For millions of people today, the Middle Ages are first encountered not in books or classrooms but through video games. Titles like Assassin’s Creed, Crusader Kings, and Age of Empires allow players to explore castles, lead armies, and rule kingdoms in digital versions of the medieval world.
These games have become one of the most influential ways modern audiences imagine medieval history. As a result, historians have begun paying closer attention to how games portray the period and how those portrayals shape public perceptions of the past.
One of the scholars leading this discussion is Robert Houghton, whose book The Middle Ages in Computer Games: Ludic Approaches to the Medieval and Medievalism examines how digital games represent medieval history. Houghton argues that video games create a distinctive form of medievalism that differs from the portrayals found in films, novels, or television.
To describe this phenomenon, he uses the term “ludic medievalism.” In simple terms, this refers to the representation of the Middle Ages within games and the ways those representations are shaped by gameplay mechanics. Because games must translate history into systems that players can interact with—combat, diplomacy, technology, or rulership—they inevitably reshape the past in distinctive ways. The result is a playable Middle Ages that often looks very different from the historical reality. Here are ten ways video games have rewritten the Middle Ages.
1. Warfare Dominates the Medieval World
Perhaps the most obvious way video games have reshaped our understanding of the Middle Ages is by presenting the period as one defined by constant violence. From large-scale strategy titles to action games focused on individual fighters, combat often becomes the central activity through which players interact with the medieval world.
Houghton observes that this emphasis on violence is unusually strong in games set during the medieval period. He notes that, “while there are plenty of examples of violent games set within other periods, and handful of medievalist games that eschew, limit, or discourage violent behaviour, few periods are presented as so excessively or consistently focused on combat and warfare.”
While warfare certainly played an important role in medieval history, games frequently amplify it far beyond its historical proportions.
Part of the reason lies in how games function as interactive systems. Players must be given clear objectives and engaging mechanics in order to progress. Combat provides both. As a result, many medieval games steer players toward violence as their only real option.
This design choice can be seen across a wide range of games. Strategy titles such as Medieval: Total War revolve around building armies and conquering rival factions. In Assassin’s Creed, players eliminate enemies through stealth and close-quarters combat while navigating medieval cities. Fighting games like For Honor push this even further, placing players directly into intense one-on-one duels between heavily armed warriors.
Another feature that shapes perceptions of the period is the visceral nature of the violence. Unlike many modern warfare games that focus on ranged weapons or large-scale battles, medieval games frequently emphasize hand-to-hand combat. Players fight at close range with swords, axes, and spears, often from a first-person or close third-person perspective that keeps the action immediate and personal. The result is a form of violence that feels more physical and intimate than the distant gunfire typical of modern war games.
Over time, Houghton finds these repeated encounters just reinforce a powerful image of the Middle Ages as a world dominated by battle and violence at every corner.
2. History Is Driven by Kings and Great Individuals
Another way video games reshape our understanding of the Middle Ages is by placing extraordinary individuals at the centre of historical change. Many games encourage players to believe that the course of medieval history was determined primarily by powerful rulers or heroic figures rather than by broader social forces.
This tendency reflects both the structure of games and popular ideas about the medieval past. Strategy games often place the player in the role of a king, emperor, or lord responsible for directing the fate of an entire realm. Meanwhile, action and role-playing games frequently follow the story of a single hero whose actions can reshape the political or military landscape.
Houghton writes:
Ludic medievalism often places a greater emphasis on the role of pivotal individuals as drivers of history, typically privileging the role of these ‘Great People’ over structural explanations, than historical games set in later periods.
This approach can be seen clearly in strategy games such as Crusader Kings. In this series, players guide a ruling dynasty through generations of political intrigue, warfare, and diplomacy. The fate of entire kingdoms often hinges on the personality, abilities, and decisions of individual rulers. Marriages, assassinations, alliances, and succession crises can dramatically reshape the map of medieval Europe.
Action games offer a similar perspective, though on a more personal scale. In Assassin’s Creed, players control individual characters who move through key historical moments, influencing events through stealth, combat, and political intrigue. The player’s character becomes a central actor in events that appear to determine the fate of cities or even entire regions.
