Introduction
I’ve been wanting to write this article for a long time. At Firaxis, we believe history and video games are a perfect match – they just naturally go together. There’s a huge and enduring interest in historical games, and recent releases like Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2 and Europa Universalis 5 have been incredibly popular in 2025. As a big fan of the genre myself, I created this website to celebrate it.
After my list of 10 common historical myths proved popular, and drawing on over 25 years of playing history-based video games, I’ve put together 10 tips to help you get the most out of them.
10 – Learn A Little Bit Of Real History First
If you want to truly lose yourself in great historical games, a little historical knowledge goes a long way. While games can certainly teach you history, understanding the background beforehand will make the experience much more enjoyable. You don’t need to become a history expert – just a general understanding of the key events, people, and places will let you appreciate the details and feel more connected to the game world. This also applies to things like the weapons, strategies, and groups involved.
9 – Learn About Geography
History isn’t just about the past; it happened in real places. It’s easy to forget that historians sometimes overlook this simple fact! Every video game, too, takes place somewhere physical – whether it’s a whole country, a city, a forest, or even a battlefield. To really get the most out of historical games, it’s important to understand how geography impacted things like resources, populations, economies, and even the results of wars. Understanding these connections can help you develop better strategies and win more often, as geography has shaped the lives of billions throughout history.
8 – Accept Historical Inaccuracies
Video games can’t truly recreate the past, and there are several reasons why. Primarily, we lack detailed historical records for most of history. What we do have are just fragments – glimpses of what life, events, and feelings might have been like. This uncertainty increases the further back in time we go. While we have extensive documentation for events like World War II – a popular setting for games, with even living veterans providing accounts – information becomes much scarcer for earlier periods. Think about the age of sail – very few ships remain. And going back to the medieval times, our historical knowledge is quite patchy and incomplete.
Games are welcome to strive for historical accuracy, and many do. However, it’s important to remember they are, first and foremost, games. Europa Universalis V isn’t flawless, but it effectively simulates complex things like population changes and their effects on government and the economy. Graviteam Tactics: Mius Front, even with its imperfections, remains one of the best WWII games and powerfully illustrates the brutal scale of fighting on the Eastern Front. Rome: Total War, while not perfectly realistic, brought Roman history to life in a way no book or film had previously achieved. Even Battlefield 1, despite its inaccuracies, offers significant value and exposure to a historical period.
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2026-02-22 03:43