From Cardboard Settings to Ludo-anthropological Experiences: The Failures and Successes of Victorian London’s Adaptations in Video Games
Historical games deserve to be examined not only by video games academics but by cultural studies academics. The environments in which historical games are set, and how their gameplay and game design allow the players to explore them, give new opportunities to the public to learn about history. Furt...
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| Pubblicato in: | URI:https://journals.openedition.org/angles, |
|---|---|
| Autore principale: | |
| Natura: | Article ou chapitre numérique |
| Lingua: | Anglais |
| Pubblicazione: |
Angles
2020
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| Soggetti: | |
| Accesso online: | Accès Université d'Orléans et IFPM Accès Université d'Orléans et IFPM |
| id |
openedition-oai:revues.org:angles_2818 |
|---|---|
| record_format |
openedition |
| collection |
OpenEdition Journal |
| language |
Anglais |
| format |
Article ou chapitre numérique |
| building |
0/Bibliothèque numérique/ 1/Bibliothèque numérique/OpenEdition Journals/ |
| topic |
narratologie jeux vidéo jeux Assassin’s Creed Order (The) Ubisoft Ready at Dawn jeux historiques ludo-narratologie anthropologie londres epoque victorienne steampunk néo-victoriannisme ethnographie narratology games video games Assassin’s Creed Order (The) Ubisoft Ready at Dawn historical games ludology anthropology gaming Victorian London steampunk neo-Victorian ethnography |
| spellingShingle |
narratologie jeux vidéo jeux Assassin’s Creed Order (The) Ubisoft Ready at Dawn jeux historiques ludo-narratologie anthropologie londres epoque victorienne steampunk néo-victoriannisme ethnographie narratology games video games Assassin’s Creed Order (The) Ubisoft Ready at Dawn historical games ludology anthropology gaming Victorian London steampunk neo-Victorian ethnography Sigoillot, Nicolas From Cardboard Settings to Ludo-anthropological Experiences: The Failures and Successes of Victorian London’s Adaptations in Video Games |
| description |
Historical games deserve to be examined not only by video games academics but by cultural studies academics. The environments in which historical games are set, and how their gameplay and game design allow the players to explore them, give new opportunities to the public to learn about history. Furthermore, the excitement and interest players have for locales has reached the point where a “tourism/educational mode” has been added in the Assassin’s Creed games series, allowing them to freely explore ancient Egypt (Assassin’s Creed Origins) and Greece (Assassin’s Creed Odyssey). This mode features information about historical monuments recorded by academics, which allows players to learn about the environment. Interestingly enough, industrial Britain and especially Victorian Britain have often been chosen as a setting for numerous games. This paper compares the representations of Victorian Britain in two games. The first is Assassin’s Creed Syndicate, a game in which one plays an assassin in a realistic representation of Victorian Britain; the second is The Order 1886, a game set in a fictitious alternative world in 1886 in which one plays Knights of the Round Table fighting against gothic-themed creatures such as werewolves and vampires in a steampunk setting. Examining historical representations in fiction is interesting, but video games bring a new component to the experience compared to other media, as they let players create their own experience and narrative interactively. Gaming can thus be considered a worthwhile cultural practice because it succeeds in giving history subjective, sensory and experimental dimensions that other media lack. It enables the player to play in history as much as playing with it, sometimes giving the player an anthropological stance. In this respect, Assassin’s Creed stands as a successful adaptation of the Victorian context because it manages to integrate its historical setting into its gameplay mechanics, while The Order 1886 only uses it as a cardboard setting with limited interest to the game itself. This article attempts to create a system by comparing the two games, presenting new means of analysis of the use of history in video games. |
| author |
Sigoillot, Nicolas |
| author_facet |
Sigoillot, Nicolas |
| author_sort |
Sigoillot, Nicolas |
| title |
From Cardboard Settings to Ludo-anthropological Experiences: The Failures and Successes of Victorian London’s Adaptations in Video Games |
| title_short |
From Cardboard Settings to Ludo-anthropological Experiences: The Failures and Successes of Victorian London’s Adaptations in Video Games |
| title_full |
From Cardboard Settings to Ludo-anthropological Experiences: The Failures and Successes of Victorian London’s Adaptations in Video Games |
| title_fullStr |
From Cardboard Settings to Ludo-anthropological Experiences: The Failures and Successes of Victorian London’s Adaptations in Video Games |
| title_full_unstemmed |
From Cardboard Settings to Ludo-anthropological Experiences: The Failures and Successes of Victorian London’s Adaptations in Video Games |
| title_sort |
from cardboard settings to ludo-anthropological experiences: the failures and successes of victorian london’s adaptations in video games |
| publisher |
Angles |
| publishDate |
2020 |
| container_title |
URI:https://journals.openedition.org/angles |
| url |
https://ezproxy.univ-orleans.fr/login?url=https://doi.org/10.4000/angles.2818 https://ezproxy.univ-orleans.fr/login?url=https://journals.openedition.org/angles/2818 |
| _version_ |
1877293836384862208 |
| spelling |