Of course, real medieval history was shaped by far more than the actions of individual rulers or heroes. Economic change, religious institutions, social structures, and environmental factors all played major roles in shaping the medieval world. Yet the structure of video games tends to privilege the actions of a single player-controlled figure.
As a result, games often reinforce a simplified version of history in which powerful individuals dominate events. Kings, warriors, and heroic adventurers take centre stage, while the complex social forces that shaped medieval societies remain largely in the background.
3. Medieval Kings Appear More Powerful Than They Really Were
Closely related to the focus on great individuals is the way video games portray medieval rulers. In many games, kings, emperors, and nobles appear to wield almost unlimited authority over their realms. Players who take on these roles can command armies, manage economies, conduct diplomacy, and shape the fate of entire kingdoms with relative ease.
This can be seen clearly in games such as Age of Empires II, where the player directs the development of entire civilizations, constructing buildings, raising armies, and managing resources. The player acts as an all-powerful strategist overseeing every aspect of the realm’s development.
In reality, medieval rulers rarely possessed such absolute control. Their power was constrained by powerful nobles, local laws, religious authorities, and the practical limitations of governing territories with limited communication and administration. Even strong kings often struggled to enforce their will beyond their own capital city.
4. The Middle Ages Become a Strategic Game
Many video games encourage players to think about history as something that can be managed, optimized, and directed toward success. Strategy games in particular present the medieval world as a stage in a larger process of expansion, planning, and development. Players gather resources, build cities, raise armies, and guide their societies through a sequence of calculated decisions designed to maximize power.
Robert Houghton notes that this approach reflects a common design feature in strategy games:
Many computer games represent history as a prolonged march of technological progress, but this is most visible within the strategy genre through the practically ubiquitous ‘technology trees’: visualisations of the interconnectivity and hierarchy of the various scientific discoveries represented within the game.
In games such as Civilization and Age of Empires your player will unlock new technologies that allow them to construct stronger buildings, train more advanced military units, and move into new historical eras. The medieval period therefore becomes part of a carefully organized progression system where each development leads to the next.
This structure turns history into a strategic puzzle. Players decide which technologies to pursue, when to expand their territories, and how to balance military strength with economic growth. Success depends on choosing the most effective path through the game’s systems.
Yet real medieval societies did not develop according to such orderly plans. Technological change often spread unevenly across regions, older methods continued alongside new innovations, and historical change was shaped by unpredictable events as much as deliberate planning. By turning the medieval past into a system that can be optimized, video games present a far more controlled and predictable vision of history than the messy reality of the Middle Ages.
5. Medieval Technology Appears to Advance in a Straight Line
Closely connected to the strategic structure of many games is the way they portray technological development. In historical reality, technological change during the Middle Ages was uneven and unpredictable. Innovations spread slowly, older technologies remained in use for centuries, and different regions adopted new techniques at different times.
Video games, however, often present technological development as a clear and orderly progression. Players move step by step through a sequence of discoveries, unlocking new buildings, weapons, and abilities along the way. Each innovation leads neatly to the next, creating a sense that historical progress follows a fixed and predictable path.
For Houghton, “scientific progress in these games is inevitable, as players must advance to triumph. It is irreversible as players cannot lose the technology they have acquired.” He adds that these new technologies are always presented in a positive light.
The result is a version of history that emphasizes constant progress. Civilizations move steadily from simpler forms of technology toward increasingly advanced systems, rarely experiencing setbacks or reversals. Older methods quickly disappear as new ones become available.
In reality, the technological history of the Middle Ages was far more complicated. Medieval societies experimented with innovations in agriculture, architecture, warfare, and commerce, but these developments did not always follow a straight path. By presenting technological change as inevitable and irreversible, video games simplify a much more complex historical process.
6. Religion: Both “Prominent and Shallow”
Religion was one of the most powerful forces shaping medieval societies. It influenced politics, law, education, warfare, and daily life. Yet in many video games, religion is presented in much simpler terms, often reduced to a set of mechanics that players can manage in order to gain advantages.
