historically accurate

How Historically Accurate is The Witcher? Part 3

Compared to other RPGs I’ve played, The Witcher is a very intimate game. Even counting the segments of the city of Vizima as separate locations, the list of places I’ve seen so far is very small. The cast of the game is also quite lean. Both of these conditions are hardly negatives; it gives a feeling of familiarity and makes the interactions more personal. It also helps to enrich the story, in my opinion at least.

This intimate setup has impacted on my observations. Whilst with Skyrim I could skip about, cherry picking historic details, this games narrower landscape has led me to make a more specific consideration of the world.

In the third instalment of my ‘grown-up’ look at the historical accuracy of this fantasy adventure game, I’ve picked out one feature of the main character and two features of the city to analyse. The field of discussion is quite specific, though the History addressed is quite varied. Let’s start with a piece of History that has had one foot in fantasy for a long time.

How Historically Accurate is The Witcher? Part 2

A month has past. I haven’t played a lot of any game lately; we are approaching exam season after all. Yet my designated gaming time has been mostly devoted to The Witcher. I’ve completed Chapter 1 and I’ve made (what I assume is) serious headway into Chapter 2. From a gamer’s perspective, I’m enjoying the quirky, if slightly clunky gameplay and intriguing story-telling. From an Historian’s perspective, I am quite enamoured – despite the fantastical overtones the game is letting its historic side shine.

Part 1 was more of an introduction than anything else. This time around, I’m still far from an overall view of the first Witcher game, but there are a few areas that I feel I know well enough to discuss. As with my ‘analysis’ of Skyrim, I will never assume that I am an absolute authority on The Witcher or History; that’s why I title these blogs with the question, “How historically accurate is…”.

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How Historically Accurate is The Witcher?

After five installments discussing historical exactitude of Skyrim, a few recommendations were placed before me. The calls for an investigation of the Witcherseries have me particularly intrigued. I’ve never played The Witcher, or its sequel, and with all the buzz around the third game it seemed like a good time to get involved.

For those finding my How Historical blogs for the first time, a little pretext before we get going. This blog will not set out to prove that The Witcher is actually entirely historically accurate. I’m not so unhinged that I think that a game centred on a monster hunter is grounded in reality. No, the aim here is to highlight the pieces of the game that are inspired by History and Mythology, and observe just how far the game has leant away from those origins.

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How Historically Accurate is Skyrim? Part 5

Skyrim is doomed. The “hero” I have created isn’t really focused on saving the day. They have spent more time picking flowers and catching butterflies than they have spent killing dragons. We’ve meandered into so many caves and caverns, distracted by so many side quests, that I’m not sure how far down the main story we’ve travelled. I and my created character are so easily distracted, that the final dramatic confrontation may never actually come to pass.

How Historically Accurate is Skyrim? Part 4

There’s lots of things I enjoy about over-analysing Skyrim, and the responses I get are a big part of that. There are a pleasingly small number of people that misread the title and my intentions (“Oh sure, the game with dragons is veeery accurate…”), and a fantastic number of readers willing to add their own knowledge and join the discussion. Sometimes, one of you lovely people will step in and flesh out something I have mentioned or correct a minor mistake, which is awesome to see. Learning should be a two-way exercise after all. And there’s still a lot of untapped History within The Elder Scrolls.

If you’re joining this gaming/history blog at Part 4, hello and welcome. I started playing Skyrim for the first time last November, and I’ve been climbing every tower and turning every rock for signs of History. Sometimes real life Historic details are the clear inspiration for a detail in the game, and sometimes the game appears to stumble into a historic comparison. And in one particular situation, History actually helps to explain one of the most famous lines in the game…

How Historically Accurate is Skyrim? Part 2

You know, the more I play Skyrim, the more I begin to realise that historical accuracy isn’t the main point of the game… and I’d be very disappointed if I wasn’t too busy Fus-Ro-Dahing the local wildlife across the landscape.

A few weeks ago I began to play Elder Scrolls V, and almost immediately began to spot the many ways that History has influenced the game. The Vikings are the main inspiration, whilst other ideas are taken from various points in the middle ages. Three weeks ago I shared these observations. Some parts of the game show accurate references to historic details, whilst other features were based on misunderstandings of the past. The majority of readers seemed to enjoy the makeshift history lesson, so here we are at Part 2.