Developed by the Mexican studio Lienzo, Mulaka is a 3D action-adventure game that focuses on Indigenous storytelling. Set in a poly-poly rendition of the landscapes of northern Mexico, the game draws from the mythology, culture, and worldview of the Rarámuri (Tarahumara) people. While players might approach it as a Zelda-inspired action game, Mulaka uses mechanics, narrative structures, and aesthetics to subvert typical Western video game tropes of resource exploitation, focusing instead on themes of reciprocity, animism, and ecological balance.
In many adventure games, the environment is primarily a backdrop or a resource. Mulaka aims to shift this dynamic by centering the Rarámuri belief that everything in nature possesses a soul. As Mulaka, a Sukurúame or ‘shaman’, the player interacts with a living landscape. The rocks, rivers, plants, and wind are not passive objects but framed as entities with agency. To save the world from corruption, Mulaka must gain the favor of powerful animal demigods, a Bear, Puma, Eagle and Snake. Rather than conquering or slaying these beasts to absorb their power, the player must earn their trust by demonstrating respect and maintaining balance. As players gain the blessings of these demigods, they acquire the ability to transform into them to navigate the environment.
This mechanic, while not uncommon in action-adventure games, arguably blurs the boundary between the human self and the non-human other and structurally enforces the idea that human survival depends on adopting the perspectives and strengths of our animal kin. Ecological aspects are furthermore woven into Mulaka’s in-game economy and resource management. While (Western) games often encourage hoarding, Mulaka’s economy focuses on reciprocity and restraint rather than collecting ‘loot’. The primary conflict in the game stems from ‘corruption’, which is framed as a literal manifestation of human greed and disconnectedness. Thus, ‘healing’ the land is the core goal.
Tying into the themes of animism and indigenous knowledge in the game, players can activate a special vision mechanic that reveals the spirit world. In this state, the landscape transforms, showing hidden pathways, ghosts, and the ‘true’ form of certain environmental features, which suggests that what is visible on the surface is only a fraction of an ecosystem. To act responsibly, one must understand the unseen spiritual and ecological forces beneath the material world.
Lienzo’s vibrant, low-poly art style is not merely due to budget constraints but arguably serves an intentional thematic purpose. By rendering the Sierra Tarahumara region with sharp, geometric forms and flat color palettes, the game defies superficial visual realism and forces players to ‘fill the gaps’, making the in-game environment less pre-determined and leaving room for imagination. This can be argued to mirror the clarity of the Rarámuri relationship with their harsh but beautiful desert home.
On that note, the Rarámuri are renowned for their long-distance running abilities. Lienzo emphasizes this defining cultural trait rather than relegating it to background lore. Instead, the pacing, movement, and combat structure of Mulaka – an ultimately the player’s engagement with the in-game environment – revolves around the concept of endless endurance and swiftness.
Unlike in most other games, the player character in Mulaka has unlimited sprint capability, never tires or slows down, and can run across the vast, sprawling maps indefinitely. The game rewards players for maintaining forward momentum, which incentivizes joyful exploration of the environment. In combat, the protagonist is fragile but relies on speed to overcome obstacles, e.g. requiring players to constantly circle-strafe, dodge-roll, and sprint around enemies. This dance-like movement avoids a sense of ‘dominating’ the opponents through force but instead values agility and adaptability, arguably valuable qualities from an environmental literacy standpoint beyond games per se.
Combined with the blessing of the Eagle demigod, Mulaka’s running allows him to perform a ‘leap of faith’ and launch off canyon peaks, which is supposed to transcend mere bodily movement. Similarly, for the real-world Rarámuri running is a spiritual practice, a form of communication between scattered villages, and a distinctly ‘felt’ hunting technique based on exhausting their prey rather than a ‘sport’. While this could have been further elaborated upon in the game, the experience is distinct enough from other games to encourage players to notice and reflect upon it, maybe even drawing parallels to their own lives (on parallels between (extreme) running and (dark) ecology see e.g. Cherrington, Jim, Jack Black, and Nicholas Tiller. 2020. “Running Away from the Taskscape: Ultramarathon as ‘Dark Ecology.’” Annals of Leisure Research 23 (2): 243–63. https://doi.org/10.1080/11745398.2018.1491800.) All in all, Mulaka is a good example of Indigenous-led game design that offers an alternative to extractive logics that characterize many popular gaming genres while still creating a ‘familiar’, engaging gameplay framework.