Classical Antiquity in Video Games: Playing with the Ancient World (IMAGINES – Classical Receptions in the Visual and Performing Arts)

"From gaming consoles to smartphones, video games are everywhere today, including those set in historical times and particularly in the ancient world. This volume explores the varied depictions of the ancient world in video games and demonstrates the potential challenges of games for scholars as well as the applications of game engines for educational and academic purposes. With successful series such as "Assassin's Creed' or "Civilization" selling millions of copies, video games rival even television and cinema in their role in shaping younger audiences' perceptions of the past. Yet classical scholarship, though embracing other popular media as areas of research, has so far largely ignored video games as a vehicle of classical reception. This collection of essays fills this gap with a dedicated study of receptions, remediations and representations of Classical Antiquity across all electronic gaming platforms and genres. It presents cutting-edge research in classics and classical receptions, game studies and archaeogaming, adopting different perspectives and combining papers from scholars, gamers, game developers and historical consultants. In doing so, it delivers the first state-of-the-art account of both the wide array of 'ancient' video games, as well as the challenges and rewards of this new and exciting field."-- Provided by publisher Cover page 1 Halftitle page 2 Series page 3 Title page 4 Copyright page 5 Contents 6 Illustrations 8 Contributors 10 Preface 14 Prologue Playing with the Ancient World 18 Classical reception, history and video games 20 Existing scholarship 21 Resources 25 This book 27 A way forward 31 Notes 33 1 An Archaeology of Ancient Historical Video Games 36 Hardware and genre 37 Genre and history 39 Ancient history in video games 43 Antiquity, gamified 56 Notes 57 Part One A Brave Old World Re-Figurations of Ancient Cultures 62 2 Ludus (Not) Over 64 Classical reception in video games: A set of features 68 Notes 75 3 Playing in a ‘Real’ Past 80 Archaeogaming and the developing agenda 80 Fantastic pasts: Ryse: Son of Rome 81 Realism and representation: Assassin’s Creed 86 Conclusion: The value of critical gaming 91 Notes 92 4 The Representation of Women in 94 Women as damsels in distress 96 Women as sexual objects 100 Women and sex, trauma and violence 101 Conclusion 105 Notes 105 Part Two A World at War Martial Re-Presentations of the Ancient World 108 5 Battle Narratives from Ancient Historiography to Total War: Rome II 110 The Battle of Teutoburg: A long history 111 From Suetonius to internet memes 112 Reimagining Arminius 114 Arminius the Liberator 117 Arminius the Victor? 119 Conclusion 120 Notes 121 6 Digital Legionaries 124 The face of battle in the Roman Republic: An outline 126 The common features of video game battles 128 The games 128 Conclusion: Video games as formal, dynamic, interactive, multimodal models 138 Notes 139 Part Three Digital Epics Role-Playing in the Ancient World 142 7 The Bethesda Style 144 Introduction 144 What is an RPG in relation to oral formulaic theory? 145 A distinctive alloy: Three hallmarks of the Bethesda style 147 Notes 156 8 Postcolonial Play in Ancient World Computer Role-Playing Games 158 ‘Ancient gameplay’ and ‘ancient CRPGs’ 159 Role-playing invaders and natives in Nethergate 160 Playing the Western hero in Titan Quest 166 Conclusion 169 Notes 170 9 Playing with an Ancient Veil 174 Behind the veil: Secret worlds of collective historical staging 174 What is historical about digital games? 176 A historical knowledge system for ancient history 178 Gaming communities and commemorative discourse about ancient history 184 Lifting the veil: Ancient history, commemorative culture and public history 187 Notes 189 Part Four Building an Ancient World Re-Imagining Antiquity 194 10 Choose Your Own Counterfactual 196 ‘Parlour-games with might-have-beens’ 196 Thucydidean counterfactuals 200 The Melian Games 202 Conclusion 207 Notes 208 11 Mortal Immortals 210 The Greek mythic storyworld and its plasticity 211 Apotheon ’s story in its post-apocalyptic and post-mythological setting 213 The startling idea of deicide and its origin within the Greek myth 217 Conclusions 219 Notes 220 12 The Complexities and Nuances of Portraying History in Age of Empires 222 Introduction 222 Emergent and embedded narratives in the Age of Empires series 223 Game modes as context 226 Narratives of progress and success in different contexts 227 Decisions and their narration 229 Freedom of play: Implicit and negotiated rules, and metagame 230 Conclusion 231 13 Simulating the Ancient World 234 Introduction 234 Game engines 236 Game engines in current archaeological research practice 238 The Pnyx research environment 239 Expanding the senses 240 Adapting the environment: The interface 242 Communicating results: Collaborative research with game engines 243 Conclusion 244 Notes 245 14 Epilogue 250 Form and content 253 Political contexts and accuracy 255 Production, consumption and people 259 (Ludo)narrative as form 260 Playing the past into the future 264 Notes 268 Glossary of Video Game Terms 270 Bibliography 273 Mediography 303 Ludography 304 Index 308