Robert Houghton explains why religion appears so prominently in games set in the medieval world:
Religion is consistently more visible within medievalist games than within those set in other periods. This tendency is partially a consequence of popular perceptions of the medieval period and an embracing of the common medievalist tropes surrounding religion by many game developers. Alongside widespread violence and the symptoms of the Dark Ages, the visible and endemic presence of the Church provides an easy method by which creators may signal the chronological location of their game to their audience.
Because religion is such a recognizable symbol of the Middle Ages, game developers frequently use churches, monks, priests, and crusading orders to establish a medieval atmosphere. This is almost always based on the Catholic Church, even when the world is fictional.
The way the religion gets presented sometimes aligns with tropes you might find in movies or shows set in the medieval past, most notably that the church is nefarious and all powerful. In other ways they go against these tropes – for example, in many games the church, being keepers of knowledge, is a source of science and technology.
In other ways, the interactions with religion are very superficial. A hero knight might go into a church only to get healing, while those playing a medieval ruler will control the church like any other resource. The result is a version of medieval religion that is far easier to manage than the complex and deeply rooted belief systems that shaped real medieval societies.
7. The Medieval World Becomes Almost Entirely European
Houghton finds that video games have also helped narrow the geography of the Middle Ages. Although medieval societies stretched across Europe, North Africa, the Middle East, and much of Asia, many games present the period through a much smaller map—one centred overwhelmingly on Europe, and especially northwestern Europe.
That bias shapes not only which places appear in games, but also which peoples and stories are treated as central to the medieval past.
This can be seen in games such as Age of Empires II, whose original factions leaned heavily toward western and central Eurasian powers, with southern and eastern Europe only gaining broader representation over time through expansions. Houghton notes a similar pattern in the Civilization series, where some parts of Europe were underrepresented in its medieval material, even while northwestern Europe remained the dominant frame.
The same pattern also appears in games that blend the fantasy with the medieval. Even when the setting is fictional, the visual language is often recognizably western European: castles, knights, monasteries, and feudal kingdoms dominate the landscape. This encourages players to associate “the medieval world” primarily with Northwest Europe rather than with places such as Byzantium, China or eastern Africa.
This narrowing of the medieval world does more than simplify geography. As Houghton argues, medieval-themed games often present the period as “overwhelmingly white” with characters of colour “omitted, marginalised, or included as an afterthought.”
That can be insidious, because it does not just push other peoples to the margins — it can also reinforce the idea that the medieval past properly belongs to white Europe alone.
8. Fantasy and History Become Harder to Separate
Video games do not just recreate the Middle Ages — they often merge medieval history with fantasy so thoroughly that the two can become difficult to separate. Castles, knights, monasteries, and feudal politics are regularly placed alongside dragons, magic, and monsters, creating worlds that feel medieval even when they are entirely fictional.
Robert Houghton points out that fantasy does not simply borrow from medieval imagery at random. He writes:
As several scholars have observed, fantasy medievalism typically relies on a close adherence to audience expectations of the Middle Ages: authors must create worlds that appeal to their audience’s perception of an authentic medieval world. This often manifests as a concern for historical accuracy within medievalist fantasy worlds, even when these worlds are clearly unreal. While an audience will (almost always) recognise the presence of dragons, magic, or elves as fiction, they are considerably more likely to accept the more mundane elements of the fantasy world as historically authentic.
This blending of fantasy and history can easily confuse players about what the medieval period actually was. A player knows that the dragons in Skyrim or the monsters in The Witcher are fictional, but the towns, armour, churches, guilds, and social structures surrounding them can still feel historically plausible. As a result, fantasy games often reinforce popular assumptions about medieval life even while departing from history, encouraging players to imagine the Middle Ages as a world sharply separate from the modern one — more magical, more primitive, and more self-contained than it really was.
9. The Middle Ages Become Worlds to Explore
One of the most distinctive things video games do is turn the Middle Ages into places players can move through for themselves. Instead of simply watching medieval settings in a film or reading about them in a book, players can walk through streets, climb towers, and travel across landscapes, making the past feel more immediate and inhabitable.
