Gaming

Historical Accuracy Matters in Video Games. Here’s Why

Games aren't just portals for escapism – they can help us understand the way the world once was.
Kris van der Voorn
Amsterdam, NL
Historically accurate video games – Assassin’s creed screenshot. Background: purple gradient with playstation symbols in neon colors.
Image: AdobeStock/ amrikhsn; AdobeStock/ mehaniq41. Collage: VICE

This article originally appeared on VICE Netherlands.

In April 2019 the world watched in shock as Notre Dame was engulfed in flames. Significant damage to such an important landmark was tough for the city and rebuilding efforts began as soon as the structure was stable, with potential design partners emerging in the most unconventional of places. 

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For example, fans of long-running video game franchise Assassin’s Creed suggested using one of the games to help with the restoration of the Gothic cathedral. Assassin’s Creed Unity, the eighth title in the series, is set in Paris during the French Revolution and features a 3D model of the building designed with unerring accuracy. Every buttress, organ, and gargoyle was recreated as faithfully as possible in a two-year-long project overseen by level designer Caroline Miousse.

The idea that a video game might play a useful role in the reconstruction of one of Europe’s most famous buildings was extraordinary. It proved to be little more than wishful thinking on behalf of the franchise’s fans, as Ubisoft, the game’s publisher, revealed that they did donate €500,000 to the rebuilding project but were never asked to share their model. 

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It is a story that points to an interesting shift in how video games are beginning to be perceived by the wider world. Once seen as portals for escapism, games are now aspiring to be ever more historically accurate. Bookshops are full of historical fiction and multiplexes regularly screen blockbusters rooted in specific historical eras – and there are now all manner of games applauded for their fidelity to the past. 

How do designers and video game directors make sure their games are historically accurate, though? And why would a studio devote so much time, effort, and attention to digitally reproducing a building on the scale seen in Assassin’s Creed? Hoping to establish why the past has become so prized in a forward-thinking medium, VICE spoke to experts on games with historical narratives at their core. 

Peter-Alexander Kerkhof, a researcher at Leiden University, is a linguist and medievalist. “As scientists, we love loudly pointing out how things weren’t actually like that in the past,” he said. “People who aren’t in our field don’t tend to care, or at least not until you make a connection with the way they actually experience the world. Examining how games get historical things wrong definitely piques people’s interest.”

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When it comes to actually playing games, Kerkhof enjoys the ones where you get to build cities, especially if they’re medieval, even if they tend not to be all that historically accurate. “Many of these games are based on the idea that you can keep developing and expanding a village. It didn’t really happen like this in the Middle Ages,” he said, “Towns weren’t just built organically. When people moved to a certain area, they developed plans in advance. It’s still the case today, but people often think things were very different in the Middle Ages.”

Kerkhof, who’s consulted on movies and TV shows depicting the Middle Ages, said historical inaccuracy isn’t just a problem in the gaming industry. "The common thread in this decision-making process is: Will people who do not possess any historical knowledge know the difference?”

Besides, even if accuracy is important to both publishers and consumers, a game still has to be enjoyable. That’s why designers often find themselves having to compromise. Kerkhof brings up another game in the Assassin’s Creed series as an example. In Valhalla, a Viking-themed title, players spend a good amount of time trudging across narrow fields. In reality, these sorts of fields were often half a mile or so wide. “You’re not going to show that in a game, though, because then you’d be walking on the same strip of land for hours.”

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The designers at Wispfire – an independent development studio based in Utrecht – employ historical detail in their world building when it makes sense for the story they’re trying to tell in a game. “You want to capture the look and feel of a certain time,” said Aïda de Ridder, a director at Wispfire. “We take care with all aspects of the art, making sure our research was thorough and the sources we used were sound.”

The team takes frequent field trips to make sure they get things right. For their most recent game, Herald: An Interactive Period Drama, they visited numerous museums in the Netherlands. Narrative designer Roy van Der Schilden also journeyed across the North Sea to visit the Cutty Sark in London, a 19th century merchant ship which inspired the digitally rendered boat at the centre of the Dutch team’s nautical mystery. 

However, Wispfire also had to adapt their research to their game. The rooms on the actual Cutty Sark were tiny, but if they’d been modelled totally accurately in Herald, the experience for the player would have been visually unappealing and claustrophobic. 

Historical accuracy can play an educational role, too. “It’s very frustrating to us when people minimise conversations about the Netherlands’ colonial past on purpose, or simply do not understand it,” said de Ridder. “We wanted to see if we could develop a game that would invite the player to experience colonialism in the 19th century. This experience is meant to introduce gamers to the source of many of the current issues we face.”

Kerkhof agreed with Wispfire’s stance on this. “I’d love to see games incorporate our scientific knowledge little by little, so that people are introduced to the idea that the world of the past is recognisable, but was very different at the same time,” he said. “One of the reasons I’m so keen on historical accuracy in games, is because games as a medium are very effective when it comes to changing existing perceptions.”