Gaming's Favorite Historical Settings
There's an old saying that reality is often stranger than fiction, and there is a lot of evidence to say that some of the greatest stories are based in historical events. Video games are no exception and the industry loves digging up the bones of the past.
Some parts of history seem like bigger favorites than others, however, so below are some of the video game world's most popular time destinations.
If we put together all the FPS and strategy games that cover the WW2 period, it feels like gamers could have won every single battle several times over. There's something endlessly appealing to developers about that era, from FPS games such as the Call of Duty or Medal of Honor series to strategy games such as Company of Heroes.
The depictions and focuses over the years have changed, with the recent Call of Duty: WW2 being an entirely different narrative experience to the classic Call of Duty games. The older games were a far more straightforward time of beating the bad guys, while modern games lean into the individual characters from within the war.
Grouping all of classical history into one category takes away a little from just how vast a collection of stories it is, but for the sake of this article, they all come together for the same reason. Whether it's Ancient Greece or Ancient Egypt, developers of all types of games find themselves coming back again and again.
To be clear, we aren't just claiming this about video games, as casino game developers are also well-known to make this era their own. Of all of the hundreds of new online slots that come out each year, it's fair to say a reasonable amount feature Greek or Egyptian history and mythology with titles like Amazing Link Hades or Eye of Horus just to name a couple. Within these games, there are countless depictions of ancient gods like Zeus, Ra or the above-mentioned Hades or Horus, not to mention things like hieroglyphics and Greek symbols drawn from the cultures.
Probably one of the most brutal and unforgiving times to be alive in all of history, gaming has had a long love affair with the Vikings. Not even including historical games such as Total War and Age of Empires, there are dozens of games featuring Viking themes. Only recently did we get games like Rune 2 and Bad North, and that's not including the massive entry into a long-running franchise that is Assassin's Creed: Valhalla, although whether much actual history features in that game is up for heavy debate.
Going back a few decades, Vikings always had a brutal quality that made them extremely popular to build action games around, and the recent reviews of their history have led to games exploring a lot of the deep culture that wasn't often touched before.
The most interesting thing to think about is that, in 50 or 100 years or perhaps beyond, there's every chance that developers may be making historical games about our present day, although we have no clue as to what they would look like.
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Some parts of history seem like bigger favorites than others, however, so below are some of the video game world's most popular time destinations.
WW2
If we put together all the FPS and strategy games that cover the WW2 period, it feels like gamers could have won every single battle several times over. There's something endlessly appealing to developers about that era, from FPS games such as the Call of Duty or Medal of Honor series to strategy games such as Company of Heroes.
The depictions and focuses over the years have changed, with the recent Call of Duty: WW2 being an entirely different narrative experience to the classic Call of Duty games. The older games were a far more straightforward time of beating the bad guys, while modern games lean into the individual characters from within the war.
The Classical Era
Grouping all of classical history into one category takes away a little from just how vast a collection of stories it is, but for the sake of this article, they all come together for the same reason. Whether it's Ancient Greece or Ancient Egypt, developers of all types of games find themselves coming back again and again.
To be clear, we aren't just claiming this about video games, as casino game developers are also well-known to make this era their own. Of all of the hundreds of new online slots that come out each year, it's fair to say a reasonable amount feature Greek or Egyptian history and mythology with titles like Amazing Link Hades or Eye of Horus just to name a couple. Within these games, there are countless depictions of ancient gods like Zeus, Ra or the above-mentioned Hades or Horus, not to mention things like hieroglyphics and Greek symbols drawn from the cultures.
The Viking Era
Probably one of the most brutal and unforgiving times to be alive in all of history, gaming has had a long love affair with the Vikings. Not even including historical games such as Total War and Age of Empires, there are dozens of games featuring Viking themes. Only recently did we get games like Rune 2 and Bad North, and that's not including the massive entry into a long-running franchise that is Assassin's Creed: Valhalla, although whether much actual history features in that game is up for heavy debate.
Going back a few decades, Vikings always had a brutal quality that made them extremely popular to build action games around, and the recent reviews of their history have led to games exploring a lot of the deep culture that wasn't often touched before.
The most interesting thing to think about is that, in 50 or 100 years or perhaps beyond, there's every chance that developers may be making historical games about our present day, although we have no clue as to what they would look like.
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