This is especially clear in games such as Assassin’s Creed, where historical cities become spaces to navigate, and in Kingdom Come: Deliverance, where players travel across villages, forests, and towns inspired by historical Bohemia. That kind of exploration can make the medieval world feel vivid and authentic, even though these environments are still carefully designed for gameplay. The result is an immersive but selective version of the Middle Ages, shaped as much by what makes a good game world as by historical reality.
10. The Middle Ages Become a Past Players Can Rewrite
Perhaps the most striking way video games have reshaped our perception of the Middle Ages is by turning the past into something players can actively influence. In books, films, or television, medieval history unfolds in a fixed narrative. In games, however, players make decisions that can redirect events and produce outcomes very different from the historical record.
This is especially visible in strategy and role-playing games. In Crusader Kings III, players guide dynasties through wars, marriages, and succession crises, often producing entirely alternative histories. In Mount & Blade, players can rise from obscurity to become powerful rulers within a medieval-inspired political world. Even games with more fixed narratives still allow players to shape how events unfold.
The result is a version of the Middle Ages that feels flexible and open-ended. Rather than encountering a past that is already written, players experience a medieval world where their choices matter. In that sense, video games do something no other medium can: they allow people not just to see the Middle Ages, but to experiment with them.
Video games have become one of the most influential ways modern audiences imagine the Middle Ages. Robert Houghton’s book is an especially valuable study of how this medium reshapes perceptions of the period, whether by making medieval society seem more violent, rulers more powerful, or religion more straightforward than it really was. Historians should be more aware of these biases, especially when teaching others about the medieval past.
The Middle Ages in Computer Games: Ludic Approaches to the Medieval and Medievalism, is published by Boydell & Brewer. You can also buy a copy through Amazon.com | Amazon.ca | Amazon.co.uk
Robert Houghton is Senior Lecturer in Medieval History at the University of Winchester.
For millions of people today, the Middle Ages are first encountered not in books or classrooms but through video games. Titles like Assassin’s Creed, Crusader Kings, and Age of Empires allow players to explore castles, lead armies, and rule kingdoms in digital versions of the medieval world.
These games have become one of the most influential ways modern audiences imagine medieval history. As a result, historians have begun paying closer attention to how games portray the period and how those portrayals shape public perceptions of the past.
One of the scholars leading this discussion is Robert Houghton, whose book The Middle Ages in Computer Games: Ludic Approaches to the Medieval and Medievalism examines how digital games represent medieval history. Houghton argues that video games create a distinctive form of medievalism that differs from the portrayals found in films, novels, or television.
To describe this phenomenon, he uses the term “ludic medievalism.” In simple terms, this refers to the representation of the Middle Ages within games and the ways those representations are shaped by gameplay mechanics. Because games must translate history into systems that players can interact with—combat, diplomacy, technology, or rulership—they inevitably reshape the past in distinctive ways. The result is a playable Middle Ages that often looks very different from the historical reality. Here are ten ways video games have rewritten the Middle Ages.
1. Warfare Dominates the Medieval World
Perhaps the most obvious way video games have reshaped our understanding of the Middle Ages is by presenting the period as one defined by constant violence. From large-scale strategy titles to action games focused on individual fighters, combat often becomes the central activity through which players interact with the medieval world.
Houghton observes that this emphasis on violence is unusually strong in games set during the medieval period. He notes that, “while there are plenty of examples of violent games set within other periods, and handful of medievalist games that eschew, limit, or discourage violent behaviour, few periods are presented as so excessively or consistently focused on combat and warfare.”
While warfare certainly played an important role in medieval history, games frequently amplify it far beyond its historical proportions.
Part of the reason lies in how games function as interactive systems. Players must be given clear objectives and engaging mechanics in order to progress. Combat provides both. As a result, many medieval games steer players toward violence as their only real option.
