Transculturation in Latin American Video Game Production: Between Regionalism and Cosmopolitanism

Transculturation in Latin American Video Game Production: Between Regionalism and Cosmopolitanism Carlos Ramírez-Moreno Luis Navarrete-Cardero Abstract This research explores the manifestation of transculturation, a literary paradigm designed to situate Latin American production in the context of globalization, in video game production, evaluating its applicability to the study of cultural representation. Embracing a documentary research and content analysis methodology, the study analyzes 29 video games from nine Latin American countries, classifying them as “ regionalist ” or “ cosmopolitan ” based on settings, themes, audiovisual elements, and intertextual references. The regionalist category exhibits a preference for realism, natural settings, representation of myths, and an emphasis on cultural preservation. Conversely, the cosmopolitan category favors the fantastic, urban settings, reinterpretation of myths, and an emphasis on cultural exchange. By scrutinizing video games through the lens of transculturation, the study revalidates this theory as a relevant paradigm for understanding cultural representation in the digital age, offering new insights into the interplay between local and global in fl uences in Latin American video game narratives. 2 Introduction It has been stated that global modernity is a complex process, involving often contradictory phenomena, which polarizes culture (Giddens, 2002), drawing it towards two opposing but closely related extremes: homogenization—often also called Westernization or Americanization of culture—and heterogenization, or accentuation of the concept of difference (Appadurai, 1996). Within this sphere, specifically in the context of Latin America’s uneven modernization, the idea of transculturation originated, connecting with the interests of cultural studies, postcolonial thought, and debates on postmodernity, integration, and intercultural relations (Moraña, 2017). Globalization, however, has evolved beyond the “cultural homogenization versus heterogenization” debate, complicating intercultural relations and cultural transmission processes. As pointed out by several authors (Han, 2022; Iwabuchi, 2002; Robertson, 1992; Warnier, 2008), it has nowadays become difficult to identify clear categories of foreign and vernacular cultural forms. Instead, “stable” cultural expressions have been giving way to an amalgam of cultural borrowings that seem to have no beginning and no end. This context, however, does not preclude the possibility of rethinking the ways in which identities are disseminated through new digital media, claiming a kind of cultural specificity. This research is based on the premise that, while video games may adhere to global master narratives, their contents are often re-signified with regional materials from peripheral areas, giving rise to “processes of symbolic hybridization” that try to alleviate “the tense relationship between locality and globality; between regionalism and modernization” (Moraña, 2017, p. 156). This context of cultural globalization invites us to recover Rama’s concept of “transculturation” (2012) as a model to explain the interest of a growing number of developers to reconcile the local and the global, a quality that has always been part of the problematic insertion of Latin America in modernity. The aim of this article is to review transculturation as a conceptual scheme with which to understand the historical processes of cultural hybridization in Latin America, which persist and evolve, adapting to contemporary contexts, in the field of video games. It is thus our intention to contextualize the search for a national–cultural identity in Latin American video game production, in the same way that the historical processes of cultural hybridization have been studied in the field of other hegemonic industries, such as the Japanese (Hutchinson, 2019; Iwabuchi, 2002). Through a critical review of the transculturation model, the aim is to offer a useful paradigm to situate the analysis of video games in a national–cultural key beyond the text itself, potentially serving as an inspiration for similar studies in other sociocultural contexts. 