This upcoming November holds many promises for the video-gaming community, with Fallout 4, the long-awaited Battlefront, and a plethora of imaginative games by indie developers. With the new tide about to roll in, I would like to point out one next-gen game that shows us what video games, as an artistic medium, may become. That game, as the title of this article suggests, is The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt.
Though this game picks up in the midst of a long story line spanning the previous two installments, the authors of this franchise have made it accessible for newcomers to the plot (one need only consult the convenient glossary in the menu).
Created by CD Projekt Red, a Polish game developer, and based on the fantasy novels of polish writer Andrej Sapkowski, this game tells the story of Geralt of Rivia, a member of a caste of professional monster-slayers known as “Witchers.”
The Universe is, like any fantasy universe, drawn from historical details and beliefs. We are thrust into a medieval world, where those old tales of monsters in the night are, in fact, not tales at all, but walking beasts that haunt the wilderness surrounding every village. You will find, however, that the creatures some call “monsters” are really just misunderstood beings of a greater ecosystem, and that those who accuse the so-called monsters are really monsters themselves. The story is intricate, with a variety of ambiguous moral quandaries, and the physics (most notably the lighting mechanics) are superb, to say the least.
What this game really offers, however, is an immensely detailed simulation in the bleak, dispersed, and foreboding aspects of medieval life, set to the more alluring context of a fantasy world. One may walk past beggars in the streets and hear them complain of the agony experienced by the poor masses, witness the civil strife and far-reaching effects of war on various communities, and there is even a theatre in which Geralt, the main character, must put on a play.
My question is: could this kind of detail and artistic style be put into a purely historical context? That is to say, can we make a game of this caliber that could be used as a teaching tool in history classes? We all grew up staring at whiteboards and textbooks anyway, and for the few who could pay attention, little was offered in terms of vivacity on the instructors’ behalf, unless by sheer luck, you ended up with the “good” teacher that year.
Of course, we should consider the dangers of artificial reality. It is possible that too much time dedicated to interacting with screens, rather than a more immediate reality, may very well condition us away from our natural settings? However, is this not already the case? And what’s more, are we really going to, or even willing to, give up the allure of our all-too-dear technology? We all understand that staring at phones and eating fast food are probably not so great for us, at least culturally, but both smartphones and fast-food chains remain as flourishing commodities with little end in sight (for more on hyper-reality, see my previous article “Modern/Postmodern”).
Certain themes could be worked into the design of powerful tools such as video games that remind us to look outside at the real world and the physical reality that supports and inspires the artificial one.
