Good day, dear readers StopGame! This is my first blog post, so I should tell you a little about myself. My name is Nikita, for 9 years now I have been professionally engaged in history – yes, yes, with sitting in archives, writing scientific articles and participating in these snobbish conferences of ours. This busy (until recently) life requires some kind of outlet. It so happened that games became her.

Recently I came up with what seemed to me to be a brilliant idea – to combine hobby and profession. Namely: to look at games not from the consumer’s point of view, but from the point of view of a historian. Moreover, this approach is quite popular in Western humanities (I will write about this in more detail later).

As I said, this is my first blog post, so I hope for your indulgence, but at the same time I very much welcome criticism and rational suggestions!

Stifling introduction

I hardly exaggerate if I say that the medieval setting and its derivatives have become one of the most popular in popular culture in our time. Derivatives imply various epic fantasy. Just pay attention to the number of viewers "Game of Thrones" or fees "Lord of the Rings", "The Hobbit" and other masterpieces of the film industry, to ensure the correctness of the thesis stated above.

I want to take fantasy out of the equation, since over the century of its existence it has become more than an independent direction with its own genre differences and quality standards. Today we’ll talk about more mundane things – about the classical Middle Ages.

In general, in modern historical science there have long been many trends that have abandoned the usual methods a la “I’ll find a source about an event, interpret it, write another article about it”. For several decades now, the minds of scientists have been excited by the history of ideas and the study of images. The latter concerns our conversation primarily, since the material from which the historian obtains data for his research can also be computer games.

“The historical background is of no real interest; The Middle Ages are perceived as a kind of mythological stage on which modern images are placed."

Umberto Eco

In the case of the Middle Ages, this section is called "mediavalism", which is an interdisciplinary humanitarian direction. Its goal is to study the images of this era in the culture of other time periods, be it Victorian England or the USA of the Prosperity era. Of course, they also study modernity, and here a whole sea of ​​sources spills out for historians, take whichever ones you want and study as much as your heart desires.

So games are studied, and this https://lippybingocasino.co.uk/bonus/ source is extremely important: with their help, a certain image of the era is formed in the fragile minds of children (including older ones). And it doesn’t matter if it’s the third The Witcher or medieval Total War .

Actually, what was this lengthy introduction for?? The main thing: the basis of mediavalism is the assertion that it is impossible to reconstruct any historical era as reliably as possible, especially as distant as the Middle Ages. Yes, you can throw various cliches into the cauldron, spice it up with real historical facts and present to the public a product that claims to have some kind of authenticity – but it will only be in the head of the creator. That is, we are dealing with the image that it transmits to the consumer. In our conversation, this point is very important, although the postulate smacks of banality: there is not and will not be a game about the Middle Ages that could convey to us the everyday, political or military experience of that era in full.

Of course this all sounds sad. It turns out there is no point in making games with a medieval theme? Not at all. New game development products will add to the list of sources for researchers, and players who are fans of knightly tournaments, sieges of mighty castles and court intrigues will again immerse themselves in the images of the Middle Ages. And no one has canceled the educational function. It appeared in the game Robin Hood, Richard the Lionheart or Saladin – and most likely the gamer will spend some time reading at least a short biographical information, and then, what the hell, he’ll buy some kind of monograph. Or at least take the vicissitudes of dynastic politics in the Crusader Kings series – intrigue, murder, betrayal, it all happened in reality. Terribly interesting!

Who is a mercenary?

Any image is based on a set of key characteristics. Ask yourself what synonyms come to mind for the words “Middle Ages”? Most likely, everyone will have their own set, but the general ones can still be identified. Castles, knights, plague, mercenaries, religiosity – such images arise, at least for me.

One way or another, all the most popular characteristics of the era are present in all games dedicated to this time period. Analyzing each one is quite a long process and can take a long time; one blog entry will clearly not be enough. Therefore, today I propose to dwell on one thing that is very interesting and fits well into our gaming conversation.

"Kill the rats in the basement and get a reward" – a formula that has long set the teeth on edge of people experienced in games. The basis of the basics and the foundation of almost any role-playing game. The main character in this situation acts as a hired worker fulfilling an order, which in one way or another requires the presence of certain combat skills. Let’s raise the stakes and the scale – and now a squad of a dozen skilled fighters are asked to deal with the bandits. The hero becomes a mercenary.

