Historical periods that are barely ever explored in games

[sovietmisaki]

I've sort of been wanting some games in the immediate post WW1 period, like the mid-later stages of the Russian Civil War, the allied intervention, and their attempts to stop the Bolshevik takeover in its tracks. and maybe the Polish-Soviet War. I see a lot of potential for storytelling for games based in that time period, although it seems to get passed over a lot.

 

[Fireaxe]

30 Years War, Great Northern War, Napoleonic Wars, First World War -- some obvious gunpowder era ones.

 

[TacticalAssassin1]

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.

I personally don't see how any of these games would be any fun.
Australia just isn't that good a place to base a game in.

 

[RandV80]

Well an Aussie beat me too it, but as a Canadian I gotta add early colonial explorers and fur traders. Then the rest of the world can learn what words like portage and Metis means!

But unlike the Aussie's at least we have a game about the historical clash of Lumberjacks vs Werewolves.

 

[Liv's Runaway Snail]

Its interesting to see a lot of love for Australian history here. I would second the suggestion of a game set in the penal colony, and if we are talking about wars maybe one set during Vietnam (Australian perspective).

Also I know a lot has been covered on WWII but has there even been a game set in the Japanese prison camps? That would be an interesting survival game.

 

[TIMESWORDSMAN]

I'd love to see a game based around the battles fought between The Holy League and the Ottoman Empire, especially the Battle of Vienna in 1683. If you're not familiar with it, it's basically the Siege of Gondor in real life.

 

[Setrus]

WW1 would be interesting, say a shooter where there would be no grand goal save surviving...?

Also, dark ages/the early middle ages really could use more love.

 

[crazyarms33]

I would love to see a game about the Peninsular War between England, Spain and Portugal vs the French. I think that era is so rarely represented.

 

[mirage202]

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.

Nailed it. Horror would fit perfectly yet again I still see the same issues. It is not something a publisher big enough to make it a success would touch. Indie could manage though and perhaps that way it would get the respect it deserves.

My point was not so much that it couldn't be done, but that it wouldn't have wide enough appeal for the big players out there to see it made. Most people in the US and Europe know very little beyond the Western front, to know about other aspects of the war requires a more involved interest in the subject. So while an (again) indie niche title may succeed we'll likely never see anything on the grand scale that we are after (or that I personally would like to see - not meaning to speak for everyone else) for the ignored periods of history.

As a side note, having served in 2RTR engagements like the battle of Cambrai and Vimy Ridge were required learning. Those Canadians were tough bastards, pulled off what the Brits, Americans and French failed to do.

 

[josemlopes]

World War 1 changed the world as we know it, yet is almost never depicted in games. Shame because I could easily see a proper WW1 game being terrifying as hell. It was after all quite possibly the most horrific war in human history, just the thought of what some of those people went through sends shivers down my spine.

If done well could even hold educational value. Ignite peoples curiosity and drive them to learn more about the conflict.

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.

I think it could well if it was close to what Chronicles of Riddick/The Darkness did where while being an FPS it was still very focused on story and world building with a lot of non-action sequences, I really dont see a WW1 game working that well as a straight up shooter as well.

I honestly dont know what kind of things usually went on in a WW1 scenario (what soldiers did in the trenches, what was part of an offensive attack, etc...) so I dont know if even a Chronicls of Riddick style of gameplay would work.

 

[GabeZhul]

WW1 is unappealing for most video game developers for a simple reason: there are no Nazis.

Really, that is the reason. In WW2, the Nazis were the greatest card-carrying villains history has ever produced. The uniforms, the propaganda, the policies, everything screamed "evil" about them to the point where they are still the template for most sci-fi and fantasy villains (just look at Voldemort and his Death Eaters for an easy example). This meant one more thing: since they were the villains, you could portray them however you wanted and in your game you could slaughter them by the millions, and no one cared.

Contrast that to WW1, where the "who was right?" is a much more ambiguous question. Both sides were fighting for resources and political power instead of ideologies, which meant that neither side was right or wrong in the end. The only reason the Germans are still usually portrayed as the bad guys in those games is because culture retro-actively applied the same "evil Nazi scum" stigma on them (not to mention, since the target audience is mainly American, it's only logical to assume that the game's protagonist would fight against America's enemy at the time, which happened to be the Germans).

That said, the only way one could do justice to WW1 would be in a strategy game (and we actually have a few old hex-based games for that already), where one can pick sides.

