Historic periods you'd like to see more in video games

thejboy88

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Aug 29, 2010
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Title says it all. Although video games have often taken place during historical settings, there have been some who have criticised the medium for focusing too much on specific periods, like WW2 and so forth. As such, I'd like your opinions on times and places you feel should be looked at more by video games.
 

ffronw

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Oct 24, 2013
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I've longed for an up-to-date take on the Civil War. Maybe something in a really solid, Relic-style RTS, or even a first-person shooter if need be. Heck, why not both?

I'd also like to see a game that takes the basic idea behind the sailing in Assassin's Creed 4 and makes a game just for that. Sailing around the ocean, raiding ports and taking on other ships, then retreating to your pirate cove.
 

Diablo2000

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Aug 29, 2010
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Ancient China needs more love... Been playing Jade Empire (Been in a quite Bioware run lately) and I would love to see something like that again. Bioware, sequel? Please?
Maybe this time make it feel more like Ancient China rather than Chinatown because everyone seems to speak perfect english, except those who speak the ancient "Gibberish in order to save space of audio file" tongue.
 

Redryhno

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Diablo2000 said:
Ancient China needs more love... Been playing Jade Empire (Been in a quite Bioware run lately) and I would love to see something like that again. Bioware, sequel? Please?
Maybe this time make it feel more like Ancient China rather than Chinatown because everyone seems to speak perfect english, except those who speak the ancient "Gibberish in order to save space of audio file" tongue.
Yeah, I've been wanting more Jade Empire for years. Such a shame that they just stopped after one game though. Morality system-wise, I think it had to be one of their better attempts along with ME1, since not every Closed Fist guy was a dirtbag, and there were a few Open Palmers you wanted to kick down a well.

In fact, I'll second Ancient China, and add onto it by saying we need more games based in Fantastical Asia that aren't an add-on to the Fantastical Europe main game.
 

Rolaoi

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Nov 10, 2013
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The Russian Civil War
The Chinese Civil War
Mythic Finland or Slavic Eastern Europe
Ancient Mesopotamia
Ancient China
Pre-Columbian Central America
The Scramble for Africa


I think the last one would make for a really neat tactical RPG.
 

SoreWristed

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Dec 26, 2014
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Diablo2000 said:
Ancient China needs more love... Been playing Jade Empire (Been in a quite Bioware run lately) and I would love to see something like that again. Bioware, sequel? Please?
Maybe this time make it feel more like Ancient China rather than Chinatown because everyone seems to speak perfect english, except those who speak the ancient "Gibberish in order to save space of audio file" tongue.
Maybe give Kessen a try. RTS set in feudal japan and I believe the third one in the series had a dual language option.

Personally I'd like to see more of the fifties, sixties and seventies in video games. I love the visual style of those times.
 

Recusant

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Nov 4, 2014
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A setting I've long thought fascinating would be the borders of the Byzantine and Sassanid empires in the early seventh century AD. It'd be almost ideally suited for a Darklands-type game, maybe with a little Mount and Blade thrown in. Two massive empires, each seeking to recapture and expand on the glory of their predecessors; religious border conflicts that are not only more complex than X vs Y, but contain conflicts within each and every side (in the north, Christianity vs Zarathrustanism; head west and it's emerging Catholicism vs emerging Orthodoxy; head east and it's Zarathustrans vs Hindus, with the odd Buddhist and Jain as apparently the Sassinids were playing religious bingo; the center, Assyrian Christianity vs Chalcedonian (well, okay, technically Nicene, but that's really splitting hairs); in the south, Jews struggling to integrate and keeping their heads down, and some odd, wild rumors of a new faith spreading in the Arabian peninsula...); lots of wonderful philosophical questions of culture and identity; just a fascinating time and place all around. And then, BOOM! Up ride the Arabs and turn everything upside-down, which just tosses in MORE interesting situations.

Of course, something that's that 1. in-depth and 2. dealing with politically and religiously sensitive themes would probably never get made; or, if it was, published. It's still a fascinating setting. My other idea is probably much easier, since it doesn't feature any cultural elements at all: think a cross between SimLife and Designasaurus, but set in the Permian. To hear most people tell it, life essentially went from amoebas to jellyfish to dinosaurs to mammals, with nothing in between. This is not only sad, it's hideously inaccurate; the chance to show off more would be great, the chance to change it up even more so, especially when you're working with environmental conditions most people are wildly unfamiliar with.

