“Imaginary Middle Ages” in Video Games: Synchronization <i>vs </i>Reconstruction
Commonly, video games in the medieval setting without fantasy elements are based on the idea of “reliable” reconstruction of the past. Game designers are trying to model large scale social, economical and political processes as well as, for instance, peculiarities of the medieval everyday life. By such reconstruction the gameplay often includes some elements, similar to the ideas of the different historiographical schools. A certain impact on the development of video games has had a skeptical view of postmodern historians who doubted that it is possible to gain reliable knowledge about the past. An interesting example is the principle of “synchronization” proposed by the creators of the game series “Assassin’s Creed”. Immersion in the past is represented here as a journey through the memories of a distant ancestor, attempting to guess more or less accurately the ancestor’s deeds. The game designers do not try to give the gamers an impression of “authenticity”, emphasising that any attempt at historical reconstruction is in fact just a construction of artificial reality.