In an imposing building in the centre of Edinburgh, the finishing touches are being made to one of the most expensive cultural products the world has ever seen. Grand Theft Auto 6 is rumoured to have cost Rockstar more than $1.5 billion to develop, underscoring the series’ reputation as a hulking cultural monolith that makes Christopher Nolan’s The Odyssey look like a low-budget indie flick by comparison.

Despite its global reputation, few gamers will be aware of GTA’s humble origins in Dundee or that a plethora of Scottish references are embedded in its ultra-violent urban playgrounds. That problem rings true for much of the Scottish games industry which, despite supporting a huge number of creatives and producing an array of artistically viable, boundary-pushing titles, is rarely championed (or even acknowledged) by Scotland at large. Why aren’t we flying the flag for our most successful cultural export?

‘We’ve got incredibly creative, really talented people across the whole of the country, but there’s no support,’ says Brian Baglow, founder of Scottish Games Network, an advocacy group for Scottish games development. ‘Everyone in the world who has a desire to make a game can do that, but how do you stand out? It’s skills like publishing and taking a game to market where the UK as a whole is falling behind. There are some systemic issues that we need to address, and because we are a devolved nation, we can. We can totally fix this. We just need the will.’

Baglow has been instrumental in the push to get the Scottish government more involved in games. His Games Action Plan, revealed at the start of 2026, forged a blueprint to institutionalise support for the sector which, for many, has been curiously lacking. Cara Ellison, a former journalist and long-time narrative developer for projects as diverse as Void Bastards and Dishonoured 2, shares similar sentiments. ‘Creative Scotland have not always been great at recognising that video games need that sort of help. I think that’s because of an old-school idea that games aren’t art or whatever, when obviously that’s completely false.’

Indeed, Scotland has become a hive of activity in gaming, in the past few years producing a bevy of indie projects, as well as AAA misfire Mindseye and the promising-looking horror game Silent Hill: Townfall, which takes direct inspiration from the East Neuk of Fife for the fictitious fishing village of St Amelia. It’s part of a wave of games that use the architecture of Scottish towns and cities as an intrinsic part of their environmental design. The lack of infrastructure and representation leads to an inevitable brain drain, with some of the industry’s biggest players unable to help foster the community. ‘Michael Barclay is the lead level designer at Naughty Dog [developer of Uncharted and The Last Of Us] and he’s from round here,’ Ellison explains. ‘I know he would like nothing better than to come back here and head a studio. There’s just no willingness or investment for that sort of person. That’s a tragedy. That guy is world class, he’s from Dundee and he had to go all the way to America to find the level of work he’s good at.’ 

Yet many developers overseas are fascinated in Scottish identity itself. Musician Siobhan Wilson, who’s become a notable figure for her emotionally resonant contribution to Planet Of Lana and is currently scoring Heirloom, finds many developers from outside of the country bring her on board to imbue a Scottish identity onto games in a manner far removed from the shortbread tin kitsch of A Highland Song or Farewell North. ‘[The developers of Heirloom] have recruited a Scottish composer because they’re looking for a Scottish identity,’ she says. ‘Commercial game music relies quite heavily on cliché, so a lot of sonic identity associated with Scotland is driven by that.’ Her ability to eschew those tropes in the indie-folk space has given Wilson a widening range of opportunities in the gaming scene, expanding her repertoire into work with orchestras from around the world and opening doors to fruitful collaborations.

One of the most identifiably Scottish games of the past few years has been Still Wakes The Deep, a Bafta Award winner which thrust Karen Dunbar into the spotlight for her intense, no-nonsense performance as oil rig worker Eileen. ‘I didn’t know anything about games. The most I knew about was Sonic The Hedgehog, so I thought I could maybe act as Sonic The Hedgehog’s mum in a game.’ But much like Wilson, her stellar performance in Still Wakes The Deep opened her up to a new generation of fans and earned her a Bafta. ‘The Bafta win was overwhelming and I felt very much at home that night in the gaming community. I guess they still need actors for the games to exist. At least for now! Not long till Suno does it all, but Suno disnae know how cunts spoke in Glesga in 1976.’

While those studios are clearly enthusiastic about Scotland, Ellison has reservations about Scottish representation. ‘There are either studios that are not based in Scotland or studios that are not fundamentally filled with Scottish people that will make certain types of games about Scotland that I find kind of annoying,’ she admits. ‘There’s the American idea of what a Scottish person is, which is a dwarf in Dungeons & Dragons. And then you’ve got people who want to make quite twee games about the Highland experience and how beautiful our countryside is, or that we swear a lot, which is fair enough. But what I would like to see is the central belt part of Scotland’s identity come to the fore; that pop art, Trainspotting-style of urban, exciting, exhilarating experiences. That aspect of Scotland is really badly represented.’

Ellison herself has been part of the push to incorporate underexplored sides of Scotland’s architecture with her work on stealth action heist game Thick As Thieves. ‘I did design work on that and that’s why it’s basically Edinburgh. I based all of the background work on Edinburgh at the turn of the century, so there’s an end-of-the-Enlightenment vibe, where it’s going into industrial revolution-era Edinburgh.’

Baglow, meanwhile, thinks the industry is missing out on the chance to channel Scotland’s unique identity into gaming. ‘Games can be so insular. The only germination we do with other mediums are IP swaps, like the crimes that Electronic Arts committed with Lord Of The Rings, James Bond and Harry Potter in the 2000s. But we can change that in Scotland. Why has nobody made a game from the books of Iain M Banks?’

Silent Hill: Townfall is released on Thursday 24 September and Grand Theft Auto 6 on Thursday 19 November; main picture: Grand Theft Auto 6.

Top 5 must-play Scottish games

There’s more to the Scottish games industry than Grand Theft Auto. Kevin Fullerton has booted up Steam and found five pioneering titles from indie developers 

Apartment Story

A one-act play in videogame form, Sean Wenham’s grimy 2024 drama breathes the violent urbanity of smalltown living. Playing like The Sims directed by Shane Meadows, it revolves around a gun, a girl and a down-at-heel twentysomething as he manages his mental and physical health, fails to pay his leccy bill and fends off a violent psychopath knocking down his door. While rough around the edges, it features ingenious moments of high tension and a compelling slow-burn atmosphere. 

Grease Trap ‘99

Fully voiced in Gaelic, James Muirhead’s job simulator aims to capture the low-rent grime of working in a good old-fashioned chip shop (that also happens to harbour a Lovecraftian horror in the basement). It’s still in development but this darkly comic look at urban Scottish living has gained headlines from the BBC and is one of the few games to receive funding from Creative Scotland. 

Judero 

Jack King-Spooner and Talha Kaya’s stop-motion action-adventure draws on the long history of the Scottish Borders to create a woozy and hypnotic experience that sits somewhere on a continuum between A Link To The Past and Lynchian video art. Self-consciously lo-fi, it embraces the nightmarish surrealism of Celtic legends. 

Junkster 

Breathing the air of classic PlayStation 2 platformers, Dundee-based Stormcloud Games has forged a gorgeous cel-shaded explore ’em up about a robot tasked with cleaning up debris on a newly colonised planet. Adding some novelty to proceedings is a crafting system to aid traversal and combat, and a vibrant comic book style.

Viewfinder 

Literally altering your perception in every level, Viewfinder gives you a magical instant camera that changes the environment in novel ways, with fiendish puzzles blocking your progress at every turn. It’s a little bit like Echochrome and has clearly taken its cues from Portal, but forges its own personality with colourful presentation and ceaseless invention. 

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