3 Literature Review Cultural artifacts, which include digital and analog games, “serve to maintain, nourish, and continuously restore … immaterial or symbolic elements of culture: beliefs, customs, forms of organization” (Castelló, 2008, p. 100). One must consider, however, that for much of the video game history, many regions have engaged with video games initially through imitation and later through the domestication or appropriation of an imported culture (Iwabuchi, 2002), favoring a “culture of copying” (Moraña, 2017, p. 158) in peripheral areas. Such combinatorial processes gave rise to the first examples of “vernacular digitality” (Swalwell, 2021) in regions often overlooked by video game historiography (Wolf, 2015). Only recently have game studies begun to show interest in the way in which, from regions of the global south, both dissemination and resistance to cultural penetration materialize in different contexts (Penix-Tadsen, 2019). Although the term transculturation does not appear explicitly in the literature reviewed, the phenomenon has been approached from close positions such as the notions of “hybridity” (Consalvo, 2006), “transnationality” (Picard, 2009), and “postcolonialism” (Mukherjee, 2017). Within the field that studies the representational nature of video games, there has been in recent decades a growing interest in analyzing cultural identities, understood as “the process of constructing meaning by attending to a cultural attribute, or a related set of cultural attributes, which is given priority over the rest of the sources of meaning” (Castells, 2003, p. 28). Works by Reichmuth and Werning (2006), Šisler (2008), Leonard (2003), Penix-Tadsen (2013, 2016), and LaPensée (2017) propose anthropological perspectives that combine methodologies proper to ethnographic analysis, semiotics, and literary theory to interpret video games as national–cultural texts. Other significant works, inserted in the field of postcolonialism, have addressed the ways in which the former civilizing nuclei, today geographical and symbolic centers of the cultural machinery, disseminate cognitive models, categories, and values that echo the dynamics of colonialism (Lammes, 2010; Liboriussen & Martin, 2016; Magnet, 2006; Mukherjee, 2017, 2018). In this heterogeneous group, the works of Lugo et al. (2002), Montes (2007), Chávez (2010), Castillo Torres (2018), and Calleros Villarreal (2019) stand out for their pioneering approach to the image of Latin America in video games through the coloniality of power. All these works demonstrate, to varying degrees, an interest in the potential of video games to articulate local cultures by appropriating hegemonic codes of the (Western) games industry. However, little attention has been paid to locating the narratives of these games in established paradigms that allow us to understand the logic behind these representations, especially in the case of Latin America, notable for harboring the origin of cultural hybridization as a conceptual model. Outside the realm of video games, the transculturation model has been successfully applied to Latin American serialized fiction (Pritsch Armesto, 2016) and cinema (León, 2007; Pritsch Armesto, 2017; Sanjinés, 2004), certainly serving as an inspiration for this work. 4 Theoretical Framework The Transculturation Model as a Synthesis of the Identity Construction of Latin America The idea of transculturation emerged in the Latin American context during a period of intense activity in the “anthropological alternative of the concept of culture” (Sales Salvador, 2004, p. 17), which gradually consolidated a relativistic perspective aimed at overcoming, or at least questioning, old mentalities linked to Enlightenment thought. It was in the “periphery closest to the West” (Olivé, 2000, p. 41) where a perspective based on detachment from the idea of acculturation—considered inaccurate for the Latin American context—emerged. Ortiz proposed “transculturation” to account for the epistemic problems with acculturation for the Latin American context in 1940: The term transculturation better expresses the different phases of the transitive process from one culture to another, because this does not only consist of acquiring a different culture, which is what the Anglo-American word acculturation indicates, but the process also necessarily implies the loss or uprooting of a preceding culture, which could be called partial deculturation, and means the consequent creation of new cultural phenomena that could be called neo-culturation. (Ortiz, 1995, p. 90) Still distant from the profound social changes that would mark the evolution of the twentieth century, Ortiz’s contribution went relatively unnoticed until its recovery four decades later. In Transculturación narrativa en América Latina [Narrative transculturation in Latin America], Ángel Rama rereads Ortiz’s work to integrate it into the postcolonial thinking of Latin American literature. The Uruguayan critic celebrates the “resistance to considering one’s own, traditional culture, which receives the external impact that will modify it, as a merely passive or even inferior entity” (Rama, 2012, p. 40). While the Cuban anthropologist was inspired by the vestiges of Western colonialism to seek, with his original contribution, an ethnographically rooted conciliation, Rama (2012) engages in the literary terrain to establish a dialogue with the narratives indigenized by the continent. Extending Ortiz’s dialectic, Rama (2012) grants the “cultural receiver” the capacity to