Videogames offer us the possibility to create spaces to enjoy and engage with in ways that approach the past visually and interactively. We can play with history, and we can play to do history. But playing and history are also gendered. Playing with history and gender can open possibilities for events that happened in a moment in human history […]
A long time ago, in a world almost, but not quite, like our own… The city-state of Castamont, a centre of scholarship and commerce on the shores of the scenic Ousarine Bay, is buzzing with excitement! An anonymous knight, an armour-clad Mystery Knight who never removes his full-faced helmet, has arrived to joust in this […]
There are staggering problems with historical games’ representation of women. Based on an analysis of games with identifiable protagonists from the HistoriaGames database, less than 7% of historical games have female protagonists, and more games feature plots in which women are abducted or killed to motivate the storyline than have female protagonists. Sexualisation and gratuitous nudity are rife, […]
This September, in collaboration with the Imperial War Museums Institute and the Royal Society of Edinburgh‘s Curious Festival 2025, the Historical Games Network will be hosting a discussion panel event exploring history, fantasy, digital games and media. Curious is a festival of ideas – open to all and driven by connection, conversation, and discovery. It’s a chance to […]
The world of FromSoftware’s 2022 RPG Elden Ring is not governed by strictly realistic systems. Death has been abducted, the flow of time eddies around levitating islands, and Patches has been inexplicably reincarnated for a fourth time. Yet despite this, the game works within its own system of dream logic, focusing primarily on the relationships […]
In this video essay, Regina Seiwald traces the lineage of women central to the development of the UK games industry, from the 1970s to the present day. Watch the video below, or find it on YouTube. Dr Regina Seiwald is a Teaching Fellow in German at the University of Birmingham, UK. After completing her PhD […]
The medieval period offers an opportunity to think about gender through its popular stories and use of arms and armour to construct the bodily identity of those involved in combat roles. This blog post examines how these themes are brought to life through medievalism and fantasy in video games. The blog aims to introduce three […]
A Master Betrayed! is a set of physical and digital interactive narrative works, connected with the East Looe Old Gaol Museum in Cornwall, UK. This volunteer-led museum, occupying the medieval magistrate’s court building at the centre of this small fishing port, tells of the town’s civic, social and economic history through the stories of the […]
Thank you to everyone who tuned in to the livestream playtest of my in-development tabletop game Witch Which? on May 28th 2025, and to anyone who’s watched it on Twitch since. The recording is now available on the Historical Games NetworkYouTube channel with improved audio, and embedded below (content note: the playtest includes themes of historical witchcraft trials […]
Announcing a bonus special event as part of the Gender theme for the Historical Game Network: a livestream playtest of a new tabletop roleplaying game! This livestream will feature four researchers who work in gender and history gathering round the (virtual) table to test out a new game World Weaver: Which Witch? written by myself, Tess Watterson, […]