Penguin Colony was made to ‘put the games industry on notice’
Penguin Colony, the latest game from Origame Digital (Umurangi Generation), presents itself as a deceptively cute PlayStation 2-era throwback where you control a penguin waddling through Antarctica. Beneath its charming exterior lies a bold work of psychological horror infused with commentary on colonialism and real-world atrocities.
The game reimagines H.P. Lovecraft’s At the Mountains of Madness from a radically different perspective—through the eyes of Antarctica’s indigenous inhabitants. Rather than centering cosmic horrors alone, developer Tali Faulkner, a Māori creator from New Zealand, positions the true terror as the historical atrocities of colonialism itself.
According to reports, the game was created with the explicit intention to “put the games industry on notice,” signaling both a critique of how the industry has traditionally handled indigenous perspectives and a statement about representation in gaming. By layering psychological horror alongside Lovecraftian mythology and Nazi elements, Penguin Colony transforms a seemingly absurd premise into a personally meaningful work that reclaims an existing literary universe through a decolonial lens.