[DoctorEldritch]

Hello Legion gamers!

This week, @JokerZida and I are talking about Total War: EMPIRE and possible educational aspects of it. This made me think: games are by definition a works of fiction, but some may be more historically accurate than others.

For example, the abovementioned Total War: EMPIRE, while not relaying specific historical episodes 100% accurately, may nonetheless be a good illustration of how history works as a concept: the role of armed conflicts, intelligence and diplomacy in shaping historical events. From that angle, it can teach about history, even if not really about specific parts of it.

On the other hand, there are RPG games that attempt to dive deep into a specific period in history. Kingdom Come: Deliverance, the sequel of which many of us are waiting for, was praised for its historic accuracy and research of the period it is set in:

Or there are less visually realistic games with simpler art styles that nonetheless convey the feeling and teach about certain parts of human history or even specific episodes. Like Valiant Hearts: The Great War:

But those are the games I could remember. Does anyone know anymore? History buffs, now is your chance to shine! 😉

[JokerZida]

👌👍👍👍

[ibrahemmohamed98]

👌❤️

[miskkie]

Got like 1000h on TW Empire. Learned a lot from it.

[DoctorEldritch]

@JokerZida, @ibrahemmohamed98 and @miskkie, it seems that sentiment is shared in the industry too. I was interested to read the account of Daniel Vavra (Kingdom Come: Deliverance creator) about the lack of historical video games and how when he was pitching the game, publishers were weirded out by the lack of monsters. Here is that article if you're interested. 😉

[JokerZida]

@DoctorEldritch
I really agree with him

We love ancient games because we want to experience life in that time.

Mount and Blade: where you experience how to develop and become a great king or a great merchant or other

Kingdom Come: Deliverance is an unparalleled experience that takes you into the ordinary daily life of an ordinary person and shows you how people lived.

Europa Universalis: Experience managing the state, policies, and resources

Total War: A wonderful experience where you look at history from different perspectives and learn about civilizations and leading armies

- Unfortunately, many "gamers" only know COD, Fortnite, FIFA + GTA V, Red Dead

They are all very wonderful games, we do not differ in that, but diversity is necessary, of course not all people have the same tastes!

[DoctorEldritch]

@JokerZida It is interesting how with historic games there can be one of the two approaches: you can either just experience that period somewhat, like in Kingdom Come: Deliverance, or you can play the "what if" scenarios like in Europa Universalis or Total War where you can simulate alternative history scenarios of event that never happened in our timeline or reality.

As for those other games, I agree about them, but I want to say that Red Dead Redemption, while a personal story foremost, is still a decent enough illustration for that specific time period. Would not call it historic per se (not the way Kingdom Come is, at least), but it was pleasantly immersive.