WOMEN’S HISTORY MONTH
Journey Down the New Oregon Trail!
Apple Arcade
The Oregon Trail
Adventure in the American West
Since taking its first steps in 1971, the hugely popular educational videogame The Oregon Trail has taught millions of schoolkids about the perils of traveling cross-country in the 1800s.
But like a lot of educational resources created half a century ago, the original The Oregon Trail didn’t exactly depict life at the time as it was. It was rife with stereotypes of Native Americans and didn’t broach the mass displacement of Indigenous peoples; people of color were few and far between on its fictionalized trail.
“If we were to make something like The Oregon Trail today,” said Don Rawitsch, one of the original game’s creators, in 2017. “I would create the Native American version—what was it like to be like on the other side of the wall, so to speak.”
In reimagining the game for Apple Arcade, Gameloft Brisbane wanted to address this issue directly. Helping lead the effort was art director and inclusion advocate Liz Ballantyne.
“We broke down the original game, screen for screen,” she says. “We dug in historically, looked at photos, and tried to connect with where the original developers were inspired.”
For the first time in the series’ history, Indigenous and Black characters are represented in both your playable party and the people you meet during your journey.
Many are based on real-life figures, such as the 19th-century Indigenous-rights activist and author Sarah Winnemucca (also known as Thocmetony), who was the first Native American woman writer to be published in English. Moses Harris, the legendary Black wagon-train guide and explorer, shows you the ropes as you’re starting out on your journey.
And there’s the famed female chief Bíawacheeitchish, whom you’ll meet when your party arrives at the Crow village along the trail. She welcomes you with a friendly trading opportunity.
For these characters, Ballantyne let history do the talking. She found their stories didn’t require embellishing.
“During development, the team asked, ‘Is this a bug...she had four wives?’” says Ballantyne of Chief Bíawacheeitchish. “But it wasn’t a bug. She had four wives. She was a badass!”
Based in Australia, Ballantyne and team knew they had a blind spot when it came to representing Indigenous peoples from North America. They consulted historians, including Margaret Huettl of the University of Nebraska-Lincoln and Katrina Phillips of Macalester College in Minnesota, to help squash any stereotypes and clichés in the game.
I remember sharing a few of our early concepts of Native peoples and one of our historians suggested, ‘Maybe they don’t all have to have braids?’
“I remember sharing a few of our early concepts of Native peoples and one of our historians suggested, ‘Maybe they don’t all have to have braids?’” says Ballantyne. “It seemed embarrassingly obvious—we’d been so focused on researching and making sure we had ‘the correct’ styles for the era.”
Throughout the process, the team was confronted with their assumptions. “To expand the hunting mini-game from the original, we thought we’d do a variation with bows and arrows,” says Ballantyne. “As it turned out, Native American trappers at the time would have been more likely to have used a rifle. This was yet another stereotype.”
Depicting experiences that were true to the time period was essential. Ballantyne points to the intricate earrings that the game’s designers had re-created for some of the Indigenous women characters. The accessories may have been historically accurate, but they were impractical.
“The trails were windy—they just wouldn’t be wearing the earrings at that time,” she says. “You can get all of these little bits historically right—textbook-right—but then you have to think about what the moment would have actually been like.”
Ballantyne’s passion for getting it right extends to her work as an industry advocate. A representative of nonprofits like Women in Games and IGEA Diversity and Inclusion, she’s spearheading gender-equality efforts around the world. “The goal is to help studios break down walls.” Her own art department at Gameloft Brisbane has passed a major milestone, with women now making up 50 percent of the team.
True to The Oregon Trail’s pioneering spirit, Ballantyne hopes her advocacy work can help pave the way for other women in the industry.
“Be yourself! That’s my number one tip for women coming into games,” says Ballantyne. “You don’t need to change yourself. Representation is something the industry’s trying to shift. Your voice matters.”