openedition-oai:revues.org:angles_2818 https://doi.org/10.4000/angles.2818 urn:doi:10.4000/angles.2818 en https://journals.openedition.org/angles/2818 2020-11-11T01:00:00Z info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess article info:eu-repo/semantics/article urn:handle:20.500.13089/9n17 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ From Cardboard Settings to Ludo-anthropological Experiences: The Failures and Successes of Victorian London’s Adaptations in Video Games Angles Société des Anglicistes de l'Enseignement Supérieur info:eu-repo/semantics/reference/issn/2274-2042 URI:https://journals.openedition.org/angles Sigoillot, Nicolas narratologie jeux vidéo jeux Assassin’s Creed Order (The) Ubisoft Ready at Dawn jeux historiques ludo-narratologie anthropologie londres epoque victorienne steampunk néo-victoriannisme ethnographie narratology games video games Assassin’s Creed Order (The) Ubisoft Ready at Dawn historical games ludology anthropology gaming Victorian London steampunk neo-Victorian ethnography Historical games deserve to be examined not only by video games academics but by cultural studies academics. The environments in which historical games are set, and how their gameplay and game design allow the players to explore them, give new opportunities to the public to learn about history. Furthermore, the excitement and interest players have for locales has reached the point where a “tourism/educational mode” has been added in the Assassin’s Creed games series, allowing them to freely explore ancient Egypt (Assassin’s Creed Origins) and Greece (Assassin’s Creed Odyssey). This mode features information about historical monuments recorded by academics, which allows players to learn about the environment. Interestingly enough, industrial Britain and especially Victorian Britain have often been chosen as a setting for numerous games. This paper compares the representations of Victorian Britain in two games. The first is Assassin’s Creed Syndicate, a game in which one plays an assassin in a realistic representation of Victorian Britain; the second is The Order 1886, a game set in a fictitious alternative world in 1886 in which one plays Knights of the Round Table fighting against gothic-themed creatures such as werewolves and vampires in a steampunk setting. Examining historical representations in fiction is interesting, but video games bring a new component to the experience compared to other media, as they let players create their own experience and narrative interactively. Gaming can thus be considered a worthwhile cultural practice because it succeeds in giving history subjective, sensory and experimental dimensions that other media lack. It enables the player to play in history as much as playing with it, sometimes giving the player an anthropological stance. In this respect, Assassin’s Creed stands as a successful adaptation of the Victorian context because it manages to integrate its historical setting into its gameplay mechanics, while The Order 1886 only uses it as a cardboard setting with limited interest to the game itself. This article attempts to create a system by comparing the two games, presenting new means of analysis of the use of history in video games. Les jeux vidéo historiques permettent aux joueurs de visiter des environnements auxquels il leur est impossible d’avoir accès dans la vie réelle, de cette manière ils fournissent de nouvelles possibilités pour le grand public d’explorer l’Histoire de l’humanité. L’intérêt suscité par cet aspect particulier du jeu vidéo a abouti récemment en la création d’un mode « tour » dans les jeux de la franchise Assassin’s Creed. Ce mode éducatif permet alors aux joueurs d’explorer librement l’Egypte antique (dans Assassin’s Creed Origins) et la Grèce antique (dans Assassin’s Creed Odyssey). Ce mode de jeu inclut des commentaires écrits et enregistrés par des universitaires, ce qui permet à son public d’en apprendre plus sur l’environnement dans lequel leur avatar virtuel évolue. De son côté, la Grande-Bretagne victorienne a connu également son lot d’adaptations vidéoludiques. Cet article compare la représentation de la Grande-Bretagne victorienne dans deux jeux en explorant à la fois l’intérêt de sa représentation d’un point de vue vidéoludique et ethnographique. Le premier jeu étudié, Assassin’s Creed Syndicate, propose au joueur d’incarner des membres d’une confrérie secrète d’assassins dans une représentation réaliste du Londres des années 1840. Dans le second jeu, The Order 1886, le joueur joue un chevalier de la table ronde affrontant des créatures issues de l’imaginaire gothique (des loups-garous ou des vampires) dans un univers steampunk. Si l’étude des représentations de lieux historiques dans des univers fictionnels est intéressant, la nature expérientielle du jeu vidéo permet à son public d’approcher l’histoire d’une manière unique, laissant ses joueurs créer leur propre approche d’univers de manière interactive. La pratique du jeu vidéo peut alors être considérée comme une pratique culturelle à part entière car elle permet de fournir à l’histoire une dimension subjective, sensorielle et expérientielle qui ne peut être fournie par aucun autre media. Les jeux vidéo permettent ainsi aux joueurs de jouer au sein de l’histoire mais également de jouer avec l’histoire même, en initiant, par leur nature, le joueur à une pratique anthropologique. A ce titre nous examinerons comment Assassin’s Creed réussit à adapter le contexte particulier du Londres victorien par sa capacité à intégrer son univers contextuel dans ses mécaniques de gameplay, là où The Order 1886 n’utilise l’univers victorien que comme décor unidimensionnel. Cet article développe, enfin, un système de comparaison proposant de nouvelles pistes d’études pour l’analyse des usages de l’histoire dans les jeux vidéo. |