choose among “the rich range of external contributions” (Rama, 2012, p. 46), often even incorporating subaltern cultural practices of the very entity that comes from outside. For the Uruguayan critic, the result is not reduced to the mere sum of its component parts, since from the combination of foreign and vernacular elements, complex aesthetic-ideological proposals emerge that, while expressing local dimensions, are projected towards larger spaces, open to the flows and hybridizations of modernity. (Moraña, 2017, p. 157) Here, Rama (2012) reflects on literature as a symbolic space, which externalizes the modernity/tradition dualism representative of Latin American society. As Poblete (2002) suggests, 5 transculturation was both a reaction to what he called a “puerile cosmopolitanism” in the age of American mass media imperialism and a visceral literary response that sought to rescue an aesthetic form apparently threatened by the new communication technologies that the American communication empire was expanding in Latin America at the time. This approach constitutes the basis on which the idea of transculturation is built. Both Ortiz (1995) and Rama (2012) emphasize the active role of the dominated culture in processes of forced cultural exchange, thus rejecting the unidirectionality typical of other phenomena such as cultural imperialism. Transculturation in Early Twentieth-Century Latin American Literature Moving to the field of literature, Rama (2012) applies the transcultural model to a group of novelists divided according to their anthropological and aesthetic achievements. The author places, on the one hand, the “plastic regionalists” (Rama, 2012, p. 35), such as José María Arguedas, Juan Rulfo, Gabriel García Márquez, and João Guimarães Rosa, and, on the other, the cosmopolitans, such as Jorge Luis Borges, Juan José Arreola, and Julio Cortázar. While not directly confronting these categories, Rama acknowledges to find in the first—which he calls, metonymically, “transculturated” a feat even greater than that of the cosmopolitans, which has consisted in the historical continuity of cultural forms deeply elaborated by the social mass, adjusting it with the least loss of identity, to the new conditions set by the international framework of the time. (Rama, 2012, pp. 87–88) The first category theorized by Rama (2012), the regionalista [regionalist], seeks to revitalize the interior culture of its respective regions. Its eminently indigenist stance seeks “a movement of rehabilitation with regional and traditional values” (Rama, 2012, p. 27). For this reason, its origin is more often in rural areas and its themes affect the problematics of these same environments, with “traditional and even archaic components of Latin American life, many coming from folklore” (Rama, 2012, p. 31) and from the cosmovision of its people. The second category, the cosmopolita [cosmopolitan], is organically formulated in the 1930s in the main urban conglomerates of the region, particularly Buenos Aires, the great cosmopolitan capital of Latin America, and a port of cultural exchange between the Old and the New Continent. This group, linked to urban evolution and developed metropolises, carries a modernizing air that reflects the aspirations of Europeanized literary elites. It is, therefore, a literary movement linked more strongly to the fantastic narrative and critical realism. As expressed by Gómez (2014), both movements participate in the process of literary modernization, but while regionalism hierarchizes a deepening of its own, cosmopolitanism privileges dialogue with the exterior. These are two expressions of a Latin American avant-garde that emerged strongly in the 1920s: the first, taking from the 6 realist tradition its vocation to enter the social community, and the second, intensifying its abrupt rupture with the past and its link with the structures of European avantgardism (Rama, 1973, p. 143). The Transculturation Paradigm Under Debate While the impact of transculturation on Latin Americanism has been notorious, serving as a model for the interpretation of intercultural relations and processes of cultural transmission/translation, its validity has been the object of constant scrutiny. On its suitability vis-à-vis other models of cultural syncretism, such as García Canclini’s hybridization (2006) or Vasconcelos’ mestizaje (1997), its essentialist view of local culture has been discussed. According to Pulido Ritter (2011), theoretical constructions such as transculturation propose “homogeneous perceptions of cultures” by being more concerned with “national identity constructions” (Pulido Ritter, 2011, p. 108). Transculturation theory has been pointed out as an inadequate model for understanding global hypercapitalism and the context of mass culture, which may be better addressed by “hyper” mentalities, such as the one held by Han (2022). An important