Historical RPGs

[ERYFKRAD]

Age of Pirates: the Carribean Tales, Age of Pirates 2: City of Abandoned Ships (XVI century, era of Carribean piracy)

Don't know about the original Oceanic Canines, but these two would likely fall under

Historical rpgs with mystical/mythical elements:

On account of the undead you'd meet every now and then.

 

[ERYFKRAD]

Age of Pirates: the Carribean Tales, Age of Pirates 2: City of Abandoned Ships (XVI century, era of Carribean piracy)

Don't know about the original Oceanic Canines, but these two would likely fall under

Historical rpgs with mystical/mythical elements:

On account of the undead you'd meet every now and then.

And how come Legends of Eisenwald don't make the cut, eh?

 

[Lord_Potato]

Age of Pirates: the Carribean Tales, Age of Pirates 2: City of Abandoned Ships (XVI century, era of Carribean piracy)

Don't know about the original Oceanic Canines, but these two would likely fall under

Historical rpgs with mystical/mythical elements:

On account of the undead you'd meet every now and then.

Thanks for the info. Ok, I'll move them then.

Age of Pirates: the Carribean Tales, Age of Pirates 2: City of Abandoned Ships (XVI century, era of Carribean piracy)

Don't know about the original Oceanic Canines, but these two would likely fall under

Historical rpgs with mystical/mythical elements:

On account of the undead you'd meet every now and then.

And how come Legends of Eisenwald don't make the cut, eh?

Legends of Eisenwald are set in actual real world time or place? Never played it, so I don't know.

 

[Darth Canoli]

To sum it up

Historical rpgs:
- Alexander: the Heroes Hour (ancient Greece and Persia during the reign of Alexanderthe Great)
- Teudogar and the alliance with Rome (ancient Germania during Roman attempt of conquest)
- Kingdom Come: Deliverance (medieval Bohemia)
- Sea Dogs (XVI century, era of Carribean piracy)
- Vendetta: Curse of the Raven's Cry (XVII century, era of Carribean piracy)
- Kim (XIX century colonial India)
- Hammer & Sickle (early cold war Germany)

Historical rpgs with mystical/mythical elements:
- Five Guardians of David (hack&slash in Biblical Israel)
- Prince of Qin (ancient China + magic)
- Seal of Evil (prequel to Prince of Qin)
- Unrest (ancient India + magic)
- Theseus: journey to Athens (ancient mythological Greece)
- Rise of the Argonauts (mythical Greece, no actual connection to actual place, for example Delphi is an island)
- Nethergate and Nethergate Ressurection (Jeff Vogel's vision of ancient Britain during the Roman conquest, with magic)
- Expeditions: Viking (medieval Denmark and England)
- Darklands (medieval Germany with witches and demons)
- Bastard of Kosignan (5 module campaign for Neverwinter Nights, medieval Burgundy, Germany and France with some degree of magic)
- Expeditions: Conquisador (XVI century America)
- Age of Pirates: the Carribean Tales, Age of Pirates 2: City of Abandoned Ships (XVI century, era of Carribean piracy, with fantasy elements like the udead)
- Dark Secrets of Africa (XIX century in colonial Africa, search for the mysteries of the pyramids and more)
- Another War 1&2 (2nd World War + occult activities of the nazis+weird humor)
- Grom: Terror in Tibet (2nd World War, nazis searching for ancient artifacts of power in Asia)

[...]

More titles incoming when I (someone else) refresh my memory. But they are not very numerous.

Since there are some jrpgs contributions, I am considering adding the 4th category: Pseudohistorical jrpgs or simply putting them in the 3rd category.

It'd be great if you added date of release and type of the game.
Party-based? TB? Tactical-RPG or full fledge RPG? This kind of things.

Pseudohistorical rpgs with weird shit (aliens, worldwide conspiracy theories, space artifacts):
- Assassin's Creed: Origins (ancient Egypt)
- Assassin's Creed: Odyssey (ancient Greece)
- Assassin's Creed: Valhalla (medieval Scandinavia and England)

Are these RPG now?
Shouldn't we say pseudo-historical pseudo-wannabe-imaginary-RPG?

