Games do not simply depict Antiquity. They make interpretations of the ancient world playable—through rules, narratives, systems, maps and decisions.
At CIAW, Game Studies connects historical research, classical reception and critical analysis of digital games. Our focus is not whether a game is merely “accurate”, but how it constructs the past, what players are allowed to do within it and which historical perspectives become visible or remain absent.
Three connected directions frame our evolving research agenda. They are analytical priorities, not claims that any individual project or manuscript has already been published.
How do games distribute legitimacy, leadership, coercion and political agency? Who defines a conflict, decides what counts as victory or gives actions their historical meaning?
Authority · institutions · civil conflict · historical agencyWhich aspects of ancient social life are encoded in populations, economic rules and advancement systems? How do simulations represent—and sometimes omit—labour, dependence and inequality?
Work · dependency · social hierarchies · simulationWhat kinds of Antiquity do game worlds remember or reinvent? How do quests, material objects, visual conventions and narrative choices shape historical understanding?
Reception · material culture · narrative · public historyA game is more than its setting or story. To understand its interpretation of the past, we examine the relationship between what the game says, what its systems require and what the player can actually do.
Ancient evidence and historiography remain central: game analysis does not replace historical research, but raises questions about how that research is translated, constrained or transformed in digital media.
Read the playable systemObjectives, rewards, rules, resources, constraints and player agency.
Interpret the representationVisual and material culture, language, narrative framing and political assumptions.
Return to historical evidenceCompare game interpretations with ancient sources, archaeological material and modern scholarship.
Make the analysis accountableIdentify the game version, context, observed sequences and limits of interpretation.
Games circulate ideas about causation, institutions, violence, power and social life. Studying their systems helps expose the interpretations through which those ideas become plausible.
Critical game literacy helps distinguish evidence from invention and encourages discussion of how digital media organise historical knowledge—without treating every game as a classroom tool.
We welcome scholarly dialogue on video games, Antiquity, reception and methods. Editorial submissions should go through AI & Antiquity.