Video games are among the most popular forms of mainstream
entertainment, with an estimated 3.38 billion players globally – about 17
percent of whom are in the
Middle East and North Africa (MENA). One of the most
anticipated video game titles of 2023, "
Assassin’s Creed Mirage",
puts the spotlight on medieval Islamic civilization.
اضافة اعلان
Given the popularity of video games, and research showing
how influential they are on the public’s understanding of the past, academics
and developers need to work together to create authentic game worlds that
address problematic colonialist and orientalist stereotypes.
The next installment of Ubisoft’s “
Assassin’s Creed”
franchise will be released on October 5 and follows the early years of
fictional protagonist Basim Ibn Ishaq in
ninth-century Baghdad, capital of the
Abbasid Caliphate. It will also include a new in-game educational feature that
offers players a way to learn about Mirage’s historical setting.
This is big news for anyone who cares about the art,
history, and cultural heritage of the MENA region. For many, seeing the
now-legendary city brought to life by such an iconic history-themed game will
be a dream come true. Expectations are high and the implications go beyond mere
entertainment.
Most history-themed
video games still locate the medieval
past in Europe, specifically in northern Europe. The low profile of Islamic
sites and objects in these games reflects the persistent hierarchies of
knowledge production – despite longstanding efforts to critique the legacies of
colonialism and empire.
Video games can shape public understanding of history and cultural heritage in ways that supersede even the most popular academic publications. For this reason alone, educators should be aware of and engage with these platforms.
This situation risks perpetuating a problematic trend for
global audiences, implying that the monuments, landscapes, objects, and
histories of MENA and Islamic societies are insignificant on an international
scale.
By contrast "
Assassin’s Creed" offered detailed
visualizations of 12th-century Damascus, Jerusalem, and other cities in the
medieval Middle East, in the process creating one of the industry’s most
recognizable history-themed franchises.
The visual appeal of these games is clear, but historical
Islamic environments in games like “
Assassin’s Creed” aren’t just eye-catching.
Research suggests that video games are nearly as influential as film and
television in
shaping public understanding of history, especially unfamiliar
premodern times and places.
Experts estimate that the market for video games will
continue to grow and to be driven by increasing player numbers in emerging
markets (MENA and Latin America are the regions predicted to see the most
growth this year). If accurate, this suggests that more game developers will
design games with settings and narratives from MENA, and from other cultural
traditions and histories beyond the
Anglo-European historical canon.
One hopes so, and that we will see more developers producing
games that portray Muslims and premodern Islamic history in ways that
prioritize historical authenticity over easy Orientalist tropes and
misinformation, and that make good on the medium’s potential to make
substantive academic knowledge accessible beyond the academy. This could help shape
public understanding of more inclusive global histories.
As I’ve learned from experience – including as an advisor to
"
Assassin’s Creed Mirage" – video games can aid in understanding the
built environment, visual culture, art, and history. The process of choosing
what to show, and how and why to show it, helps me and my students better
understand the potential – and the problems – that video games have for
education.
While the choice to work on video games might be unorthodox
for a scholar, this work is important. As educators, we need to look not only
at images but also at immersive 3D environments with an informed, educated,
trained eye. Historians of visual culture and the built environment especially
must be able to bring their expertise to game environments that purport to
represent the past. Understanding how these game spaces are created and made
will help us educate a new generation of historians.
Expectations are high and the implications go beyond mere entertainment.
Video games can shape public understanding of history and
cultural heritage in ways that supersede even the most popular academic
publications. For this reason alone, educators should be aware of and engage
with these platforms.
At stake is the relationship between decolonization and
historical knowledge, as these are deployed and consumed in the form of games
like “
Assassin’s Creed.” While teaching students in universities and sharing
research in scholarly circles through traditional academic publications remains
the central work of scholars, we can and should do more to help the public find
and interact with research on Islamic art and history.
The popularity of history-themed games shows that people are
interested in the past and that the video game console can be a direct route to
reaching the widest public audiences.
Dr. Glaire D Anderson
is Senior Lecturer in Islamic Art at the University of Edinburgh. X:
@AndersonGlaire
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