Norco’s narrative is full of religious significance, drawing upon the culture of the region
there was an erosion of my community. My parents and my close family are still in Norco, but it is a tedious place to live. The flooding and the failure of flood control infrastructure never stops. Our house has flooded several times, it’s guaranteed to flood again. And every time it’s going to impact your insurance, it’s going to impact your will to continue to live there. “I just see an inevitable erosion of what remains of my community there. The house is also a bit symbolic of culture in that region, which is eroding as well. So much of culture is incubated inside of a domestic space. It’s all held in the home, and then it’s kind of brought out into communal public spaces. And so as you lose these homes and these people, the culture begins to fade away as well.
“The town is likely to outlive me, but I did feel like I needed some kind of anchor point, as I watch more and more of my own personal connections to this place that I love deeply disappear. I felt I needed to plant an anchor somewhere along the trajectory. And I planted it somewhat late, if I had attempted this project earlier, it would not have been such a dire picture. But this is just a time slice that depicts a point in my personal history, and my relationship to that region.” It’s that dire picture that has led many to describe
Norco as dystopian – a label Yuts himself rejects. The game certainly doesn’t shy away from exploring the problems plaguing Norco, the characters of this world
58 | MCV/DEVELOP May 2022
are unquestionably struggling under economic and environmental hardships. However, the game also takes great lengths to celebrate both the region’s culture and its community.
“A big part of the game is not just meant to explore the
dire circumstances in that region, but also the beauty of it. I think it’s just aesthetically very gorgeous. And there’s a strong sense of community, you meet a lot of very interesting, inspiring and funny people, and I wanted to communicate all of that humanity.” “I love Norco, I loved growing up there. I’ll always count my blessings that I had access to the outdoors and the swamps – even the refinery was such a compelling piece of infrastructure that’s fascinated me all my life. The game wasn’t meant to disparage the region. It was actually meant to showcase it as just this very complex, interesting place.”
FAITH
A large part of this representation and celebration of Norco’s community is the importance of faith in the game. Norco is filled with Christian iconography, with later elements of the plot being rife with religious significance. It’s not an approach you see all that often in games, but it was an important one for the team to include while trying to generate a snapshot of Louisiana culture. “Religion has been in the game from the beginning. I grew up Catholic went to Catholic school. Catholicism
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