There are lots of areas in the game that appear infested with dangerous animals that you are tasked to kill. It is posed as a sort of pest extermination, and once the creatures start fighting back, there appears to be no other option than to kill them. Upon consideration, this is a tad problematic as far as ideologies go, but overall it’s not surprising. Can you think of any other time in real life a group of people with guns encroached on another’s land (and killed them to get it)? This colonial mindset is thoroughly placed throughout a majority of games. A kind of expectation that whatever you come across is fair game to claim for your own, as long as you kill some things first. It’s not just specific to land, often times there are treasures or special items you can gain as well. In this image, my character is in a cave that has been taken over by scorpionesque creatures and the goal is to steal their eggs. Of course they fight back, and you need to kill them to make sure your character doesn’t die and you can complete the quest. It seems as is if most of the tasks and quests outside of longer quest lines have this same kind of set up. You travel to a new area, some things try to kill you because you are invading, and then you kill them, feeling entirely justified because it is done under the guise of self defense. This kind of manifest destiny type of mindset is still very apparent in contemporary settings. One other thing I found interesting was that most of the places you went to, that had dangers you were meant to kill were areas that hadn’t been developed yet. Most were in nature, like caves, forests, lakes, or mountains. The places that didn’t pose any threats were the areas that had buildings, merchants, and other things that seemed to imply a developed society. So upon further analysis, I was able to recognize the colonial ideologies that are present in the game and take notice of how my character isn’t necessarily as righteous as I might want her to be.