by Adam Clulow with Ashley Gelato, Michael Rader, Izellah Wang and Alex Aragon. In early 2020, we set about recruiting students for an experiment: Could four History majors design a fully functional, historically accurate video game across the course of a single semester. The experiment was driven, first, by an awareness of the dramatic growth […]
Counterfactual History in a New Video Game
American History, in many ways, represents the nation’s résumé. It is a catalog of achievements and events – some good, some regrettable – that are used to encourage citizens and outsiders to buy into the nation.
“You have died of dysentery” – History According to Video Games
The video game is a relatively new medium, but it has a long record of using history to tell stories like the one found in Assassin’s Creed. Given the mass popularity of video games and gaming culture, it seems appropriate that we begin to analyze the history portrayed in this medium in the same way we consider a historical novel or period film. Why and how is history used in video games?