what made them unique in the first place, even if the publisher or investor involvement comes from a place of good intentions.

Akiiwan: Survival.

“My job is to make sure that the Indigenous founders that I fund can go about it and remain authentic in your way. Once people start funding more projects, publishing more projects, sometimes those comments can make the Indigeneity of the project be more watered down right away. They’re helping, but they’re like, ‘What if you made it more like this? What if you made it more like that?’ Indigenous people are natural storytellers, and there are so many stories that we want to tell and we want to share, but in the authentic and right way.”

With few Indigenous creators working in the industry, there are limited networking opportunities and few examples of successful projects, even though many do exist. “It’s just hard for game developers right now because there are very few Indigenous game developers who have had a game that’s gotten big,” says Nilson. “But there are many— there are lots of games. It’s just that distribution has been hard.”

“I want to see 1,000 new Indigenous creators in this space”

Representation is critically important for the next generation of game developers. Demonstrating that video games are a viable career path is one of the main challenges we need to solve to see the number of Indigenous creators and Indigenous-made games grow.

Akiiwan: Survival.

“I want to see 1,000 new Indigenous creators in this space in the next two years, and I want to see 10,000 in the next five years. We need to break these generational barriers down. We need more successful entrepreneurs in Canada to stay here and do this. We need more people who are Indigenous VCs. We need more Indigenous bankers. We need more Indigenous creators, and we need more backing. We need more allies to step up and to say, ‘I want to make a difference. I want to do this.’ Some kid’s aunty someplace sends them an article and says, ‘Hey, look. You make games. You should make games. You should do that.’”

Change is coming, even if it’s in little steps. Nelson agrees: “All change is generational, to a certain degree. There’s an Indigenous devs Discord where a lot of people are sharing things they’re working on, there’s a lot up and coming. It’s only now sort of cusping over.”

Akiiwan: Survival.

At the end of the day, video games are great business. There is an appetite for original stories and gaming experiences, and there is no shortage of either in the Indigenous cultures that more and more creators want to share with the world, their way. “What’s more authentic than an Indigenous game, made through Indigenous viewpoints?” asks Nilson.

As for consumers like me, wondering what we can do to see more of these stories and their creators succeed? Nilson says to keep looking for them, keep playing, and keep spreading the word.

“Support, love, and share Indigenous games. Just celebrate and help spread the word. Download the games. I think we’re going to get there.”

Header image credit: Little Buffalo Studios