part of critical anthropology has questioned the transparency of cultural representation, understanding transculturation as an earlier and surpassed stage of interculturality. In the words of Moraña (2017, p. 159): “Categories based on the clear recognition of foreign and vernacular cultural forms are losing meaning. In the new symbolic combinations of our time, the original, local, autochthonous, or ‘interior’ matrices … are less and less visible.” Likewise, Moreira (2001), a prominent critic of transculturation, deconstructs this theory by pointing to the epistemological and political exhaustion of the problematic of identity. As a result, transculturation has for years been relegated, at best, to explaining the functioning of the modern project in peripheral areas, a position overly influenced by dependency theory, which reduces cultural exchanges from colonization to the present day to pure binarism—modern/vernacular, center/periphery, locality/globality. This has led to “the thesis that the concept of transculturation is no longer valid to analyze the current globalizing dynamics, which entail the weakening of national cultures and the accelerated advances of cultural commodification” (Moraña, 2017, p. 162). These positions are gradually based on the crisis of the sense of “difference” pointed out by Appadurai (1996). For the Indian anthropologist, any sign of identity becomes an elusive process, “above all, insofar as the search for certainties is constantly frustrated by the fluidities of transnational communications” (Appadurai, 1996, p. 57). To these necessary notes, it should be added that the context of video game production and consumption differs in some respects from literature, specifically the novel, the medium for which the transcultural model was conceived. First, the figure of the literary author has little to do with that of the author in video games, whose existence has always been, at the very least, problematic (Jennings, 2016). Games are, for the most part, the result of a collective effort, which dilutes the authorial figure even 7 more than in the case of cinema, where the director holds, at least nominally, the position of author. Furthermore, in the case of video games and other forms of interactive digital narrative, the audience engages with a dynamic system that they can modify through their decisions (Koenitz, 2023). These two characteristics complicate both the exercise of a communicative intentionality and the appropriate reading of the text by a global audience that may lack the necessary cultural codes to reach the deep meaning of the work while also actively participating in the creation of its meaning. Secondly, we cannot ignore the transformation of the context of cultural creation– consumption from the mid-twentieth century to the present day. The polarization of markets, the lowering of production costs, and the ease of distribution and access to content in real time and from almost anywhere are factors that work both for and against the transcultural model. This uncertain scenario reflects the eternal contradictions of the current flow of cultural exchanges on a global scale. Methodology This research comprises two interrelated objectives: (a) to evaluate transculturation as an approach to theorize and classify the production of local video games in Latin America and (b) to leverage video games as an electronic medium to reintroduce transculturation into the debate on Latin American modernity. To achieve these objectives, qualitative research has been carried out following a documentary research methodology. We opted for a content analysis of video games produced by Latin American developers that feature written, iconic, and audiovisual elements representative of the region. The coding criteria used in the analysis were established based on Rama’s conceptual framework on transculturation and the notions of regionalism and cosmopolitanism derived from the literature review. To delimit the sample, we focused on video games produced by Latin American developers over the past two decades (2003–2023) and published exclusively on PC and game consoles. The analysis concentrated solely on commercial video games, thus discarding educational productions, serious games, advergames, etc. This decision was made considering the focus on games intended for broader consumer audiences, the availability of commercial games for analysis, and the desire to capture representations of Latin America within mainstream gaming culture. Similarly, the timeframe was chosen to capture a significant period of growth and development within the Latin American video game industry, as well as to provide a contemporary snapshot of cultural representations in gaming. The final sample (Table 1) consists of 29 video games from nine countries: Brazil, Peru, Cuba, Mexico, Chile, Argentina, Colombia, Paraguay, and Venezuela. Taking as a starting