Pyramids, Cats, and Arabian Nights: Contemporary Egypt in Call of Duty Black Ops 3 and The Race 2

Abstract: This thesis aims to shed light on how contemporary Egyptian culture is represented in video games. Egypt, being part of the Middle East, and given its ancient history, has become subject to many stereotypes and tropes and falling into the realm of Orientalism. This thesis builds on previous works concerning representations of the Middle East, focusing on the representation of contemporary Egypt. In light of the problematic nature of stereotypes and Orientalism towards the Othering of the minorities, I conducted a close reading of two games depicting Egypt, Call of Duty: Black Ops 3 from a western perspective and The Race 2: The Last Chase from a native perspective, comparing them in the process, to highlight the different approaches native and non-native designers used in their representation of contemporary Egypt. The analysis shows that the American game, although it tried to give an “accurate” representation of Egypt by modeling a close replica of the Ramses Station in Cairo, still managed to use Orientalist visuals and stereotypical elements in its depiction. On the other hand, the Egyptian game relied on everyday life aspects and references relating to the native. Finally, I suggest a few guidelines for game designers wanting to achieve respectful representation to follow to avoid alienation of the represented Other.