 

[samuraigaiden]

Deus Ex is sorta happening right now, so if you play it in a couple of years it'll be historical.

 

[Taka-Haradin puolipeikko]

I've got no idea how playable this is.

 

[ERYFKRAD]

Legends of Eisenwald are set in actual real world time

It's vaguely Krautlands, don't remember now though.

 

[Victor1234]

Great list! The Three Musketeers from 2009 can go on too I guess.

https://www.mobygames.com/game/three-musketeers-the-game

Why are there so few historical RPGs being made though? If video games are just an interactive form of entertainment, it feels like it's a medium where history is underrepresented even compared to other forms like TV & movies. I can think of 2 historical epics (Napoleon & another Three Musketeers) coming out just next year, but the past 3 decades has produced 8 historical RPGs more or less, and a bunch of hybrids?

Just before I joined this site I was looking through lists of MUDs from the early 2000's, rankings, indices, etc and was struck by how if they bothered categorizing them at all, there are often less than a dozen historical ones among thousands of fantasy MUDs. For a medium with literally no graphics required and presumably a low barrier to creation, everyone just churned out minor variations on the same theme over and over again, with (some minor) divergence into Star Wars and cyberpunk settings.

Even on this site, rusty posted about TSR Gangbusters that seems like it should've spawned a million knockoffs on computer, at a time when Hollywood was just churning out Prohibition movies like crazy, but nobody ever did and Prohibition in video games is strictly FPS or management format. Why?

 

[deuxhero]

Nioh and Nioh 2 are pretty neat, though they're Souls-likes (arguably the only good ones) more than anything.

Why are there so few historical RPGs being made though?

1: You can't own history
2: Most people are super ignorant of history. Look at the fantasy games with mail and elaborate full plate side by side.
3: Can't explain game mechanics with magic or scifi magic.

 

[PorkyThePaladin]

Why are there so few historical RPGs being made though?

You can't underestimate how dumb / out-of-touch the average publishing executive is. The people who get to decide what games get made don't actually play games these days. Instead they are just business suits, who base their decisions purely on market research and previous success.

Now it's true that some historical games have been fairly successful, e.g. Age of Empires series, Kingdom Come: Deliverance, Civilization, etc. But their success pales in comparison to genres like Fantasy and Sci-fi. So from that perspective, the suits just don't find history that attractive, you can read up on this from Dan Vavra's descriptions when he was pitching Kingdom Come to various publishers. They basically said to him "love the game, but we just don't think there is demand for it".

They think the average gamer is much more dazzled by fireballs and elves and guns. And they are probably right to some degree.

 

[Serus]

Why are there so few historical RPGs being made though?

You can't underestimate how dumb / out-of-touch the average publishing executive is. The people who get to decide what games get made don't actually play games these days. Instead they are just business suits, who base their decisions purely on market research and previous success.

Now it's true that some historical games have been fairly successful, e.g. Age of Empires series, Kingdom Come: Deliverance, Civilization, etc. But their success pales in comparison to genres like Fantasy and Sci-fi. So from that perspective, the suits just don't find history that attractive, you can read up on this from Dan Vavra's descriptions when he was pitching Kingdom Come to various publishers. They basically said to him "love the game, but we just don't think there is demand for it".

They think the average gamer is much more dazzled by fireballs and elves and guns. And they are probably right to some degree.

I'm not saying you are wrong here but even very small indies don't do history that often. Think of all the Grimoires, KotC-es, Underrails etc... All fantasy or at best SF. Add to that the fact that historical crpgs were never a thing, even when pc gaming wasn't yet as big as today.

I'd go with:
"Only a few nerds want historical crpgs, no one else knows or cares about history"
as main reason.

 

[Taka-Haradin puolipeikko]

 

[Tyranicon]

Normies find history boring. Also way too hardcore.

Like if you set a RPG in the First Crusade it would literally just go like this.

Be a crusader. Get harassed by horse archers for 40% of the game without being able to do anything about it. Your leaders are morons. The pope isn't here. The Eastern Roman Emperor isn't here. It's hot and dry, and you're not used to anything. Can't even speak the language of the locals. Life is miserable.

