The Historical Environment as Aged Icon (in Red Dead Redemption 2)

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The Historical Environment as Aged Icon (in Red Dead Redemption 2)

As far back as Roosevelt or Owen Wister and his novel of western grit and masculinity, The Virginian, the West has been charged with an evocative sense: as a virtue, as place, as image. What we see in games such as RDR2 is how the aged veneer of the built environment and various objects authenticates the centrality of the past as not just being ‘long ago,’ but as continuously old: they were never new because they were from long ago. The use of buildings in videogames in such a way conforms and confirms how many people locate and think of the past as an aged icon. New is now; old was then. The objects that appear old are construed as old. The use of an aged icon within the built environment locates the past as distant while at the same time decreases the authenticity of the actual item. The distance here then is to differentiate us from an older era; however, it also equates the past with age in itself. A marker not known to those who would have existed within that world as objects would present as new and not timelessly old.

For purposes of time, this paper will primarily engage with the built environment within RDR2, a game situated within an era, the late 19th century American West, that is at its supposed end, and by the nature of that definition, old and dying. The marketing department at Rockstar must love the turn of the clock as much as most love to decadize and periodize history as ending with a 0 or two: To quote an early trailer for the game: “America 1899, the end of the Wild West era…” While only 30 or so odd years are meant to contain the era smothered between the Civil War and 19 double aught, that 30 years of reach is done and dusted with the impending rampage of civilization in 1900 according to the game, and the structures that maintain and contain the ideas and meaning of the ‘old West’ and the imagined past, what I refer to as aged icons, are shown as having aged themselves – they are falling apart, dilapidated, or contain the death and destruction of an era that is presumed to have had little order or control over the social and political affairs of its society or the coming civilized world. (Lee) It is this presentation of the historical artifact as built environment, and how these games choose to re-present that past locked in with how they choose to construct the built environment that is the focus of my paper today.

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The Hall of Historic (Anti) Heroes

/ Center for the History of Video Games and Critical Play/
The Hall of Historic (Anti) Heroes

The use of historic figures in popular culture and video games runs a wide gamut. Sometimes they are employed to create an atmosphere of authenticity, Assassin Creed series, at other times they are employed for odd counterfactual commentary on the American condition, see Bioshock. This current exploration looks at the use of some seminal anti-heroes in Call of Juarez: Gunslinger published by Ubisoft in 2013 for all major platforms.  In this version of the Call of Juarez series, the central figure, Silas Greaves, relives his past exploits in a saloon in Abeliene, KS in 1910. His small audience is keenly interested in his life as a bounty hunter and his connections and friendships to real individuals from the late 19th century American West. 

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The Hall of Historic Heroes

/ california state university long beach/
The Hall of Historic Heroes

Welcome to The Hall of Historic Heroes, the first edition of what we hope will become a weekly feature on our blog. In these posts we’ll briefly explore American exceptionalism as it appears in video games (both past and present) and/or in video game advertisements or box art.

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Red Dead Redemption II Trailer III or: how I learned to stop worrying and love the western myth

/ CSULB Center for the History of Video Games and Critical Play/
Red Dead Redemption II Trailer III or: how I learned to stop worrying and love the western myth

Last week, Rockstar Games revealed the third trailer for the long anticipated and oft delayed “Red Dead Redemption 2.” Many in the game press and community were impressed with the visual impact of the trailer and the stunning graphics of the various cut scenes that the trailer highlights, noting the attention to detail and cinema like qualities – qualities that also revel in the mythic images and Hollywood tropes that plague this style of game, making players complicit in the reinforcement of Turnerverian ideals. The game’s trailer does what countless other westerns, both contemporary and those dating back to Buffalo Bill’s Wild West Show, do: they stage a West that blends both history and myth together in a way that for the player/observer legitimates Manifest Destiny, elevates violence as a marker of masculinity, celebrates the triumph of civilization over savagery, and equates both with the extension of freedom over untamed frontier. And like the creators of the westerns that came before, Red Dead’s developers see no hypocrisy in lamenting the passing of this era and the emasculation of white men at the hands of the same civilizing processes they celebrate. In the trailer, Rockstar both celebrates the mythic West that purportedly redefined masculinity and brought civilization and modernity to the frontier while simultaneously mourning its passing.

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Victoria and Albert Museum in London and Video Games

/ CSU Long Beach/

The Victoria and Albert Museum in London will be hosting an exhibition and residency that focuses on video games and game design from the early 2000s. According to their website, the show will feature, "from concept art to moving footage, prototypes, character design sketches, and interactive installations." As the article points out this exhibition joins a growing interest in video games as a form of art worthy of a museum's attention (the Smithsonian and MoMa have hosted similar exhibitions in the past few years).


Read more at https://www.wallpaper.com/art/victoria-and-albert-museum-video-games-exhibition#Z4gw7EhwXxXkHbyz.99

Interesting Discussion of Race and the Civil Rights Movement in Wolfenstein II: The New Colossus

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Recently, one of our favorite history and video games podcasts explored the portrayal of race and the role of the American Civil Rights movement in Bethesda Softworks Wolfenstein II: The New Colossus. Rather than take on the obvious themes of the game Bob Whitaker, John Harney and Robert Green engage in a compelling conversation about the African American experience and how it's represented in this counterfactual history of America.  It's a great conversation that raises some interesting topics and we think it's important to support work like this. Listen to it here or visit their Youtube page.