Mercenaries in the Middle Ages were an extremely common thing. It reached its apogee in the late Middle Ages, when wars raged throughout almost all of Europe, and there was a great demand for professional warriors who were ready to defend the interests of their employer for a fee. This is how condottieri and landsknechts appeared – those who did not hesitate to receive a salary by doing dirty work. As soon as the money ran out, the mercenaries, at best, left. At worst, they robbed their former allies to cover the debt. Often they were simply bought up. By the way, this was one of the reasons for the transition of European armies to a professional basis and the appearance of recruits, but this applies already to the early modern period.

Mercenaries seem like the perfect basis for roleplaying. You have several henchmen under your command, and around you is an area tormented by wars and other injustices. The ideal basis for becoming a noble robber or a brutal bandit.

Darklands

In 1992, developers from an American company MicroProse they made a game about an adventurer that was almost perfect for its time, and even with a claim to historicity. The location of the cult Darklands became the Holy Roman Empire of the 15th century.

The Holy Roman Empire appeared on the political map of Europe in the 10th century and owes its appearance to Emperor Otto I. It became the successor to the Roman Empire and the power of Charlemagne, and its leaders claimed a dominant position throughout the Christian world.

The player was provided with a fairly in-depth character editor, in which he could choose his origin and scatter the characteristic points according to his understanding. After this, the gamer was immersed in a fairly deeply developed world: during the journey, he could visit real cities in Germany and Bohemia, meet robbers, receive treatment from alchemists and pray to the saints – as a reward for this, the party received a certain buff. Reality in this game coexisted with myth: on the path of the heroes they met witches, ghosts, and undead in dungeons, but such rendezvous happened far from peaceful cities. It’s as if the ideas of medieval people about various evil spirits materialized, without really interfering with everyday life.

This approach to worldbuilding can be called a good example an easy excursion through an era that does not pretend to be deeply historic, but at the same time, using images of time, well conveying at least partly the spiritual world of medieval people of the 15th century. It’s a pity that nowadays Darklands are practically not remembered, although it certainly had an impact on the gaming industry. Great and terrible Todd Howard, for example, he spoke about this game as one of the inspirations in the creation of The Elder Scrolls series .

Two approaches to one topic

Probably the most famous mercenary game that has captured the hearts and minds of players almost all over the world is the Mount and Blade series from Turkish developers from TaleWorlds. Calradia here is a complete allusion to medieval Europe, but sources of inspiration can be discerned in each faction. The Svads are such classic Western Europeans, the Vaegirs are representatives of the Slavic states and partly Hungary, well, it’s not difficult to guess where the legs of the Nords come from. And here we are dealing with images – armor, weapons, balance in armies, almost on a subconscious level, force the player to associate factions with real-life states. And this is without direct references – real skill.

Of course, in M&B you can give up the life of a mercenary and engage in a peaceful trade in rotten chickens – but is this what the combat system was created for, quite large-scale military campaigns between factions and the opportunity to become a vassal of one of the sovereigns? It is unlikely that in the real Middle Ages, a person from peasants or even townspeople, no matter how talented he was, could become a noble lord. In any case, not a single such example is known yet – unless the hero was someone’s illegitimate son. There is nothing to say about women: their role in the society of that time was seriously limited.

But such reconstruction simply makes no sense. Then the players would have to take away the goal and the feeling of satisfaction from achieving it. It’s unthinkable – just yesterday you were plowing in the field of some feudal lord, and today, having led a dozen fighters, you are literally writing history! Probably, it was precisely this experience that allowed the game to gain truly cult status and pave the way for a sequel, the release of which we are all looking forward to.

A similar concept is implemented in Wartales from Shiro Games, but the emphasis in it is placed a little differently. A turn-based strategy with RPG elements also sends us to a fictional spherical Middle Ages in a vacuum, but, unlike the same Mount and Blade, where the spirit of adventure and pursuit of glory was felt, here we are dealing with a “darker” world. The squad literally has to survive, and the choice of whether to help or attack often depends not so much on moral preferences as on banal need – otherwise the squad simply will have nothing to eat tomorrow. This approach seems to be more similar to the real Middle Ages, and there is no enchanting story about the path “from rags to riches” here – although, of course, we’ll wait for the release.

In any case, both Mount and Blade and Wartales (you can also include the hardcore Battle Brothers here), having a similar basis, describe the mercenary experience somewhat differently, together forming a fairly plausible picture of the real life of the “soldiers of fortune” of the European Middle Ages.

Afterword

With this I will finish my test of the pen and thank you for your attention and for reading to the end. I would be very glad to receive comments, as well as perhaps suggestions for other topics. There are many historical games, and each one can be discovered from an unexpected side. See you!