Some other ideas:
-Intrigue in the Ottoman court at the height of their Empire.
-Novgorodians fighting off Crusaders (we've all seen the Battle On The Ice, now fight it!).
-Playing as the active controller of a human immune system.
-(If we can go fictional) A thriving, if simplistic, theropod society after the meteroite impact.
 

Seishisha

By the power of greyskull.
Aug 22, 2011
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I've always wanted to see more games set in during the industrial revolution, i imagine the conflict of machine replacing manual labour, factorisation and mass production replacing hand crafted techniques and so on could offer some interesting story elements especialy with the correct genre.

An alt-history setting in which a country hid bombs or poison in its mass produced products and sold them to other nations as a pre-emptive attack to war and invasion sounds awesome to me.
 

thoughtwrangler

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Sep 29, 2014
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I'd like to play an action-adventure game set in the Boxer Rebellion. Or perhaps earlier, after the fall of the Ming Dynasty. You could join up with one of the underground societies seeking to overthrow the Qing, OR work as a double agent.
 

404notfound

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Nov 9, 2009
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ffronw said:
I've longed for an up-to-date take on the Civil War. Maybe something in a really solid, Relic-style RTS, or even a first-person shooter if need be. Heck, why not both?
Going to take a punt and guess you meant American Civil War (pretty much every nation has had a civil war); if that's the case did you check out Ultimate General: Gettysburg? It only does The battle of Gettysburg but it does it really well in my opinion, just a thought that might help quench your thirst a little.

As for me: give me a freaking WW1 game please, I don't care if you think trench warfare "would be boring" I think there's potential for great strategy. You could covertly mass troops in a certain sector to try and brute force through a sector that isn't heavily defended etc. A lot of failed attacks and casualties during WW1 occurred due to inept leaders who didn't give a damn about their troops or strategy beyond "advance towards the enemy" so let us replace them, I reckon we could make it work.

Edited for spelling*
 

beastro

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Jan 6, 2012
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The Late Antiquity and the Early Middle Ages, and no, don't point to Vikings, I mean the rest of the Western and Middle Eastern world at the time.

Good spot to pick would be Anglo-Saxon before the above mentioned overdone Nordic folks centered around the Heptarchy or embellishment of the Anglo-Saxon/Brythonic conflict, or perhaps for once the Anglo-Saxons get to be the protagonists against the Norse Scourge.

Another would be a drama centered around the reign of Heraclius, the battle between Orthodoxy and Zoroastrianism and the torrent of the Islamic invasions.

Dryzdale said:
As for me: give me a freaking WW1 game please, I don't care if you think trench warfare "would be boring" I think there's potential for great strategy. You could covertly mass troops in a certain sector to try and brute force through a sector that isn't heavily defended etc. A lot of failed attacks and casualties during WW1 occurred due to inept leaders who didn't give a damn about their troops or strategy beyond "advance towards the enemy" so let us replace them, I reckon we could make it work.
You ignore the fluidity of the Eastern Front during WWI. A good and vastly under-noticed theater.
 

broadbandmink

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Apr 28, 2014
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I second the First World War as a historic setting. The game does not necessarily have to take place at the front lines. You could, say, manage a hospital and treat wounded soldier, or work in an intelligence service, or as a chief editor at a major newspaper, making decisions on what (possibly touchy) articles to publish and so on..

Hmm, the following suggestion isn't exactly a time period. But a game of virtually any genre set on the Australian continent before, during, or after European colonisation.
 

Aiddon_v1legacy

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Nov 19, 2009
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The Bakumatsu where the shogunate was overthrown and Japan opened its doors to the West. In fact, Asian history in general deserves to have more games made about it including stuff in China and India.
 

infohippie

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Aiddon said:
The Bakumatsu where the shogunate was overthrown and Japan opened its doors to the West. In fact, Asian history in general deserves to have more games made about it including stuff in China and India.
Hell yes. I would love to see more Asian historical settings. I am largely interested in Japan of course, though ancient China was fascinating and India would make a great setting too. Just please, give us something from those historical & geographical regions that ISN'T an RTS.
 

Hochmeister

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Jun 2, 2011
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Late Victorian Era (Civil War to WW1). Especially naval combat so I can fight with big honkin' dreadnaughts without worrying about those pesky airplanes.