‘Ecumene Aztec,’ the video game about the conquest of Mexico that has riled up Spain’s far right

Deep in the jungle, an Aztec warrior sharpens branches to place in a pit as a lethal trap for the enemy. He waits, silent and stealthy like a jaguar. Suddenly, a soldier of the Spanish crown comes into view — the warrior strikes! In another scene, our warrior hides in the jungle foliage and pounces a moment later on an unsuspecting soldier and strangles him to death. In a third scene, this time in the heart of Tenochtitlan, the warrior waits behind a wall before leaping out and piercing through the conquistador’s armor, claiming another victory. The warrior is relentless and fierce, taking down his enemies with precision and skill. These are scenes from the new video game Ecumene Aztec, which immerses players in the role of an Aztec warrior during the year 1521. The goal of the game is to protect Aztec lands from the invading Spanish troops.

The video game, by Polish developer Giantscraft Games, has generated positive and negative comments from Mexican users and others around the world. In Mexico, opinion is divided on whether to applaud something fresh and different or to criticize the “inaccurate” portrayal of pre-Columbian civilization. On the other side of the pond, some radical groups didn’t like players acting out the role of an indigenous Mesoamerican murdering Spanish soldiers and bought the company’s unregistered domain. They turned it into a disinformation site that glorifies Spanish imperialism and presents images linked to fascism and the extreme right-wing.

Viewers of the website are greeted by a quote attributed to Spanish conquistador Hernán Cortés and a giant image of the Cross of Burgundy, heraldry linked to Spanish ultranationalists. The only link on the website is to an Instagram page with a post suggesting that Giantscraft did not reserve the giantscraft.com domain and an opportunist swiped the domain after a preview of Ecumene Aztec was released. The Instagram page describes Ecumene Aztec as “a new video game based on the conquest of America where users play an Aztec warrior who, with dubious historical rigor, massacres Spaniards in the purest Assassin’s Creed style. Contrary to history, this game portrays Spaniards as murderers, looters, slavers and ruthless genocidal killers.”

Another post to this Instagram account claims: “The reality is that 500 Spaniards, aided by 120,000 oppressed Indians rebelling against Aztec tyranny, allied under Cortés and succeeded in overthrowing their leaders.”

A Giantscraft representative confirmed the takeover of their domain to The Verge and said that “since the announcement they have been under assault from hard right groups.” They have even received death threats, which is why the name of the company’s PR representative was not disclosed in the article.

Historians estimate that by the end of the 16th century, 80% of the indigenous Mesoamerican peoples died from war, exploitation and epidemics during Cortés’ conquest of the Aztec. Federico Navarrete, a historian specializing in the Spanish conquest, says it’s normal to encounter “a great deal of resistance” from certain sectors of Spanish society who refuse to reflect critically on this period in history. He said their opinions can be “openly retrograde… They are not open to accepting historical facts and the only thing that matters to them is their own nationalist beliefs. The Spanish were the invaders and the aggressors, and some people have a problem with this historical truth.”

Other critics derided the game’s portrayal of Tenochtitlan, the capital of the Mexica empire, which depicted it as a decaying and gloomy jungle. Navarrete, who has a doctorate in Mesoamerican Studies from the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM), says that the setting echoes other representations of the Aztecs and Mexicas as “human sacrificers.” He points to Apocalypto, the film by Mel Gibson about the decline of the Mayans, and the “infamous” Malinche musical by Nacho Cano, a production that he says is “full of lies, historical biases and fascist ideology.”

“The setting seems very vague. [Malinche] presents the Aztecs as a jungle people, which I also see here [in the video game]. That has more to do with the racist prejudices of Europeans who associate the jungle with savagery. If they wanted an accurate representation of the Mexicas or Aztecs, they could have depicted the chinampas [an agricultural system featuring artificial floating islands] and the aqueducts in Tenochtitlan, or big cities like Cholula and Zempoala. But instead the game’s setting is much more ‘primitive’,” said Navarrete.

After receiving a wave of criticism and praise, the game developer promised to incorporate public feedback and make the game more historically accurate. Its announcement on Steam says that users will now be able to pick a side in the new version. They can choose to join the conquistadors and “fight the caste of sacrifice-making priests, or join Aztec warriors and repel the newcomers.” Perhaps the radical groups did have an impact after all.

“It was not planned,” the game developer told The Verge. “However we saw that about 40 percent of [the] audience says that [they] would like to have [the] choice to join [the] conquistadors, so we might actually try to give this possibility. The game is not political in any way and never will be, it is history fiction.”

Ecumene Aztec may not be available before 2025 according to Steam, so in the meantime, Navarrete recommends other productions that better depict the era. Yaopan is a mobile game that narrates the Tlaxcalan conquests throughout Mesoamerica from 1519 to 1541, and Aztec Empire is a beautiful digital graphic novel by Paul Guinan and David Hanh. Mexican developer Guillermo Alarcón is working on Mictlan: An Ancient Mythical Tale, described as the first Mesoamerican-themed action-adventure video game set during Spain’s invasion of Mexico in the 16th century. With a tentative release date set for 2025, only time will tell if it’ll spark the same controversy as Ecumene Aztec.

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