This design choice can be seen across a wide range of games. Strategy titles such as Medieval: Total War revolve around building armies and conquering rival factions. In Assassin’s Creed, players eliminate enemies through stealth and close-quarters combat while navigating medieval cities. Fighting games like For Honor push this even further, placing players directly into intense one-on-one duels between heavily armed warriors.
Another feature that shapes perceptions of the period is the visceral nature of the violence. Unlike many modern warfare games that focus on ranged weapons or large-scale battles, medieval games frequently emphasize hand-to-hand combat. Players fight at close range with swords, axes, and spears, often from a first-person or close third-person perspective that keeps the action immediate and personal. The result is a form of violence that feels more physical and intimate than the distant gunfire typical of modern war games.
Over time, Houghton finds these repeated encounters just reinforce a powerful image of the Middle Ages as a world dominated by battle and violence at every corner.
2. History Is Driven by Kings and Great Individuals
Another way video games reshape our understanding of the Middle Ages is by placing extraordinary individuals at the centre of historical change. Many games encourage players to believe that the course of medieval history was determined primarily by powerful rulers or heroic figures rather than by broader social forces.
This tendency reflects both the structure of games and popular ideas about the medieval past. Strategy games often place the player in the role of a king, emperor, or lord responsible for directing the fate of an entire realm. Meanwhile, action and role-playing games frequently follow the story of a single hero whose actions can reshape the political or military landscape.
Houghton writes:
Ludic medievalism often places a greater emphasis on the role of pivotal individuals as drivers of history, typically privileging the role of these ‘Great People’ over structural explanations, than historical games set in later periods.
This approach can be seen clearly in strategy games such as Crusader Kings. In this series, players guide a ruling dynasty through generations of political intrigue, warfare, and diplomacy. The fate of entire kingdoms often hinges on the personality, abilities, and decisions of individual rulers. Marriages, assassinations, alliances, and succession crises can dramatically reshape the map of medieval Europe.
Action games offer a similar perspective, though on a more personal scale. In Assassin’s Creed, players control individual characters who move through key historical moments, influencing events through stealth, combat, and political intrigue. The player’s character becomes a central actor in events that appear to determine the fate of cities or even entire regions.
Of course, real medieval history was shaped by far more than the actions of individual rulers or heroes. Economic change, religious institutions, social structures, and environmental factors all played major roles in shaping the medieval world. Yet the structure of video games tends to privilege the actions of a single player-controlled figure.
As a result, games often reinforce a simplified version of history in which powerful individuals dominate events. Kings, warriors, and heroic adventurers take centre stage, while the complex social forces that shaped medieval societies remain largely in the background.
3. Medieval Kings Appear More Powerful Than They Really Were
Closely related to the focus on great individuals is the way video games portray medieval rulers. In many games, kings, emperors, and nobles appear to wield almost unlimited authority over their realms. Players who take on these roles can command armies, manage economies, conduct diplomacy, and shape the fate of entire kingdoms with relative ease.
This can be seen clearly in games such as Age of Empires II, where the player directs the development of entire civilizations, constructing buildings, raising armies, and managing resources. The player acts as an all-powerful strategist overseeing every aspect of the realm’s development.
In reality, medieval rulers rarely possessed such absolute control. Their power was constrained by powerful nobles, local laws, religious authorities, and the practical limitations of governing territories with limited communication and administration. Even strong kings often struggled to enforce their will beyond their own capital city.
4. The Middle Ages Become a Strategic Game
Many video games encourage players to think about history as something that can be managed, optimized, and directed toward success. Strategy games in particular present the medieval world as a stage in a larger process of expansion, planning, and development. Players gather resources, build cities, raise armies, and guide their societies through a sequence of calculated decisions designed to maximize power.
Robert Houghton notes that this approach reflects a common design feature in strategy games:
Many computer games represent history as a prolonged march of technological progress, but this is most visible within the strategy genre through the practically ubiquitous ‘technology trees’: visualisations of the interconnectivity and hierarchy of the various scientific discoveries represented within the game.
In games such as Civilization and Age of Empires your player will unlock new technologies that allow them to construct stronger buildings, train more advanced military units, and move into new historical eras. The medieval period therefore becomes part of a carefully organized progression system where each development leads to the next.
