Every game has a moment—a moment that not only crystallizes your mission, but that lets you know why you're playing at all. In Foxtales, that moment happens almost immediately. Nuna, a young Inuit girl, and her Arctic fox are overjoyed when the spring thaw begins in her village; but when that enthusiasm leads them to act thoughtlessly, it sets off a chain of events that endanger their lives. It's a mistake, says Ishmael Hope, borne of exuberance without consideration.
"It's an amazing feeling to see the light after so many months in the darkness—instead of an endless blizzard, you have the light and vitality of the tundra coming alive in springtime," says Hope, the game's writer. But that relief isn't without responsibility: "If you forget to respect the world around you, there will be consequences."
Released today for Xbox One, PS4, and Steam, Foxtales builds on the world of last year's Never Alone, which first introduced players to Nuna, Fox, and the tundra above the Arctic Circle. Hope's moral, however, doesn't just inform the game's plot; it also holds true for game developers looking to portray native culture—an effort that too often results in overused stereotypes. "Usually, we just hope the games aren't horribly offensive," says Hope, a member of Alaska's Iñupiat tribe.
And so Foxtales, like Never Alone, presents native culture far beyond igloos and powwows—in large part because Iñupiat elders provided feedback on the game throughout the development process. But those elders weren't a mere focus group; as part of the first indigenous-owned videogame company in the US, they were executives overseeing the process itself.