point Rama’s conceptual framework on transculturation, a first categorization was established based on the notions of regionalismo [regionalism] and cosmopolitismo [cosmopolitanism] provided by the literature review. Next, a coding scheme was developed deductively on the basis of existing theories and previous research on cultural representation conducted by Balela and Mundy (2011). This 8 coding scheme allowed for the systematic analysis of video games to identify those that prominently feature elements derived from regionalism and/or cosmopolitanism. The result is an analysis tool (Table 2) consisting of the following four categories: Settings, Themes, Audiovisual Elements, and References. The units of analysis described in the table allow the coding of each video game as regionalist or cosmopolitan, according to the four categories listed above. Table 1. Corpus of Analyzed Video Games. Title Developer Year of release Platform Country Capoeira Legends: Path to Freedom Donsoft Entertainment 2009 Windows Brazil Papo & Yo Minority Media 2012 Windows Colombia Reversion: The Escape 3f Interactive 2012 Windows Argentina Reversion: The Meeting 3f Interactive 2013 Windows Argentina 1814: La Rebelión del Cusco Grupo Avatar 2014 Windows Peru Abyss Odyssey ACE Team 2014 Windows Chile Aritana and the Harpy ’ s Duaik Entretenimento 2014 Windows Brazil Feather Aventuras en la Manigua Estudios de Animación 2015 Windows Cuba Hidden: On the trail of the ICAIC Lost Spell 2015 Windows Argentina Ancients Huni Kuin: Yube Baitana Bobware 2015 Windows Brazil Doorways: Holy Mountains Saibot Studios 2016 Windows Argentina of Flesh Malavisión: El Origen Waraní Studios 2016 Windows Paraguay El Tango de la Muerte Hernán Smicht 2017 Windows Argentina Manzana Misteriosa Estudio Escabeche 2017 Windows Argentina New World: The Tupis Novo Mundo 2017 Windows Brazil Sol705 Land Patricio 2017 Windows Argentina Dandara Long Hat House 2018 Windows Brazil Expiración Hiperactiva Games 2018 Windows Argentina Mazinger Z salva a Mediatech Game Studio 2018 Windows Venezuela Venezuela Mulaka Lienzo 2018 Windows Mexico Tango: The Adventure Game Gualicho Games 2018 Windows Argentina Arauco Saga Ánimas Games 2019 Windows Chile ARIDA: Backland ’ s Aoca Game Lab 2019 Windows Brazil Awakening Arrog LEAP Game Studios 2020 Windows Peru Reversion: The Return 3f Interactive 2020 Windows Argentina Guardian of Lore Round2Games 2021 Windows Argentina NovaMundi Slashware Interactive 2021 Windows Colombia Tunche LEAP Game Studios 2021 Windows Peru Aztech Forgotten Gods Lienzo 2022 Windows Mexico 9 Table 2. Coding Scheme for Video Game Analysis. Code/label Category Regionalism Cosmopolitanism Units of analysis Settings Rural: The game predominantly takes place in rural or countryside environments. Themes Traditional Values : The game explores themes related to traditional values and customs speci fi c to the region, such as community, family, and heritage. Folklore: The game incorporates elements of folklore, mythology, or traditional stories from Latin American culture. Urban: The game predominantly takes place in urban or city environments. Modernization : The game addresses themes related to urbanization, globalization, and technological advancement. Cultural Exchange : The game explores themes of cultural exchange and hybridity. Game space, settings, and environments, such as mountains, forests, jungles, cities, neighborhoods, or landmarks (e.g., natural and wild environments of the region, or allusions to major Latin American cities.) Narrative elements, such as characters, dialogue, and game mechanics that address these themes (e.g., the incorporation of local myths and legends into the narrative, or the inclusion of characters from Western popular culture.) Audiovisual Elements Traditional Imagery : The game incorporates representations or symbols evoking longstanding cultural customs, beliefs, and practices. Traditional Music and Sound : The game incorporates music, soundscapes, and languages inspired by regional traditions. Contemporary Art Style : The game incorporates visual aesthetics re fl ecting modern artistic trends, techniques, and patterns. Contemporary Music and Sound : The game incorporates music, soundscapes, and languages inspired by contemporary urban culture. Art and sound (music, sound effects, and voices) (e.g., dialogue recorded in an indigenous language, or Western artistic and architectural styles present in the game ’ s visual design.) References History and Tradition : The game incorporates Modernity and Progress : The game incorporates allusions Textual relations present in the video game (e.g., references to (continued) 16 Table 4. Latin American Video Games Identified as Cosmopolitan. Title Developer Year of release Country Identi fi able features of cosmopolitanism Papo & Yo Minority Media 2012 Colombia - Location in urban areas : Colombian favelas. Reversion: The Escape Reversion: The Meeting - Fantastic narrative combined with critical realism . 