Summary
TheAmericanaaesthetic is one most gamers, even those who live outside of the United States, are probably familiar with.Falloutstands out as a prime example of the style, but there are many games that are inspired by American culture and history.
While many of these games are sci-fi, likeFallout, or are set in modern or historical settings, likeFar Cry 5, Grand Theft Auto,andRed Dead Redemption, few fall under the umbrella offantasy. This list will look at and rank games that fall under this category; games inspired by American eesthetics and culture, but with a magical twist.
Starting with America’s inception, there’sNew World. For those unfamiliar, New Worldis an MMOgame that plays on the discovery of the Americas. Instead of landing in the Americas, many travellers searching for new lands get trapped on an island located somwhere in the Atlantic, called Aeternum.
The player finds themselves here too, and thanks to a material called Azoth, is trapped here, unable to leave and unable to die. What ensues is players doing things like creating settlements and gathering resources, not for the profit of some offshore colonial power, but to survive in a hostile and mysterious land.
Hunt: Showdownis an extraction shooterthat slims down the loot mechanics in exchange for a more tightly balanced PvEvP experience. After an anomaly called “The Louisiana Event” infects the local fauna and population, players, called Hunters, operate within the zone to fulfill bounties on the various creatures that form there.
It’s a fun twist on the extraction shooter that streamlines gunplay with deliberately clunky old-fashioned firearms, only to flip it on its head with paranormal and fantastical abilities, like tamed bugs that can act as scouting drones, or the ability to revive downed teammates telepathically.
Inscryptionis a deckbuilding story game that leans heavily into Americana themes. While it’s hard to talk about the game without touching on spoilers, it’s an easy recommendation, even for those who are typically not into card-based games.The game is a roguelikeabout collecting cards and completing escape-room style puzzles to progress. The atmosphere takes a lot of cues from the northwest, with crazed prospectors, stoats, and fur trappers all set to a great soundtrack that melds bitcrushing with dark country strings.
Players who can stomach the dread-inducing atmosphere will find many surprises throughout their playthrough, and those who haven’t unraveled them should really give it a shot. The game deserves all the nominations and awards it received.
Blood West
Weird West legends meet eldritch horror inBLOOD WEST, an immersive stealth FPS. Become the Undead Gunslinger, doomed to roam the barren lands until he finds the means to purge their curse and free his soul. No, this isn’t your typical Wild West desperado redemption arc. This is a damnation arc.The Canyons, the Swamp, and the Mountains. Each swarming with abominable monsters and unholy demons, these are open-ended worlds for you to explore freely at your own pace. It will take the player over 20 hours on average to complete all three scenarios, and over 35 if they want to see everything the barren lands have to offer.Blood Westis a stealth FPS inspired by the genre classics such as the Thief series (whose fans will be happy to hear the voice of Stephen Russell, the actor voicing the master-thief Garrett, returning here as the protagonist), S.T.A.L.K.E.R. games, or - from the contemporary catalog - Hunt: Showdown. The gameplay rewards the careful approach: scouting the area, stalking your enemies, and striking from the shadows. Can you figure out a way to clear a fort full of ghouls and monsters without raising an alarm?The Barren Lands present the player with a nightmarish, twisted vision of the Wild West legends. The curse that has befallen the realm has corrupted every living thing, defiled the land itself, while summoning restless spirits and dark entities. In this mixture of gunslinger pulp and Lovecraftian horror, dark occult magick presents just as much of a threat as sudden lead poisoning.InBlood Westyou will meet many colorful, yet strangely twisted, fully-voiced NPCs. Just as much prisoners of the Barren Lands as you are, they will sometimes share their unusual stories and send you on various missions. Play nice and they might reward you or become your allies. Cross them and risk their wrath.
