Why Does Google’s New Adventure Game only Focus on America and Not the World?

Google Arts & Culture department has come up with a game to learn American history

The plot of Google's new adventure game Descent of the Serpent goes somewhat like this:

While exploring a museum, a large artifact is stolen by Tezcatlipoca, the Lord of the Smoking Mirror, and a living statue asks for your help to recover 20 icons included in the artifact to prevent floods from taking over the world. You, naturally, agree, and the statue says they'll send you back in time to ancient Mesoamerica. You'll be able to pick from one of four adorable animal "disguises" for your characters that all have roots in Mesoamerican culture. I picked Huitzilopochtli, represented by the wolf, but you can also play Xolotl (the dog), Xbalanque (the jaguar), and Mictlantecuhtli (the owl).

Why America Though?

The game is actually made in partnership with Mexico's National Museum of Anthropology and plays kind of like a simplified top-down The Legend of Zelda title. This is why the game is centrally focused on learning about the history of Mexico aka America.

How does The Game Go?

You'll roam lush (though small) environments to collect the missing icons, which show up as gold coins. When you pick up one of the icons, the game will present a little bit of history about what it is and point you to an exhibit on the Google Arts & Culture website if you want to learn more. While exploring the world in Descent of the Serpent, you'll also have to dodge simple obstacles like roaming crocodiles and monkeys throwing things at you. On the game's easier difficulty, getting hit just stuns you for a short while. But on the "challenge" mode, you're on a timer and get sent back to the beginning of the level after taking five hits, so you'll have to be careful. I'd recommend most people just stick with the standard difficulty; I don't know if this is a game that is much better by being any tougher.