Historical periods that are barely ever explored in games

[Klaflefalumpf]

Recently I've been playing Rome 2 as the Brits and I'm really getting into that sort of time period and aesthetic.

Mist, monsters, men painting themselves blue, druids and a lot of woodland.

I was actually thinking that it's an underused (if ever?) setting in games and wouldn't mind seeing more of it before I saw this thread.

 

[themyrmidon]

Civil War needs more quality titles, that's for sure.

Dinosaurs are drastically underutilized in today's market.

Pre-colonization and colonization of America aren't too popular as central themes.

Lots about WW2, but WW1 is pretty much ignored.

In other words, what most others have said. People know what experiences they want and haven't had yet, but we just keep seeing Nazis, zombies, and Nazi zombies.

 

[Ender910_v1legacy]

The bronze and early-mid iron ages, definitely. As far as ancient history goes, it's either always (historically inaccurate) Rome or possibly Classical Greece if you're very lucky. Anything earlier than that, including ancient Egypt which you think would be a pretty big deal for video game settings, is almost impossible to find.

This. It's really crazy too, given the abundance of untapped potential. And there's also ancient mythology too which is rarely used outside of your stereotypical fantasy bestiary.

What's even more disturbing is that the film and television industry have almost completely ignored these kinds of time periods. And the few films that have were set in classical times were largely pretty terrible.

Well, let's see... almost EVERYTHING between the 16th-19th century! Will we ever get a game about the War of the Spanish Succession? The Eighty Years War (which, in contrast to the Hundred Years War really lasted a whole eighty years)? The Chrimean War (you know, charge of the light brigade, entire Europe+the Ottomans ganging up on Imperial Russia)?

The tricky part with most of that timeframe is that "muskets" are largely unappealing in games. It's challenging to make them fun and interesting, especially in an action oriented game. That does remind me though, late 19th century England is hugely untapped in gaming. What the heck?

 

[Roxor]

Pretty-much any period of Australia's history.

A game which makes you to governor of historical Sydney or Hobart.

A game which puts you in the role of a convict determined to escape.

A game which puts you in the boots of Ned Kelly.

A game where you take on the role of one of Australia's explorers, charting the continent.

See? Plenty of room for ideas set in historical Australia.

 

[The Madman]

I think the issue with WW1 is the setting/genre. You can either make an FPS or TPS which everyone and their mother is doing right now, or RTS/TBS yet moving your little dudes from one trench and ordering them to dig another one a few yards ahead doesn't really make for compelling game play.

You'd be surprised about the later. It was only the western front that tended to stagnate, the eastern and southern fronts were extremely active and when the eastern front woke up, damn did it ever wake up. I'm envisioning scenario like the Battle of Beersheba, often considered the last great cavalry charge when Australian light horsemen charged an entrenched position in order to get beneath the range of the heavy guns and artillery, taking the town. Or the heavy guerrila fighting in the Italian alps, small scale tactical combat. Alternatively you could go big with battles like the Canadian attack on Vimy Ridge, one of the first coordinated uses of heavy artillery to support a tank advance.

The image of WW1 being nothing but trenches while not untrue is also far from all there was, and even then the idea of trench warfare is rife with ideas.

I'm not envisioning either a traditional fps or tps, but a horror game. A truly terrifying experience where the enemy isn't some monster that jumps out of a closet or a lame shambling alien, but clouds of blinding mustard gas, the steady thud thud THUD of artillery exploding all around you, an endless muddy trench filled with crumbling mud, water, blood and bodies. Crouching down in terror as tanks slowly rumble overhead, only to face frantic moments of desperate struggle as its followed by a wave of infantry. All this leading up to that moment when you've got to go over the top and it's your turn to charge across no-mans land into enemy trenches...

If done well, it could be one of the most emotional and horrifying games ever made.

 

[RicoADF]

World War 1 "The Great War", there's only 1 game I can think of that does this time period called "The Great War", a turned based strategy game, lots of fun but we seriously need more games set in this time especially considering how much it's effects are still being felt today.

 

[sextus the crazy]

We don't see much of Africa prior to the 20th/21th century do we? Excluding the ocassional pyramid tour.

Pretty much. Central/South America would be pretty cool as well.

Also, The Balkins in the 90s. Because that shit was interesting as hell and could make for some cool games.

 

[Hard-Target]

I think a game set in ancient Egypt or in the Mayan/Inca civilization would be nice to see. I know they been covered before but only in things like RTS.I want to see a stealth game along the lines of Dishonored or Thief but you play as an Inca warrior. i would also love a game set around Celtic mythology if that counts. Media in general hardly ever touches some of the stories behind them. I really hope to see a game revolving around the life of Cu Chulainn.

 

[Gottesstrafe]

I would say that the American Civil War counts, but with the release of Gettysburg: Armoured Warfare(bad example) and Ironclad Tactics, I feel that it's getting some attention.

A pet peeve of mine is that people say that Feudal Japan is over done, when it clearly isn't, at least not to me. The games that come to mind upon hearing those words are the Shogun Total War series and Okami, nothing else.

