Assignment: Write a review for a historical game (based on this list) that you’ve played and answer a few questions about the game and historical games in general.
I was really excited for this assignment when I searched up historical games and saw that the God of War series was an option- but I ended up going with a different game because I play it and have been playing it for the past year or so, and that’s Hades!
Ok, so Hades is a roguelike/dungeon crawler about the son of Hades, Zagreus, trying to escape the Underworld. If you couldn’t already tell, the game is based on Greek mythology, and (according to Wikipedia) takes place in 500s BC. The game includes many different gods, primarily the main gods like Zeus and Athena, and figures from different Greek stories like Sisyphus and Achilles.
Generally, historical games provide a great opportunity to understand history by giving audiences a new perspective. Seeing history in a new perspective is really helpful in figuring out the complexities and dynamics of living in a certain time or through a certain event. Hades, for example, gives the player the perspective of Greek mythology from the literal son of Hades. You learn about the behavior of Gods and their roles in the world according to how the Greeks saw fit, and in that way, you may learn something new! I know I did! More than that, you learn about the relationships between characters, like how certain Gods feel about each other or about the other Greek story characters.
Unfortunately, a historical game is a game before it’s a history teacher, so the audience kinda has to take all information with a grain of salt. Like, imagine a game about living through the bubonic plague. Do you think people would honestly be interested in playing a game that takes place in genuine Victorian-era Europe?? IDK about you, but I would say not. That time was nasty. So, to make games more appealing companies will make creative decisions that may alter parts of history that may significant parts of what really happened, but also maybe it’s not that serious. For instance, part of Hades’ primary appeal to its audience is its artistic design, as it should be! The art is incredible! But it’s also not accurate to real Greek paintings and statues of the characters. On one hand, it’s a huge departure from the true history of Greek religion, but on the other hand it doesn’t actually significantly alter the actual history of the events- it just makes it look different. Depending on what you’re trying to learn about the history of Greek mythology, it may or may not be a significant alteration.
Overall, I think that video games are a great introduction to a historical topic and a great way to get people who may not be regular history buffs, or maybe they are, the beauty of is anyone can play and become interested in a new topic! BUT, I do think that there are better ways to study and present history, only because its impossible to tell what significant changes a video game will make to a historical topic for the purpose of appeal/playability without doing actual research. Making those changes are completely understandable, and I think they should be made, but that also means that if you’re interested in a topic you shouldn’t just take the information provided in a game as fact. Do a little bit of digging, find new info, maybe find some of the same info, as long as you’re generally fact-checking further than what a game presents to you.
Ok Bye 😀
Bonus: I love how everyone looks, but Hades and Chaos have my favorite designs from the game.
Also, I’ve had the game for a year and still haven’t finished it LMAOO