Reach walled city. Horse archers can't help them here. Everything bounces off your superior armor. Laugh at their pitiful attempts to kill you. Breach the walls. Rape and pillage everything inside, because of uh, Deus vult or something. Widespread micro-genocide. Commit crimes so heinous they are remembered for thousands of years later.

Secure the holy land. Go back home destitute and die of some medieval shitstain illness two years later.

While history buffs will find that somewhat interesting, fucking soulless AAA studios won't work on this, and their money-grubbing publishers won't pay for it. People will be appalled by anything remotely historically accurate because for a large portion of our history, including today, humans have been overwhelming sacks of shit.

 

[JarlFrank]

While history buffs will find that somewhat interesting, fucking soulless AAA studios won't work on this, and their money-grubbing publishers won't pay for it.

That's why indies should make games like this.

Teudogar is a good example, fascinating little game.

 

[PorkyThePaladin]

Normies find history boring. Also way too hardcore.

Like if you set a RPG in the First Crusade it would literally just go like this.

Be a crusader. Get harassed by horse archers for 40% of the game without being able to do anything about it. Your leaders are morons. The pope isn't here. The Eastern Roman Emperor isn't here. It's hot and dry, and you're not used to anything. Can't even speak the language of the locals. Life is miserable.

Reach walled city. Horse archers can't help them here. Everything bounces off your superior armor. Laugh at their pitiful attempts to kill you. Breach the walls. Rape and pillage everything inside, because of uh, Deus vult or something. Widespread micro-genocide. Commit crimes so heinous they are remembered for thousands of years later.

Secure the holy land. Go back home destitute and die of some medieval shitstain illness two years later.

While history buffs will find that somewhat interesting, fucking soulless AAA studios won't work on this, and their money-grubbing publishers won't pay for it. People will be appalled by anything remotely historically accurate because for a large portion of our history, including today, humans have been overwhelming sacks of shit.

TBH, historical settings force developers to be better in various ways:

- by having to adhere to historical weapons, armor, etc, it forces the developers to do some research, and the result is almost always better than fantasy/sci-fi stuff, because it's grounded in the depth of the real world, as opposed to fantasy items devs just pull out of their ass.
- by removing fantasy/sci-fi stuff, it forces developers/writers to actually come up with interesting stories and characters. An evil wizard Garlefarth can unleash the Eye of Fuckforth, but when you are stuck with just regular humans, you gotta come up with some actual writing.

 

[JarlFrank]

by having to adhere to historical weapons, armor, etc, it forces the developers to do some research

Sorry to burst your bubble mate but nowadays, historical "research" consists of digging through 5000 pages of medieval chronicles to find one single mention of a Moorish merchant once traveling through the country for one day, so the devs can justify making 80% of the population black (even though Moors looked like Arabs, not blacks).

An evil wizard Garlefarth can unleash the Eye of Fuckforth, but when you are stuck with just regular humans, you gotta come up with some actual writing.

The evil count Garleforde de Toulon unleashed his robber knights upon the innocent peasantry, go stop the robber knights!

It's just as easy to write a banalshitboring plot in a historical setting.

 

[VerSacrum]

Legends of Eisenwald are set in actual real world time

It's vaguely Krautlands, don't remember now though.

Roughly Germany around 1475, but there are wizards and witches in place of field artillery and the architecture and fashion are kind of all over the place.

Have you tried the Witcher series? It's fantasy, but it's kind of like adult fantasy, i.e. no wizards casting fireballs every 2 steps, but rather a fairly grounded medieval type society similar to medieval Europe, with some fantasy elements.

I've played all the Witcher games. They may be more adult, but they're not historical.

While its obviously a fantastical setting, the overall material culture, armour technology, architecture, fashion, folklore and so on are all straight from real world history - more so than KC:D in places (love that game, but certain aspects don't stand up to historical scrutiny). Novigrad is basically a Hanseatic city like Gdansk/Danzig in the late 15th Century and it's visually extremely well realised - colourful, without grey-brown "medieval filter" and manure on every street. Was obvious that the devs really did their research there, more so than they did in the last 5 or so Ass Creed games.