As for what I would actually like to see, it would be a game set in the ancient fertile crescent. Start from the Sumer, move on to the Akkad, then the Babylonians and so on. The only reason I can think of why developers wouldn't want to touch this rich historical setting would be either because it would be a very low-tech setting (which could be circumvented by introducing some fantasy elements, like say, playing out the epic of Gilgamesh with all the gods and whatever), and because it's not set in the classical era so that they cannot shoehorn in Rome or some other famous empires/people that modern audiences would immediately recognize.

In fact, I am tempted to say we have a case of "historical brand-recognition", where people are more likely to buy a game dealing with a period they know something about already and thus developers once make such titles, which leads to the consumer never learning about any other time periods and thus starting the cycle anew.

 

[Trunkage]

I'd love to see a game based around the battles fought between The Holy League and the Ottoman Empire, especially the Battle of Vienna in 1683. If you're not familiar with it, it's basically the Siege of Gondor in real life.

Except, you know... how the ottomans aren't evil
Same thing happen for Napoleon and the Chrimean war, everyone against one army.

I would be great to see how that moment eventually lead to WW1 and the ottomans wanting to continue their conquest, and how the 30 yr war lead to the super efficient Hozenhollern monarchy and thus their desire for domination of Europe. Also explains why the Germans are still the most efficient economy, pretty much propping up the rest of Europe

A realistic WW1 where the only way to live is to keep your head down would be great

 

[kingthrall]

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.

Try Wargame European Escalation, I agree also. This game was one of the best stratergy games ive ever played and highly origonal.


If you guys really want to see an awesome game a game about Kosovo/Yugoslavia. The fact you can have pretty much every ethnic group involved (playable factions) from Bosnia,Serbia,Croatia even Macadonia and the United States/USSR involvement and Tito one of the greatest modern military dictators ever.

The problem with historical accuracy is that there are too many conservative, albeit everything must have no blood/violence and appeal to everyone in a fake reality. Which is why we have games like Warhammer because they can't handle the truth.

On a final note, expect Activision to steal my idea for the next Call of Duty game.

 

[Sigmund Av Volsung]

I can't tell you how much I would give to see an RPG (be it J, Western or, Bioware) that takes place in the present day AND is a Fantasy RPG with multiple playable races. That's...a lot more specific than what the OP is asking about...but there are no RPGs like that! Why can't there be more modern day RPGs?! J or otherwise!?

As for other time periods...Playing in a British prison colony in Australia could lend itself to a good horror game or, series.

Shadowrun Returns kind of fits that bill.

Well, it's more of a cyber-punk fantasy than a modern day one, but it seems pretty close to what you are asking for.

 

[AwesomeHatMan]

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

Damn, that was going to be my pick. Specifically around really ancient history before they became largely nomadic, back when they built the cities and temples 20th century archaeologists ascribed to some lost race (because clearly blacks are way too primitive to have built them). Other than that, Mesopotamia doesn't seem to come up much outside the Prince of Persia games.

You know Mesopotamia is Iraq, not in Africa, right? (Sorry for being that guy) But yeah, games set in the Middle East or Africa would be interesting. Potentially India could be interesting too but I don't know much about Indian history/if there are games about it already, for whether they would be worthwhile

 

[clippen05]

World War 1 changed the world as we know it, yet is almost never depicted in games. Shame because I could easily see a proper WW1 game being terrifying as hell. It was after all quite possibly the most horrific war in human history, just the thought of what some of those people went through sends shivers down my spine.

Spoiler: It's the stuff of nightmares

If done well could even hold educational value. Ignite peoples curiosity and drive them to learn more about the conflict.

I agree with you in wanting a good WW1 game, its just that I don't think one would sell very well. From a FPS perspective, few people are going to want to sit in trenches with bolt-action rifles hoping to pick off some guy 500m away. And even less are going to want to have to charge enemy trenches under machine-gun fire and artillery shells. Simply, because the player is not really in control of their fate in this kind of game; they will inevitable die countless times and there's not much that they could do about it. Unless they make the game very unrealistic, people are not going to want to play. And if they make the game very unrealistic, well, then it's not that great of a WW1 game now is it.

A WW1 strategy game would be slightly more feasible, but still plagued by gameplay problems.

There is actually a WW1 FPS in development right now though, its on Steam and its called Verdun. It looks somewhat interesting but I don't like the more arcadey direction they are going with it; I had hoped it would be similar to RO2... but oh well.