This structure turns history into a strategic puzzle. Players decide which technologies to pursue, when to expand their territories, and how to balance military strength with economic growth. Success depends on choosing the most effective path through the game’s systems.
Yet real medieval societies did not develop according to such orderly plans. Technological change often spread unevenly across regions, older methods continued alongside new innovations, and historical change was shaped by unpredictable events as much as deliberate planning. By turning the medieval past into a system that can be optimized, video games present a far more controlled and predictable vision of history than the messy reality of the Middle Ages.
5. Medieval Technology Appears to Advance in a Straight Line
Closely connected to the strategic structure of many games is the way they portray technological development. In historical reality, technological change during the Middle Ages was uneven and unpredictable. Innovations spread slowly, older technologies remained in use for centuries, and different regions adopted new techniques at different times.
Video games, however, often present technological development as a clear and orderly progression. Players move step by step through a sequence of discoveries, unlocking new buildings, weapons, and abilities along the way. Each innovation leads neatly to the next, creating a sense that historical progress follows a fixed and predictable path.
For Houghton, “scientific progress in these games is inevitable, as players must advance to triumph. It is irreversible as players cannot lose the technology they have acquired.” He adds that these new technologies are always presented in a positive light.
The result is a version of history that emphasizes constant progress. Civilizations move steadily from simpler forms of technology toward increasingly advanced systems, rarely experiencing setbacks or reversals. Older methods quickly disappear as new ones become available.
In reality, the technological history of the Middle Ages was far more complicated. Medieval societies experimented with innovations in agriculture, architecture, warfare, and commerce, but these developments did not always follow a straight path. By presenting technological change as inevitable and irreversible, video games simplify a much more complex historical process.
6. Religion: Both “Prominent and Shallow”
Religion was one of the most powerful forces shaping medieval societies. It influenced politics, law, education, warfare, and daily life. Yet in many video games, religion is presented in much simpler terms, often reduced to a set of mechanics that players can manage in order to gain advantages.
Robert Houghton explains why religion appears so prominently in games set in the medieval world:
Religion is consistently more visible within medievalist games than within those set in other periods. This tendency is partially a consequence of popular perceptions of the medieval period and an embracing of the common medievalist tropes surrounding religion by many game developers. Alongside widespread violence and the symptoms of the Dark Ages, the visible and endemic presence of the Church provides an easy method by which creators may signal the chronological location of their game to their audience.
Because religion is such a recognizable symbol of the Middle Ages, game developers frequently use churches, monks, priests, and crusading orders to establish a medieval atmosphere. This is almost always based on the Catholic Church, even when the world is fictional.
The way the religion gets presented sometimes aligns with tropes you might find in movies or shows set in the medieval past, most notably that the church is nefarious and all powerful. In other ways they go against these tropes – for example, in many games the church, being keepers of knowledge, is a source of science and technology.
In other ways, the interactions with religion are very superficial. A hero knight might go into a church only to get healing, while those playing a medieval ruler will control the church like any other resource. The result is a version of medieval religion that is far easier to manage than the complex and deeply rooted belief systems that shaped real medieval societies.
7. The Medieval World Becomes Almost Entirely European
Houghton finds that video games have also helped narrow the geography of the Middle Ages. Although medieval societies stretched across Europe, North Africa, the Middle East, and much of Asia, many games present the period through a much smaller map—one centred overwhelmingly on Europe, and especially northwestern Europe.
That bias shapes not only which places appear in games, but also which peoples and stories are treated as central to the medieval past.
This can be seen in games such as Age of Empires II, whose original factions leaned heavily toward western and central Eurasian powers, with southern and eastern Europe only gaining broader representation over time through expansions. Houghton notes a similar pattern in the Civilization series, where some parts of Europe were underrepresented in its medieval material, even while northwestern Europe remained the dominant frame.