3f Interactive 2012 Argentina - Location in urban area s: Buenos Aires. - Fantastic narrative : post-apocalyptic science fi ction. 3f Interactive 2013 Argentina - Location in urban areas : Buenos Aires. - Fantastic narrative : post-apocalyptic science fi ction. Abyss Odyssey ACE Team 2014 Chile - Location in urban areas : Santiago de Chile. - Modernizing spirit : aesthetics inspired by art nouveau. - Revitalization of local folklore : creatures of Chilean mythology. Hidden: On the trail of the Ancients Doorways: Holy Mountains of Flesh Lost Spell 2015 Argentina - Location in urban areas : Buenos Aires. - Fantastic narrative : Lovecraftian cosmic horror. Saibot Studios 2016 Argentina - Fantastic narrative : Lovecraftian cosmic horror. Malavisión: El Origen Manzana Misteriosa Waraní Studios Estudio Escabeche 2016 Paraguay - Fantastic narrative combined with critical realism . - Revitalization of local folklore : Mala Visión, a creature of Paraguayan mythology. 2017 Argentina - Location in urban areas : Buenos Aires. - Fantastic narrative combined with critical realism . Sol705 Land Patricio 2017 Argentina - Location in urban areas : Buenos Aires. - Modernizing spirit : adoption of British popular culture. El Tango de la Muerte Hernán Smicht 2018 Argentina - Location in urban areas : Buenos Aires. - Revitalization of local folklore : Argentine tango. (continued) 17 Table 4. (continued) Title Developer Year of release Country Identi fi able features of cosmopolitanism Expiración Hiperactiva Bit 2018 Argentina - Location in urban areas : Buenos Mazinger Z salva a Venezuela Tango: The Adventure Game Mediatech Game Studio Gualicho Games Aires. 2018 Venezuela - Location in urban areas : Caracas. - Fantastic narrative combined with critical realism . 2018 Argentina - Location in urban areas : Buenos Aires. - Recovery of the past : the fi gure of Carlos Gardel. - Revitalization of local folklore : Argentine tango. Arrog LEAP Game Studios 2020 Peru - Fantastic narrative combined with critical realism . Reversion: The Return Aztech Forgotten Gods 3f Interactive 2020 Argentina - Location in urban areas : Buenos Aires. - Fantastic narrative : post-apocalyptic science fi ction. Lienzo 2022 Mexico - Fantastic narrative : futuristic science fiction. - Revitalization of local folklore : Aztec cosmology. Argentine youth to the influence of British popular culture during the 1980s, or Doorways: Holy Mountains of Flesh, which approaches gothic narrative and cosmic horror from a genuinely Latin American perspective, emerge as paradigmatic. Discussion and Conclusions This study shows how video games, through their representational nature, can manifest culture through images, objects, and signifiers designed to evoke or symbolize the distinctive features of a given group. This article aimed to reevaluate transculturation as a valid theoretical framework to study cultural representation in video games, taking Latin America as a paradigm of this phenomenon. For decades, transcultural storytellers have appropriated Western literary forms, such as the novel and the short story, to transmit and perpetuate qualities of their own cultures, originating a new phenomenon that is also an effort of spiritual decolonization (Rama, 2012). Video games imitate this process and make possible new intercultural encounters that become complex aesthetic–ideological proposals, proving that transculturation still allows us to explore forms of interpretation and representation that offer a new perspective on Latin Americanism from mass culture. As the analysis suggests, Latin American video 18 games have been joining a global trend to produce content with a “cultural flavor” of their own. This has led to the emergence of new narratives linked to the region’s own cultures, in an exercise of transculturation that bears similarities with the literary movements of the last century. In the case of regionalism, there is a greater interest in historical events linked to colonization and the independence struggles, highlighting the cultural aspects of ethnic minorities and their often contentious relationship with modernization. The events represented move away from the big cities to place the player in rural areas and natural environments often threatened by human intervention. The approach to this representation aims to be, in general, rigorous, with some games localized in indigenous languages, such as the hãtxa ku ı . Although intentionality cannot be determined, there are cases of games developed specifically to highlight and preserve the cultural uniqueness of ethnic groups, such as Talamanca, Tupi-Guarani, Mapuche, or Yine. In this sense, the analysis revealed five descriptors that are related to the regionalist movement, suggesting a shared desire between literary authors and contemporary game developers