Summary
Video games can bring all sorts of locations to life.Like A Dragon: Infinite Wealthis great for exploring Hawaii.InFamous 2replicated a New Orleans-like setting with aplomb. EvenThe Getawaymanaged to map London accurately. However, some other countries aren’t featured in video games very often, likeAustralia.
The Land Down Under has produced a range of famous games, likeBioshock(via 2K Australia),L.A. Noire(via Team Bondi), andWay of the Exploding Fist(via Beam Software). Yet they’re not particularly Antipodean. For a real taste of the continent, fans should check out thesegreat video games set in Australia.
Australia became a hot property for platform games due to a certain PlayStation mascot. Hot enough to inspire at least two imitators, with one of them beingKao the Kangaroo. This boxing marsupial went through three rounds of games, plus two spin-offs, before going down for the count after the mid-2000s.
He came back for morein 2022 with the simply titledKao the Kangaroo. In this game, he’s got to find his missing sister Kala and discover the secret his long-lost father held by taking on a series of famous fighting masters before fighting the Eternal Warrior. It’s not exactlyMarioorBanjo-Kazooiequality, but it’s a solid bit of platforming fun.
The other AussieCrashimitator was theTy the Tasmanian Tigerseries, though unlikeKao, it was produced within Australia by Krome Studios. They took direct inspiration from the country’s landscapes and wildlife to produce the game’s levels and characters, including Ty, the last thylacine left alive. He and his boomerangs managed to swing through four games and a since-canceled TV series.
LikeKao, the games got a cool reception. They weren’t fantastic, but they were good, withTy 2: Bush Rescuegenerally considered to be the best of the bunch. It took an open-world approach to its gameplay, where Ty could do sidequests for NPCs, race karts, ride ‘Bunyips’ (mech suits named after an Aboriginal cryptid), and leap from platform to platform.
Why did publishers give marsupial-themed platformers likeKaoandTya go? BecauseCrash Bandicootgot there first! Not that Naughty Dog had an easy go of it. Universal wanted them to use a more familiar animal, like a wombat if it had to be Australian, but Naughty Dog stuck to their guns and createdthe most popular marsupial in gaming history.
That said, the game’s settings tended to look more Polynesian than Australian, from the tribesmen to the talking mask Aku Aku. Yet the Bandicoot’s foes were largely based on Australian fauna like kangaroos, potoroos, and koalas. The series would go to other places across space and time, but would have a few remaining Aussie connections, like the dingo-crocodile hybrid boss Dingodile and his noticeable accent.
Crash Bandicootdidn’t come out of nowhere. Its biggest sources of inspiration wereSonic the Hedgehog, a platformer mascot based on an animal obscure to Americans, and Taz, aLooney Toonscharacter more familiar to fans worldwide. Based on the Tasmanian Devil, an angry, dog-sized marsupial, he’d rant, rave, and spin wildly across the landscape.
The character came back in style in the 1990svia his own showTaz-Mania, which got its own platformer for the SNES, Genesis, and other consoles. Like the Bandicoot, players had to spin Taz into foes and through obstacles to reach the end of each level. They could also make him eat random items, like chili peppers and stars for power-ups, but if they ate the wrong stuff, they’d lose health.
WhileTaz-Maniawas set in Tasmania, it didn’t really resemble the island. It was aLooney Toonsshow after all, notcinéma verité. But there are some Aussie-themed platformers that went for a more realistic depiction of the country’s nature and physics, likeWebbed. Made by the Brisbane-based Sbug Games, it follows a peacock jumping spider called Buddy trying to save her boyfriend from a Satin Bowerbird.
It’s a non-linear puzzle platformer where the player gets around via their webbing skills. It has a few fanciful elements, like a skateboarding-themed minigame, and laser eyes, but they’re all there to show off the game’s physics, where Buddy can swing from her webs, pull objects with them, glide on air currents, and get help from other bugs. It even comes with an Arachnophobia mode to make Buddy and friends less scary to look at.
When looking up ‘games set in Australia,’ people will find a lot of driving and racing games. The nation’s diverse nature, ranging from jungles to deserts, grassland to cities, etc., has been a boon for developers needing a good backdrop for players to race through. But one Outback track feels like meager pickings for this list.
Forza Horizon 3goes beyond one or two tracks by taking place entirely within Australia, where the player must race, perform stunts, and do other challenges to get enough fans to attend the Horizon Festival. On top of a wide, customizable range of cars and options, players can race around an open-world version of Australia. While it’s a fictional version of the country, it’s a close recreation of the real deal.
Made by a pre-Broken SwordCharles Cecil, with art by a post-WatchmanDave Gibbons,Beneath a Steel Skyis widely regarded as one of thebest point & click games ever made. At a glance, players might see it as anotherBlade Runner-esque story with its urban dystopia, and they’re not wrong, as it’s up to Robert Foster to expose the corruption lurking at the center of Union City.
What might get overlooked is that it’s all set in Australia. The orphaned Robert Foster was brought up in ‘the Gap’ (a massively reduced Outback) and got his surname from the (in)famous Aussie brand of lager. Union City is the second-largest city-state within Australia but is about to be taken over by Tasmania’s Hobart Corporation. If players want a more serious Aussie game,BaSSis the one to go for.
Admittedly,The Adventures of Down Under Danisn’t inBeneath a Steel Sky’s league. It’s also a point-and-click game, but it hasn’t aged as well asBaSSwith either its pixellated, digitized graphics or odd item-based puzzles. However, it’s arguably one of the better depictions of Australia in gaming, albeit with its tongue firmly in its cheek.
Made by Aussie developers PowerVision, it’s a parody ofCrocodile Dundee, where its lead suffers amnesia following a plane crash and must survive in the Outback by doing a range of odd jobs and scenarios. It’s got some funny bits of dark humor (watch out for meat-eating ants!) and has a hint system for beginners. Though it’s still best suited for players used to thegenre’s moon-logic puzzles.
