WHEN I PLAY AROUND IN HISTORY, LET ME TAKE MY FAMILY ALONG FOR THE RIDE.

Where are the games that are more Bill & Ted than Bonnie & Clyde?

Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it,” wrote George Santayana. While in my case this means remembering to not wear white when eating in public, there are more interesting and important lessons to learn. Videogames are perfectly placed to teach us much about history… but so far, they’re not doing a very good job.

I’m not necessarily thinking of the details in games that deal with historical issues (but don’t expect Call Of Duty or Battlefield to teach you anything meaningful about WW2). To take Assassin’s Creed as an example, the attention to detail is stunning. Although artistic licence has been taken, Origins and Odyssey have a huge amount of factual content. What COD, Battlefield, and Assassin’s Creed have in common is that they’re all aimed at a strictly adult market. On a related note, they all tend to take themselves much more seriously than the players do. My question is: Why?

HISTORICAL LAUGH

I like murdering strangers violently in historical environments as much as the next person. But the complete lack of mainstream familyfriendly historical adventures baffles me. After all, “familyfriendly” doesn’t mean “only for kids”. In the world of television, Horrible Histories proved that history can be taught in an engaging and hilarious way (well, the first five seasons did, anyway) that kids and adults alike can enjoy. We really need an equivalent for games.

AC Origins’ Discovery Tour mode was a fantastic idea, but you still need to be at least 18 to legally buy a copy of the game. Imagine the scope of Origins combined with the humour and gentleness of Monkey Island, or the gameplay of Uncharted infused with the global appeal of LittleBigPlanet. Or perhaps the surreal puzzle-solving shenanigans of Sam & Max with the historical backdrop of The Council. So many ways to do it, and none of them explored. (Yet.)

Without blood and “grit” to lean on, a historical game would have to work hard to keep our attention in other ways. The developers might just learn something new; and we’d be more likely to, as well.