The game won’t hold your hand. You’ll have to explore the land for yourself (buying a map from a vendor might prove useful!), and figure out your own way to approach quests. As you poke around the three expansive maps, keep an eye out for hidden places and secret stashes. There’s gold in the mountains! Fair warning - it’s probably cursed.If sneaking around isn’t exactly your thing, or you feel that you have a power advantage over your enemies, you can always take the head-on approach and meet your enemies guns blazing.Blood Westcomes from the creators of the fan-favorite boomer shooterPOSTAL: Brain Damaged, so much gratuitous fantasy violence and pixelated blood splatter is to be expected!One man’s hell might be another hoarder’s paradise! From simple one-use items like bandages, through medical tinctures, explosives and incendiaries, straight to arcane artifacts that - once slotted - can change the way you play the game, the Barren Lands are just filled with STUFF. There are tons of useful items to discover, and there’s a special player’s stash crate for all those super-rare potions that you’ll hoard and never use.A gunslinger without a gun would be just a regular slinger. Where’s the fun in that?Blood Westmakes sure you’ll have plenty of weapons to choose from. Revolvers, rifles, shotguns, carabines - a great variety of firearms, from standard army-issue to those infused with powerful magic, or straight-up possessed. And if you prefer not to cause a ruckus, there’s a wide selection of hand-to-hand combat weapons and archery weapons to pick your favorites from.The RPG-like perk-based progression system inBlood Westwill allow you to highly customize the gameplay experience to your liking. Become a stealthy hunter, a revolver-fanning gunman or a relentless berserker. You will gain experience and progress through the skill tree, while discovering new artifacts in each of the scenarios that will bestow on you additional abilities. Combining skills and load-out creates more possible playstyles than you’d normally be able to explore in one playthrough.Are you ready to take back the frontier from the dark forces of demonic corruption and earn the right to move on to a better world? The Barren Lands call you, Gunslinger!The developers describe the content like this:Blood West is a dark and gritty horror/western game. Scenes of gore and brutal violence are to be expected, presented in glorious low-res, low-poly 3D. The game also contains depiction of alcohol consumption.
Blood Westis a lesser-known title, but an incrediblywell-made stealth shooter. The premise is similar toHunt: Showdown, where the player is stuck inside an exclusion zone ravaged by paranormal activity. The player, having been killed and resurrected, joins forces with a totem spirit to solve the cause of the curse, and restore the land.
What ensues is a series of maps that, while played sequentially for story coherence, are incredibly non-linear in their design. From sneaking around in the swamps with a knife to sacrificing health to fire soul arrows immune to gravity, there are many ways to play. This is even before getting into trinkets, which are so game-changing and so frequent that nearly every inch of the worlds visited are worth exploring.
Americana At Its Most Apparent
BioShock Infinite (dupe)
Indebted to the wrong people, with his life on the line, veteran of the U.S. Cavalry and now hired gun, Booker DeWitt has only one opportunity to wipe his slate clean. He must rescue Elizabeth, a mysterious girl imprisoned since childhood and locked up in the flying city of Columbia. Forced to trust one another, Booker and Elizabeth form a powerful bond during their daring escape. Together, they learn to harness an expanding arsenal of weapons and abilities, as they fight on zeppelins in the clouds, along high-speed Sky-Lines, and down in the streets of Columbia, all while surviving the threats of the air-city and uncovering its dark secret.The City in the Sky – Leave the depths of Rapture to soar among the clouds of Columbia. A technological marvel, the flying city is a beautiful and vibrant world that holds a very dark secret.Unlikely Mission – Set in 1912, hired gun Booker DeWitt must rescue a mysterious girl from the sky-city of Columbia or never leave it alive.Whip, Zip, and Kill – Turn the city’s Sky-Lines into weaponized roller coasters as you zip through the flying city and dish out fatal hands-on punishment.Tear Through Time – Open Tears in time and space to shape the battlefield and turn the tide in combat by pulling weapons, turrets, and other resources out of thin air.
Any of theBioShockgames would fit well in this category, thoughInfinitestands out as being the one with the most potent use of the Americana esthetic. WhileBioShockandBioShock 2play inside the roarin’ twenties,Infinitegoes back by a decade or two further, steeping itself in the type of nationalistic fervor that rose and ultimately shapedthe first World War.
The game is charged with many racial and political themes from that era, portraying them as they might play out in a hyper-advanced city in the clouds.Wielding magic in one handand an arsenal of weapons in the other, players control Booker DeWitt, as he settles his own past at the epicenter of a brewing civil war.
1Alan Wake (Series)
A Finnish Love Letter To American Storytelling
The premise to the originalAlan Wakegoes like this: imagine an author like Stephen King wrote a book, somehow forgot every detail about it, lost track of his wife, and during his search was attacked by elements of his unpublished manuscript, newly materialized into his world. Both the original game and the sequel are very psychologically and philosophically driven narratives that take place in a scarcely populated Northwest town, like Twin Peaks and even Gravity Falls.
LikeInscryption, it’s recommended to go into these games blind, as the series is heavy on mysteries and twists, with the sequel in particular innovating greatly toimmerse players in the deductive processes of a detective, and the storytelling processes of Wake himself.