concerned with the same topics, as expressed in Table 3: (a) indigenism, (b) exaltation of national heroes, (c) location in rural areas, (d) revitalization of local folklore, and (e) recovery of the past. In the case of cosmopolitanism, there is a greater interest in incorporating foreign elements, such as artistic styles, literary genres, and references to popular culture, into stories with a distinctly local character. These games prioritize capturing the authenticity of the facts, sometimes sacrificing historical rigor for the inclusion of fantastic and even surrealistic elements. They engage in a greater intertextual—and intercultural—play of references, homages, and allusions to authors that have influenced Latin American developers. Likewise, as opposed to the previous category, and respecting the qualities of literary cosmopolitanism, these games take the player to urban centers that have been crucial for the cultural exchange between Latin America and Europe, as is the case of the city of Buenos Aires. Here, the analysis revealed three unique descriptors of cosmopolitanism (Table 4), suggesting, again, the cultural impact of the literary movement on the narratives of a significant number of Latin American game developers: (a) location in urban areas, (b) fantastic narratives, and (c) modernizing spirit. These descriptors are often linked to two others typical of regionalism: revitalization of local folklore and recovery of the past. This overlap should not be surprising, considering Rama’s (2012) observation that minimal identity loss is intrinsic to Latin American authors, resulting in cosmopolitan games that still exhibit clear signs of their origins. While this study sheds light on the manifestation of transculturation in Latin American video game production and reaffirms its relevance in understanding cultural representation, some limitations must be acknowledged. First, the sample size may not fully capture the diversity of the region’s gaming industry. Furthermore, the study primarily focuses on commercial video games, excluding indie or non-commercial productions, which could offer alternative perspectives on cultural representation. Despite these limitations, the research underscores the importance of considering transculturation in the analysis of video game narratives, highlighting the dynamic interplay 19 between local traditions and global influences. Moving forward, future research could explore a larger and more diverse sample of games, incorporate qualitative methods to deepen understanding, and engage with game developers to gain insights into their creative processes and cultural influences. Despite criticisms, transculturation serves as a model for perceiving the world and describing the clash between the global and the local, modernity and tradition, hegemony and subalternity, and not necessarily a way of describing the process of exchange in terms of “contamination” between two pure and homogeneous cultures. This theoretical framework is not exclusive to the Latin American context, but it is undoubtedly where it makes the most sense. After all, it is in Latin America that the “trans” paradigm—“transculturation,” “transmodernity,” “transnationality”—first overcame the unidirectionalism of modern preglobalized identity. While this research focuses on applying the transculturation model to Latin American game production, non-Latin contexts can draw on similar frameworks to analyze video games from diverse perspectives. For example, cultural hybridity frameworks could illuminate how video games from multicultural societies blend diverse influences to create unique gaming experiences. Furthermore, globalization theory offers insights into the interconnectedness of video game production, distribution, and consumption on a global scale, highlighting the circulation of ideas, aesthetics, and cultural values across borders. By adopting these frameworks, researchers can explore how video games reflect and shape cultural dynamics in various contexts, enriching our understanding of gaming as a global cultural phenomenon. The interest of Latin American developers in addressing local issues invites optimism. There is a noticeable, though still minority, tendency to reclaim the local, not by exalting supposedly pure and genuine roots—after all, there is no such thing as “authentic Latin American culture”—but through crossbreeding, hybridization, and transculturation of ideas and technologies. It is not about decolonizing video games but about recolonizing them, not with a view to recovering a lost identity, but to constructing an identity—postmodern, if preferable—that captures the instabilities and contradictions of today’s world. 20 References Appadurai, A. (1996). Modernity at large. Cultural dimensions of globalization. University of Minnesota Press. Assunção, M. R. (2005). 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