Markus Mindrebø (University of Stavanger)
Welcome to the fifth annual Middle Ages in Modern Games asynchronous conference! As always, we’ve got papers from dozens of excellent game devs and scholars from around the world dealing with all sorts of aspects of the Middle Ages and medievalism in games of all kinds.
Middle Ages in Modern Games started back in 2020 and we’ve had events on Twitter and in person every year since. If you want an idea of what you’ve been missing, take a look at our conference proceedings.
This year we’ve moved from our old home on Twitter to our own website, kindly hosted by Exilian. This gives us greater flexibility and stability, and has allowed us to incorporate video presentations in our event for the first time. Beyond this, we have our first papers delivered in languages other than English (Spanish and Italian) this year – our new platform allows us to provide translations of these papers. You can still find us over on Twitter, and we’re also now on Facebook, Bluesky, Mastodon and Instagram. Follow us and keep an eye on #MAMG24.
Amongst our regular general sessions and papers, our themes this year are ‘Cooperation’ and ‘Conflict’. Make sure you check our programme for all the details and full schedule.
‘Cooperation’ and ‘Conflict’ are central themes in both the world of gaming and in our perception of the Middle Ages. The classical role-playing game adventuring party can in many ways be seen as directly modelled on medieval questing heroes. From outlaw bands and crusader companies to pilgrims and the protagonists of medieval literary tales, the merry band of adventurers performing some cooperative problem-solving and group-based challenges (frequently with a sword) is straight from the pages and narrations of gestae, sagas, bards, and troubadours.
Many games set in the Middle Ages also have multiplayer components to perform these functions, whether cooperative or competitive versions. From the fantasy of pseudo-medieval MMOs to action-centred fighting games featuring controllable knights and vikings, the online gaming scene is full of such experiences which can, indeed, make or break friendships.
In the more deeply cynical historical world of medieval-focused strategy games, alliances, pacts, wars, and feuds dominate the landscape, whether the goal is changing history through conquest, or marrying off children and siblings to the right aristocratic families. Making friends with the right non-player characters and their wider factions may enable the flourishing of a dynasty, whereas starting a war at the right time for the right reasons may solidify a ruler’s power. In many of these games, the strategies surrounding cooperation and conflict are explicitly meant to mirror those of the medieval world.
Many of these themes, and more, will be found across the fifth iteration of the Middle Ages in Modern Games conference. This year our ‘papers’ are short articles or videos from our participants grouped into thematic sessions across the four days. Each paper will be released on our website following our programme and reposted from our social media (@MidAgesModGames) so follow us to get all of our speakers’ work.
Questions can be posed to all of our speakers throughout the conference and afterwards. Submit any questions below the relevant posts on our website, and our speakers will respond when they are able.
This year’s event is bookended by two keynote papers. We open with Juan Francisco Jiménez Alcázar who will address ‘Medieval Borders in the Context of Video Games’ and close with Karen Cook speaking on ‘The Sonic Environments of Medieval(ist) Games’.
We’re generously sponsored by Slitherine Games. Our crossover event – the Field of Glory Day – took place on their Twitch channel yesterday (4 June) so be sure to take a look. You can find Field of Glory Kingdoms and all their other games over on their website.
We’re also generously sponsored by Intellect Books who have an impressive range of journals and other publications addressing games and other popular media. These include the Journal of Gaming & Virtual Worlds.
Our final sponsor is the Centre for Medieval and Renaissance Research at the University of Winchester.
The artwork used on our website and programme this year is taken from ‘King of the Castle’ from the excellent Tributary Games. It’s a great party game which lets you take on the role of a beleaguered king or scheming noble with dozens of friends and enemies.
We’ll be back at 12:00 UTC+1 with our first keynote from Juan Francisco Jiménez Alcázar. We hope you’ll join us for what promises to be an excellent event!
Thank you so much for your insights about this year’s theme to start the off conference! You paint a great picture of the drama around political conflict and cooperation in strategy games especially, I was wondering if you have a favourite game (or just an interesting example) that really allows the player to engage with the nuance of establishing and maintaining these kinds of cooperation in the medieval world?
Thank you, Tess! It’s an easy answer to that one for me – Paradox’ Crusader Kings (2 or 3). I think these games provide brilliant opportunities for everyone from academics to lay enthusiasts to play around with political cooperation/conflict mechanics in a medieval context (whether to re-enact or change historical narratives). Heartily recommended to anyone reading this!
Oooh yes! I’ve had some great chats with my students about creating counterfactual (‘what if?’) histories in Crusader Kings, it has some very interesting mechanics!
Thanks for kicking this off! Looking forward to the coming days 🙂
Thank you so much for this opening address! Looking forward to what seems like a bunch of very interesting themes in the next few days!
Thank you very much for the opening address. I wonder if the organisers or the speakers can mention any games which presuppose a certain playing mode over the other: e.g., games which are built around the player being in conflict with other rather than collaborating with them? Hope it’s a right question to ask.
I think this is a great question to keep in mind throughout the conference. Are the games we’re writing about prioritizing conflict or cooperation? I presume we’ll see plenty of examples of both until Friday.
Videogames are known for prioritizing conflict and competition. But then, this conference has a tendency to talk about games that deviate from the mainstream. (Especially considering some of the speakers are indie game devs themselves). It’ll be interesting to see what ends up capturing the attention of presenters – and what this says about ourselves and our research interests.
I’d be happy to leave this question to others to potentially give better examples, but there is certainly a trove of games out there which centre on player conflict, e.g. all the games emphasising competitive versions of medieval combat. The first one that comes to mind is Ubisoft’s For Honor (a heavily fantastical version of medieval combat, for sure…), but there are plenty of others. Many of the various medieval strategy games which have come up in the conference already also feature multiplayer options where players can direct factions in competition and conflict rather than cooperation.
Broadly speaking I’d say genre-wise strategy tends to prioritise conflict, and grand strategy is often a bit over-represented in “historical” gaming. Some games like CK3 give you some other options, but even there your ideal strategy is usually to pre-emptively reduce the power of everyone around you and vice versa. Ironically RPGs and the fantasy genre sometimes offer more possibilities for cooperative approaches, because you’re presented as a character with your own viewpoint rather than playing for the nominal interests of a polity. That said, even there it’s usually cooperation as a way to enable effective conflict with some more powerful externality. I guess city builders might offer some cooperation potential as they’re less external conflict driven, but explicit cooperative gaming often isn’t built into the gameplay in that genre.
[…] •9:00: Markus Mindrebø (University of Stavanger) […]
I’m here 2 days late, but thank you for putting this event together! All the papers I’ve read have been great, and the community is beyond amazing! I’m already looking forward to next year’s.