Historic Spaces and Architectures in Videogames

Editorial Culture & History Digital Journal 9(1) June 2020, e001 eISSN 2253-797X http://cultureandhistory.revistas.csic.es Historic Spaces and Architectures in Videogames In the 40s, Alan Turing wrote down the first idea ever velopment of history and culture; therefore, every drafted for a videogame. It was a machine able to play videogame has a unique relationship with history from its one of the more ancient and symbolic games of all times: conception to its final design steps. Game designers work Chess. Nearly eighty years later, digital gaming is now an from specific social contexts while connected to global industry that generates ninety billion dollars in revenues socio-economic networks of intertwined times and plac- worldwide1, but, in their essence, videogames are still es. So, in this way, no videogame is born isolated from its like chess: sets of rules embodied by relatable pieces of cultural and aesthetic trends. Either if videogames are wood/ivory/pixels, that can be played and explained as considered art or not4, digital products coexist today in a representations of light popular culture or as intricate dis- shared global medium strongly influenced by the van- cussions on the deepness of human nature. Both interpre- guards of the 20th century and the dynamism of the third tations are equally valid, real, and worthy of research. In millennia. In this sense, videogames offer digital spaces, the same way that chess, videogames can make players which are historical in a double sense: they represent his- casually feel like ancient kings commanding armies in tory while they belong to history; thus, they can be stud- epic good vs. evil confrontations, or sharpen their skills in ied as products of their time. competitive matches where the ability to read the adver- This fact does not hinder the capacity of videogames sary’s mind is key to success. to offer history-based narratives, which take place in ar- However, literature and media usually label video- chitectonic spaces especially designed for ludic purposes. games and digital media as revolutionary technologies, Readers through written descriptions do far from their unrelated to any previous cultural manifestations or ludic counterparts in literature because they are fully built by traditions. Other digital revolutions in theatre, art, litera- game designers, not imagine the dynamics of these spac- ture, and cinema are shown as natural steps in disciplines es. The digital player is a participating agent, so digital that have evolved through centuries, but when it comes to architecture in videogames is different from film scenog- digital games and sports, they are seen as a sort of eternal raphy where spectators are passive. Moreover, main- future, disconnected from older gaming practices and tra- stream videogames show detailed models of historical ditions. Academics and scholars answered this issue by buildings that significantly differ from the ones developed creating the field of Game Studies in the late nineties and by museums and academic programs. Games do not seek early 2000s, lead by publications like Game Studies Jour- to offer reliable reproductions for scholarly use, but to nal2, and research centres like the MIT Game Lab3. Now- create digital atmospheres that resonate with players’ his- adays, the gaming industry strength is widely recognized. torical sensitivities while guaranteeing a strong synergy Each year, universities launch new undergraduate and with the rules and dynamics of gameplay. In other words, graduate programs such as game design, digital environ- gameplay is a core aspect of game design, and developers ments, character design, and music for digital media, get closer or farther to historical realism depending on the among others. Another remarkable trend is the growing atmosphere they want to create. influence of videogames and digital culture on traditional Our dossier proposes a research question centred on scholarship, with an especially critical role in digital hu- how digital narratives are capable of building immer- manities, but also present in history, art history, architec- sive historical experiences. Its objective is to character- ture, and urban history. New research projects in these ize the videogame as a genre for historical storytelling fields approach videogames not just as dynamics that can with its own place between other contemporary cultural be used for renewing already established practices - gam- manifestations, posing its own challenges and risks. In ification -, but as complete cultural products whose im- the same way that scholars can rigorously document a pact can be better understood through interdisciplinary monument like Agrippa’s Pantheon can be rigorously collaborations. documented by scholars, described in literature, present- This idea is aligned with the aims of the present dos- ed by touristic guides or drawn by Piranesi, digital sys- sier “Historic spaces and architecture in videogames” for tems can provide new ways to experience its historical Culture & History Digital Journal. Our objective is not to and architectural attributes. Historical depictions in vide- make history through game design techniques but to un- ogames are not here to substitute anything but to add new derstand the influences, interpretations, and representa- elements to the mix. The main question is to know what tions of history in videogames. Our results delve into how they add and how they add it. digital architectures impact the present notion of spatiali- The dossier is composed of five papers, separated into ty both in contemporary and historical settings. As cul- two groups. The first couple explores the consequences of tural products, the gaming industry takes part in the de- postmodernity on the conception of urban space in films 2 • Editorial and videogames. In “Mass Media and the postmodern ur- deepens on the work of Adam’s Chapman and the concep- ban experience: From Metropolis to Blade Runner; from tual framework he developed in Digital Games as History cinema to virtual reality,” Ph.D. architect Luis Miguel (2016). Peñate applies Chapman’s categories to the study Lus Arana5 proposes a long journey from the first Lumi- of Assassin’s Creed Black Flag (Ubisoft Montreal, 2013) ère brother’s projection in 1894 to the latest gaming in- and Age of Empires III (Microsoft Game Studios, 2005), stalments of the Blade Runner and Alien franchises which present Spanish colonial buildings as one of their (Westwood Studios, 19997; Creative Assembly, 2014). main scenes. Both Venegas and Peñate argue about how Lush focuses on hyper-dense and hyper-complex spaces the historic resemblances of digital spaces are based on the associated with mass media, analysing how future urban idea of selective authenticity, which highlights some as- spaces have been depicted in films through the Ext and pects and neglects others with the only criteria of providing 21th centuries. His work highlights the urban landscapes an engaging experience. In the cases analysed by Penates, of Metropolis (Lang, 1927) and how they show a future digital historic buildings seem to have a set of shared rules built upon previously existing urban remnants. This con- that are exchangeable between periods and cultures. Their cept of used future will be vital for the development of defining architectural elements form a particular style, later urban imageries in Blade Runner and Alien, based which is later, applied to the external façade of standard- not on “a space-time to come, but a space-time that will ized volumes without further attention to internal logics or have been.” Lush shows how the digital versions of these spaces. As Peñate puts it, when videogames approach colo- same films struggle with the representation of sceneries nial history, “Spain is just a skin.” that are the product of layered mash-ups between older The closing paper of the dossier, written by architect decorates, discarded plane parts, and recycled elements. Manuel Sánchez10, is titled “Urban archetypes applied to On the other hand, Ph.D. architect Claudio José Ros- the study of cities in contemporary historical fictions: si6 analyses urban stereotypes and spaces dedicated to Symbolic urban structures in Age of Empires III and Bio- commerce in his text “Conpsumptionscapes: videogame shock Infinite.” Sánchez draws from digital architectures stereotypes and Latin-American cities environments.” that depict both historically realist situations or retrofu- Through the concepts of stereotype and gaming space7, turist fictions and explores the symbolic structures and Rossi follows the representation of Latin-American land- meanings present in their cities and buildings. He propos- scapes and commercial areas in videogames. He focuses es that it is possible to use similar methodologies for the on those examples that recreate historic contexts adapted study of foundational urban structures in both built cities for the great public, offering stereotypical models like the and digital ones. In doing so, Sánchez suggests the use of Caribbean city, equally used for depicting cities like La categories developed by architecture historians like Jo- Habana or Cartagena de Indias with no further distinc- seph Rykwert11 and applies them to the analysis of two tion. In this way, both Latin American stereoscapes and cases where history manifests in very different ways. This Blade Runner’s used futures become something higher work intersects several examples and concepts already than the urban landscapes they

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