History and Games This Week

Welcome to the week in history and games, a short collection of links to stories and news that we hope you find interesting.

Mass Effect: Legendary Edition came out! The original game is now a classic and piece of gaming history! I am not sure how to handle that! But now I want to play the whole thing all over again. You should too.

I want to start the history round up by recognizing an undergraduate, University of Texas at Austin graduating senior Haley Price, whose game The Pazzi Conspiracy places the player in the role of servant to the Medici family in 1478. The game actually serves as Haley's senior thesis for her History major! It is very cool, it runs on Windows and Mac, and if you have the time Haley is looking for feedback. She will even put your name in the credits. We are excited to see more of this work coming out of college students, especially from our alma mater. Hook 'em.

More great stuff from some more experienced historians this week as well. NPR's All Things Considered has a piece on the newly released and remagined Oregon Trail game for Apple Arcade. Gameloft Brisbane decided they wanted to make a good faith effort to improve representation in the classic and brought in three historians: Dr. Katie Phillips, Dr. Margaret Huettl and Dr. William Bauer. I think the results are interesting: the headline of the piece is the decision to adopt muskets in place of bows and arrows, an excellent example of a more historically nuanced take resulting in gameplay and settings that are more fun, not less.

There's more. Bret Devereaux continues his series on Europa Universalis IV, discussing global trade and slavery. Ylva Grufsted talked about how "conjecture" as a concept interacts with historical games in the latest blog post from the Historical Games Network. And I particularly enjoyed this blog post on classic Goonies games. Though honestly, I am down for pretty much any Commodore 64 related discussions.

That last one came to us thanks to the National Video Game Museum, which continues to be fantastic AND - for those of you who live near enough to visit - is opening its doors again this Friday.

Also for readers in the United Kingdom - though it seems there may be some flexibility on location - we have an exciting job opportunity to share. History Hit is looking for a Freelance Gaming Editor. Required attributes include "deep knowledge of the gaming sector." That sounds like you, right?

Finally, we were busy here at History Respawned this week. Bob sat down to talk with Adam Chapman and Esther Wright of the Historical Games Network: its origins, its goals, and upcoming programming. Once you are done with that be sure to check out Bob playing the new DLC for Assassin's Creed: Valhalla with John, who oohs and aahs his way through the most detailed digital recreation of the Irish midlands in video game history.

Thanks, see you next week!

Note: the original version of this post credited Dr. David Lewis as a contributor to Oregon Trail, when it was actually William Bauer. Dr. Lewis commented on the game for the NPR piece. We regret the error.