Also, the classic era would be cool(no Romans though, media in general has kind of been there, done that) such as Babylon or Carthage(especially considering that Babylonian architecture looks pretty interesting, and that now we barely have any idea what it looked like).

Okay, where to start?

American Civil War:

Call of Juarez: Bound in Blood (one level at least)
Darkest of Days
The American Conquest expansion packs
The Battleground Series
Forge of Freedom: The American Civil War
Sid Meier's Antietam!
Sid Meier's Gettysburg!
The Take Command series
Damnation (think alternate universe steampunk civil war shooter)

For Feudal Japan, off the top of my head I can think of the Way of the Samurai series, the Goemon series, the Onimusha series, the Tenchu series, the Samurai Warriors series, the Warriors Orochi series, and Kuon. I'm not going to even touch the host of feudal japan RPGs only available in Japan.

As for myself, I'd like to see more of Hong Kong (modern or during either of the Opium Wars), more of the Caribbean isles during the 18 century, the Ottoman Empire in the 19th century, early 20th century film noir hard boiled detectives, and of course World War I.

Edit: You know what I'm going to make this a separate post. [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/read/9.832883-Historical-periods-that-are-barely-ever-explored-in-games?page=2#20356038]

 

[jackpipsam]

World War One.

We have lots of WW2 games, but not much of the first world war.


Also with WW2 games, I would love to see some RPGs or something, like village life or whatever during the war.
Not just more shooters.

 

[Ftaghn To You Too]

As a general reply to a lot of people asking why pre-Roman europe or, really, pre-roman anything isn't really depicted is because, according to our culture, it didn't exist. Of sure, it happened, it'll admit grudgingly, but those weren't really human beings, because real human beings are shy about sex, force eachother into labor for our own benefit and work ourselves to death to sustain a hierarchical society

That should mean we're all over pre-Roman times, since almost exactly nothing was different in the areas you say. Well, not shyness to sex, since that only started somewhere around the late medieval period to renaissance.

 

[Happiness Assassin]

WW1 is kind of a shit period to do, in my opinion. Most of the war (in France anyway) consisted of standing around waiting to get trench foot, standing around waiting to fire on men charging your trench like lemmings, or standing around waiting to charge the enemy like lemmings, all for months at a time. The only thing I might be personally interested in is maybe WW1 dogfights in the sky.

Actually that sounds fucking awesome. Imagine taking control of the Richthofen and his Flying Circus. If anyone knows any good games (and I specify good) with that it would be much appreciated.

 

[Ftaghn To You Too]

WW1 is kind of a shit period to do, in my opinion. Most of the war (in France anyway) consisted of standing around waiting to get trench foot, standing around waiting to fire on men charging your trench like lemmings, or standing around waiting to charge the enemy like lemmings, all for months at a time. The only thing I might be personally interested in is maybe WW1 dogfights in the sky.

Actually that sounds fucking awesome. Imagine taking control of the Richthofen and his Flying Circus. If anyone knows any good games (and I specify good) with that it would be much appreciated.

Apparently Rise of Flight: The First Great Air War is pretty good.

 

[Happiness Assassin]

WW1 is kind of a shit period to do, in my opinion. Most of the war (in France anyway) consisted of standing around waiting to get trench foot, standing around waiting to fire on men charging your trench like lemmings, or standing around waiting to charge the enemy like lemmings, all for months at a time. The only thing I might be personally interested in is maybe WW1 dogfights in the sky.

Actually that sounds fucking awesome. Imagine taking control of the Richthofen and his Flying Circus. If anyone knows any good games (and I specify good) with that it would be much appreciated.

Apparently Rise of Flight: The First Great Air War is pretty good.

Thanks I may check that out. I've been fixin' for a good flight sim for a while now.

 

[Gottesstrafe]

I'd also like to see a game set during the cold war about intelligence agencies. You choose a country/agency (eg. CIA for the US, British SIS, KGB for Russia, etc) and then focus on recruitment, training, intel gathering, counterintelligence, and staging covert operations. You can make alliances, under-the-table backroom deals, trade intel, leak intel to countries you'd rather not ally with, stage coups and prop up friendly regimes, trade weapons and train the soldiers/guerrillas of developing countries, secure valuable resources, sabotage foreign installations, infiltrate other agencies as well as screen your own for infiltrators, spy on your allies, flip enemy agents, kidnap/grant political asylum to key informants and scientists, order political assassinations, hunt down rogue agents, stage covert black flag operations on friendlies to publicly blame on your enemies to not only discredit their image in the world's eyes but also provide an opening for intervention, fight your enemies in terms of "Public Image", fight proxy wars with other nations, make overt political moves to force your enemies' hand, or even work with your enemies to squash upstart countries/agencies that threaten the status-quo. Let's even throw in sabotaging/influencing your own country (eg. discrediting rival agencies and obstinate politicians or military officers, doing favors for/coercing politicians and military officers, or influencing the election/promotion of those politicians and military officers) so that your agency can acquire more funding or political pull to further your own agenda.