The Middle Ages in Modern Games – Asynchronous Conference Programme 2025

The sixth Middle Ages in Modern Games Asynchronous Conference will take place on 4-6 June 2025. The conference themes this year are ‘Globalities’ and ‘Regionalities’ and we have three days of written papers and videos addressing these themes and a variety of other issues relating to the Middle Ages and Medievalism in games of all sorts. These papers will be released from our website at the times listed in the programme below (all times UTC+1). We hope you can join us!

Wednesday 4 June

Opening Address – 10:00

•10:00: ‘Globalisms’ and ‘Regionalisms’ in the Middle Ages in Modern Games – Robert Houghton (University of Winchester)

First Keynote – 12:00

•12:00: Playing with the Past: Cultural Integrity in Narrative Gaming – Stevan Anastasoff (Game Designer)

Interview with Slitherine Developers – 14:00

•14:00: Field of Glory: Kingdoms Rajas and Tribes Interview – Robert Houghton (University of Wincester), AGEod, and Slitherine

Sponsored Session: Field of Glory: Kingdoms – 16:00

•16:00: Authority in Field of Glory: Kingdoms. Mechanics, referents, and possible developments – Arturo Mariano Iannace (IMT Lucca)

•16:20: Religious coexistence and Rough Tolerance in Field of Glory: Kingdoms – Juan Manuel Rubio Arévalo (Central European University)

•16:40: The Caucasus in Field of Glory Kingdoms – James Baillie (Austrian Academy of Sciences)

Game Design – 18:00

•18:00: Gamifying Landuse: The Birds and the Bees in Lombard Law-Scape – Thom Gobbitt (University of Graz)

•18:20: Visualizing Knowledge: Medieval Art and Learning in Game Design – Baykar Demir (Istanbul Bilgi University)

•18:40: DropCaps: A Word Game with a Medievalist Spin – Jessie Contour and Kelcey Gray (University of Texas at Austin)

Thursday 5 June

Global Perspectives – 10:00

•10:00: Prosuming Regional Medievalisms: Depictions, Perceptions and Imaginations of Rus’ in Russian-language Computer Games – Kristina Wittkamp (Universität Passau)

•10:20: William Adams: A Monogatari Samurai Hero – Fictionalisations of Japanese History in Rekishi-Monogatari Games – Benjamin Dorrington Redder (Ritsumeikan University)

•10:40: Chivalric Quests and Nostalgic Aesthetics: Final Fantasy IX as Global Medieval British Romance – Enrique Torres-Hergueta (University of Extremadura)

•11:00: Gnosticism in the Medievalist Game Genshin Impact – Emilienne Parchliniak (Sorbonne Nouvelle University)

Eurocentric Globalism – 12:00

•12:00: Harnessing Nature by Men: An Ecofeminist Critique of Age of Empires II – Shu Wan (University at Buffalo)

•12:20: Pixel to Parallax: Low-Poly Cartographies of Medieval Spatial Narrative in Games – Xinyu Kang (Peking University) and Yuantong Yun (Tsinghua University)

•12:40: How Civilization V Brings Historical Nations to the Global Stage: Analysis of the Game’s Majapahit-Era Indonesia – Pratama Wirya Atmaja, Andreas Nugroho Sihananto, and Gredy Christian Hendrawan Putra (University of Pembangunan Nasional “Veteran” Jawa Timur, Indonesia)

Alternative Approaches to Globalism – 14:00

•14:00: A Left-Coast Medieval: Progressive Values in Age of Empires IV – Robert Rouse (University of British Columbia)

•14:20: Stranger in a Strange Land: Eivor’s Encounter with the Mohawk Culture in Assassin’s Creed: Valhalla – Renata Leśniakiewicz-Drzymała (Jagiellonian University)

•14:40: Gaming Beyond the ‘Commons’: Counter-Hegemonic Readings of Medievalist Tropes – Vinicius Marino Carvalho (Universidade Estadual de Campinas)

Participatory Heritage – 16:00

•16:00: Social Media is Dungeons & Dragons – Stephen Yeager (Concordia University)

•16:20: Teaching the 16th Century with Pentiment – Lucas Haasis and Patrick Heike (Gamelab ‘Villa Geistreich’ in Oldenburg)

•16:40: We can be heroes, just for one day: Concepts of history in LARP – Merle Stratmann (Carl von Ossietzky-University Oldenburg)

Race and Culture – 18:00

•18:00: Globalities and Regionalities in Roleplaying across Culture and Race in Black Desert Online – Johansen Quijano (Tarrant County College, Trinity River Campus)

•18:20: L’era dei rumors e il razzismo – Kingdom Come: Deliverance II – Simone Vitolo (University of Modena)

•18:40: Framing the Other Within: Sebhat of Sadai, Narrative Legibility, and Ethiopian Manuscript Aesthetics in Pentiment – Blair Apgar (Kutztown University)

Friday 6 June

Fantasy Medievalism in The Witcher – 10:00

•10:00: Female Voices in a Medieval-Inspired Universe: a Brief Comparative Study of the Representation of Women in The Witcher Books and Video Games – Jéssica Iolanda Costa Bispo (NOVA University Lisbon)

•10:20: The Witcher 3: un viaggio nel tempo e nello spazio dell’Europa medievale – Simone Fleres

•10:40: Dungeons & Distortions: The Pseudo-Norse berserkir in The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt – Roderick Dale and Markus Mindrebø (University of Stavanger)

Globalism and Religion – 12:00

•12:00: Religious Tensions: The Itatehyōzu Shrine in Assassin’s Creed Shadows – Hirohito Tsuji (University of East Anglia)

•12:20: „Denn häufig haben sich auf seinem Wink und Befehl viele von ihnen von einer hohen Mauer hinunter gestürzt […]“: Die Tradierung des mittelalterlichen Mythos der Nizari Ismailis in Narration und Gameplay in Assassin’s Creed – Ron Heckler (Deutschen Gesellschaft e. V.)

•12:40: The Eternal Presence of Holy War: The Procedural Rhetoric of Jihad and Crusade in Total War: Medieval 2 – Juan Manuel Rubio Arévalo (Central European University)

Second Keynote – 14:00

•14:00: Making Rajas of Asia: Modding Cultural Representation and Stateless Government in an Imperialist Game – William Chen (University of Massachusetts, Amherst)

Closing Remarks – 16:00

•16:00 International Opportunities, International Challenges – Robert Houghton (University of Winchester)

View/Download the 2025 Program Below