The same pattern also appears in games that blend the fantasy with the medieval. Even when the setting is fictional, the visual language is often recognizably western European: castles, knights, monasteries, and feudal kingdoms dominate the landscape. This encourages players to associate “the medieval world” primarily with Northwest Europe rather than with places such as Byzantium, China or eastern Africa.
This narrowing of the medieval world does more than simplify geography. As Houghton argues, medieval-themed games often present the period as “overwhelmingly white” with characters of colour “omitted, marginalised, or included as an afterthought.”
That can be insidious, because it does not just push other peoples to the margins — it can also reinforce the idea that the medieval past properly belongs to white Europe alone.
8. Fantasy and History Become Harder to Separate
Video games do not just recreate the Middle Ages — they often merge medieval history with fantasy so thoroughly that the two can become difficult to separate. Castles, knights, monasteries, and feudal politics are regularly placed alongside dragons, magic, and monsters, creating worlds that feel medieval even when they are entirely fictional.
Robert Houghton points out that fantasy does not simply borrow from medieval imagery at random. He writes:
As several scholars have observed, fantasy medievalism typically relies on a close adherence to audience expectations of the Middle Ages: authors must create worlds that appeal to their audience’s perception of an authentic medieval world. This often manifests as a concern for historical accuracy within medievalist fantasy worlds, even when these worlds are clearly unreal. While an audience will (almost always) recognise the presence of dragons, magic, or elves as fiction, they are considerably more likely to accept the more mundane elements of the fantasy world as historically authentic.
This blending of fantasy and history can easily confuse players about what the medieval period actually was. A player knows that the dragons in Skyrim or the monsters in The Witcher are fictional, but the towns, armour, churches, guilds, and social structures surrounding them can still feel historically plausible. As a result, fantasy games often reinforce popular assumptions about medieval life even while departing from history, encouraging players to imagine the Middle Ages as a world sharply separate from the modern one — more magical, more primitive, and more self-contained than it really was.
9. The Middle Ages Become Worlds to Explore
One of the most distinctive things video games do is turn the Middle Ages into places players can move through for themselves. Instead of simply watching medieval settings in a film or reading about them in a book, players can walk through streets, climb towers, and travel across landscapes, making the past feel more immediate and inhabitable.
This is especially clear in games such as Assassin’s Creed, where historical cities become spaces to navigate, and in Kingdom Come: Deliverance, where players travel across villages, forests, and towns inspired by historical Bohemia. That kind of exploration can make the medieval world feel vivid and authentic, even though these environments are still carefully designed for gameplay. The result is an immersive but selective version of the Middle Ages, shaped as much by what makes a good game world as by historical reality.
10. The Middle Ages Become a Past Players Can Rewrite
Perhaps the most striking way video games have reshaped our perception of the Middle Ages is by turning the past into something players can actively influence. In books, films, or television, medieval history unfolds in a fixed narrative. In games, however, players make decisions that can redirect events and produce outcomes very different from the historical record.
This is especially visible in strategy and role-playing games. In Crusader Kings III, players guide dynasties through wars, marriages, and succession crises, often producing entirely alternative histories. In Mount & Blade, players can rise from obscurity to become powerful rulers within a medieval-inspired political world. Even games with more fixed narratives still allow players to shape how events unfold.
The result is a version of the Middle Ages that feels flexible and open-ended. Rather than encountering a past that is already written, players experience a medieval world where their choices matter. In that sense, video games do something no other medium can: they allow people not just to see the Middle Ages, but to experiment with them.
Video games have become one of the most influential ways modern audiences imagine the Middle Ages. Robert Houghton’s book is an especially valuable study of how this medium reshapes perceptions of the period, whether by making medieval society seem more violent, rulers more powerful, or religion more straightforward than it really was. Historians should be more aware of these biases, especially when teaching others about the medieval past.
The Middle Ages in Computer Games: Ludic Approaches to the Medieval and Medievalism, is published by Boydell & Brewer. You can also buy a copy through Amazon.com | Amazon.ca | Amazon.co.uk
Robert Houghton is Senior Lecturer in Medieval History at the University of Winchester.
Subscribe to Medievalverse
Related Posts