A Quebec-made video game set in a fictionalized version of the American Deep South, called South of Midnight, won the top prize at last week’s Game of the Year Awards — a fitting example of a larger tension in Canada’s game industry.
Canada is one of the giants of the global games industry, employing thousands in studios large and small and contributing $5.5 billion to the country’s GDP, according to the Entertainment Software Association of Canada. But for all the games made here, few are recognizably set here.
That tension was echoed throughout the awards, where none of the Game of the Year nominees featured Canadian settings, even as a video package celebrated how developers in this country have helped shape the industry.
“Canada helps push gaming forward. Not by dominating conversation, but by deepening it — proving the artform can be expansive, human, and quietly ambitious all at once,” the video’s voice-over boomed, as clips played of nominated Canadian-made games and sweeping Canadian locations like Montreal, the Prairies and B.C.
Some Canadian developers say explicitly Canadian games can still be a tough sell to investors, while others argue the country’s landscapes, cities and values are an untapped creative strength — especially as cultural and economic tensions with the U.S. loom large.
“I think from our perspective, it doesn’t really matter which country or location or region it is. It just means we need to double down and make sure we’re doing our homework,” said Guillaume Provost, head of Compulsion Games, which made South of Midnight.
“If I would only depict the things that we know about, we’d just make, you know, games about Canadian hockey set in Montreal, for example,” he said, before adding: “We should totally see more of these as well.”
That is slowly changing, as some independent studios make games that are more explicitly rooted in Canada. But creators who spoke to CBC News were divided on what it means to express their Canadian pride in their work — and whether tying a game closely to place helps it stand out or makes it harder to sell.
Are games set in Canada ‘unmarketable’?
Across the street from the awards venue in downtown Toronto, the XP Gaming Summit had game developers — mostly from smaller indie studios — holding meetings with fellow developers, publishers and potential investors in the hope of securing funding for their projects.
Many featured common gaming settings and genres, like fantasy or science fiction. Some had Canadian nods in the background. Echo Generation 2, a retro adventure game with Stranger Things vibes, stars a Canadian dad who lives with his U.S.-born wife in the fictional Mapletown.
Developers have told CBC News in the past that setting a game in an explicitly Canadian location — like The Long Dark, a survival game set in the Canadian North — could prompt pushback from potential investors.
Indie developer Sean Browning has been working on Retroronto, a pixel-art game set in downtown Toronto filled with local references like TTC streetcars and the CN Tower.
“It’s such a multicultural city, you know? I feel like if I’m going to make a game about any city in the world, you know — why not Toronto?” he said.
WATCH | A retro styled game all about Toronto:
But he said potential investors told him the setting wasn’t “globally marketable” enough to support — and that he’d have a better chance if it was set in New York or a fictional city instead.
Browning says he now needs to “re-strategize” how to find new funding for the game, which he estimates will take another two years to complete.
Joel Burgess, head of Toronto-based team Soft Rains, says the argument that games set in Canada aren’t marketable is “bullshit.”
“I think we could tell incredible stories, capture incredible vistas [and] incredible pieces of culture, strictly within the Canadian lens,” said Burgess, who is originally from the U.S.
Soft Rains’ game Ambrosia Sky is a sci-fi story set mostly in the rings of Saturn. But narrative director Kaitlin Tremblay said it nonetheless reflects what she sees as quintessentially Canadian values of communal care and people helping each other in times of crises. In it, players clean space fungus from derelict space stations to uncover victims of past disasters and perform respectful death rituals for the lost.
Burgess said Canadians have “a sense of quiet diligence that is really admirable,” but admitted he thought they could “stick out their chest” and “boast a bit more” about their work.
Tremblay, somewhat amused by that take, said she’s inclined to do the opposite.
“I think what’s great is we just do it, right? It’s kind of like Canadians to just do the work they care about.”
Make art that reflects you — or seek out new worlds?
Despite the obstacles, another game in early development that turned heads was North Shore, an exploration game with a heavy emphasis on skating, set in a rough approximation of wintry northern Ontario in the late 1800s.
Nick Counter and Dante Camarena of Ravine Studios said they were inspired by the Group of Seven painters to make a game showcased “the unique landscape of the Canadian Shield.”
Being unapologetically Canadian doesn’t seem to have slowed their progress so far. Camarena said they recently took the preview build of their game to a music and games festival in Washington “at the height” of trade and diplomatic tensions between Canada and the U.S.
“We got nothing but love from people there. Everyone was like, I got to go up to Canada,” he said.
Provost said it is sometimes natural for creatives to tell stories in settings or locations other than the ones they know best because it allows them to explore something new.
But he also noted that one of the most celebrated recent games — Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 — was made by a French team and infused with French imagery and culture. Who’s to say the next blockbuster from Canada couldn’t do the same?
“There is a lot of power in celebrating your local culture and actually being able to share that with the world,” said Provost.
