A new wave of Aboriginal Australian game developers is harnessing the reach and storytelling power of video games to bring First Nations culture to players around the world — and their projects are as diverse as the communities and Dreaming traditions that inspire them.
From Call of Duty to First Nations storytelling
Wankanurri man Arthur Ah Chee has taken a striking career pivot. Having worked on the blockbuster Call of Duty franchise, the animator and producer now channels that industry experience into elevating Aboriginal stories through his South Australia–based studio, Cerulean Creative Studios.
His current project, Cheeky Boy , is being developed alongside Narungga and Kaurna theatre-maker Jacob Boehme and is rooted in the Narungga Dreaming. The story follows a mischievous child — described by Ah Chee as reminiscent of Dennis the Menace — who is cast out from his community, transformed into a dingo by a wind spirit, and then becomes hopelessly lost while chasing a possum. The game carries a darker, Tim Burton-influenced visual style.
While the game is designed to be accessible and fun for school-age Australians, Ah Chee says its shadow side gives it genuine global appeal.
"We have a lot of dark stories in Aboriginal culture where it transitions very well into the global storytelling space," he said, noting that community elders are closely involved in overseeing the project.
Breaking down barriers through anthropomorphism
Wiradjuri game-maker Ben Armstrong is pursuing a similarly inventive approach with his latest project, Buru and The Old People. The game's unlikely hero is Buru — a white ibis with a past as a retired bird thief — a character that began life as one of Armstrong's Dungeons & Dragons creations before becoming a short story in a published anthology and, eventually, a full narrative game.
Armstrong's choice of an avian protagonist was deliberate. He wanted to move away from the risk of Indigenous Australian creative works being perceived as niche or exclusively "black" stories — a framing he says can limit how widely such works are consumed.
"The goal was to break down the barrier of people consuming our stories and looking at them purely as black," Armstrong said. He drew an analogy with animated features like Zootopia , describing a strategy of drawing audiences in with an appealing premise before delivering an authentically Indigenous narrative.
"I wanted to create something where people are like 'this is cute, this is cool. I like this!' And then bam! Hit them with a full-on Blackfella Indigenous story," he said.
Despite its charming surface, Buru and The Old People explores questions of values, conflict and sovereignty. Armstrong says anthropomorphism makes these themes globally relatable without diluting their cultural grounding. The game's world also has a knowing sense of humour — players will encounter ostentatious seagulls draped in gaudy jewellery and wide-brimmed hats, a wink at a certain style of Sydney beach suburb.
"If I was to replace every character in this game with humans, it would be the same story. But it allows us to have a little bit more fun too," Armstrong said.
Country, body and the Noongar seasons
Noongar creative technologist and game developer Kat Gledhill-Tucker is taking yet another angle. Working under the provisional title Project Worl , her unnamed game connects players with the six Noongar seasons.
Gledhill-Tucker describes her practice as "anti-disciplinary" — deliberately eclectic and resistant to western reference points. She sees gaming as a medium uniquely suited to building empathy and sustaining deep audience engagement, arguing there is a powerful opportunity to tell stories about the relationship between body and Country through interactive play.
Together, these three creators represent a growing movement of First Nations Australians who are not waiting for mainstream culture to make space for their stories — they are building that space themselves, one game at a time.
