Naming Fictional Landscapes: Orientalism in Far Cry 4

Class

Article

Graduation Year

2018

College

College of Humanities and Social Sciences

Department

History Department

Faculty Mentor

Ravi Gupta

Presentation Type

Poster Presentation

Abstract

Fictional landscapes have captured generations of imaginations. Typically modeled on real world places, these landscapes provide contexts to the stories they appear in by embedding the associations the audience has with the real world landscapes into the plot of the story. This allows the creators of narratives to set the scene more easily than if they had attempted to place their stories in locations that are not connected to the real world. This is particularly true in video games, where interactive landscapes have become a major draw for their audience. Far Cry 4 is one such game. An open world game, set in a fictional country named Kyrat, it uses stereotypes of Himalayan states, notably Nepal, Bhutan, and the Indian border region, to evoke a sense of orientalist mystique. This project considers the hundreds of individually named locations that are scattered across the fictional landscape, and how they use language, geography, and orientalist stereotypes to invoke a specific sense of place, which, although it cannot be named as specifically relating to one real world location, can be said to be conditioned by orientalist assumptions about Himalayan states. Further, this project argues that this engagement with oriental stereotypes is an essential part of the games appeal to its largely western, educated, young and male audience.

Location

North Atrium

Start Date

4-13-2017 1:30 PM

End Date

4-13-2017 2:45 PM

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Apr 13th, 1:30 PM Apr 13th, 2:45 PM

Naming Fictional Landscapes: Orientalism in Far Cry 4

North Atrium

Fictional landscapes have captured generations of imaginations. Typically modeled on real world places, these landscapes provide contexts to the stories they appear in by embedding the associations the audience has with the real world landscapes into the plot of the story. This allows the creators of narratives to set the scene more easily than if they had attempted to place their stories in locations that are not connected to the real world. This is particularly true in video games, where interactive landscapes have become a major draw for their audience. Far Cry 4 is one such game. An open world game, set in a fictional country named Kyrat, it uses stereotypes of Himalayan states, notably Nepal, Bhutan, and the Indian border region, to evoke a sense of orientalist mystique. This project considers the hundreds of individually named locations that are scattered across the fictional landscape, and how they use language, geography, and orientalist stereotypes to invoke a specific sense of place, which, although it cannot be named as specifically relating to one real world location, can be said to be conditioned by orientalist assumptions about Himalayan states. Further, this project argues that this engagement with oriental stereotypes is an essential part of the games appeal to its largely western, educated, young and male audience.