Grim Fandango is a 1998 adventure game by Tim Schafer for LucasArts, and the first of their adventures to combine 3D characters with pre-rendered backgrounds. The player controls Manny Calavera, a travel agent in the Land of the Dead, who guides newly departed souls on their journey. The setting is a retro-futuristic 1950s version of the afterlife that blends Aztec myth with film noir, drawing on The Maltese Falcon and Casablanca. The game was critically praised and is now often listed among the greatest video games. However, it sold poorly, which helped push LucasArts away from adventure games.

Hampi is a UNESCO World Heritage Site in Karnataka, India, with more than 1,600 surviving remains spread over 4,100 hectares. It was the capital of the Vijayanagara Empire from 1336 to 1565. Travellers from Persia and Portugal described it as a prosperous, wealthy and grand city with temples, markets and farms along the Tungabhadra River. By 1500 it was estimated to be the world's second-largest city after Beijing, and probably India's richest at the time. In 1565 a coalition of Muslim sultanates defeated the Vijayanagara Empire, its capital was conquered and destroyed, and the city was left in ruins. Hampi remains a religious centre, with the active Virupaksha Temple at its heart.