“Some time ago, we passed the line where historical video games are at the same level of influence and demand the same level of critical analysis” as historically themed movies or TV shows, Devereaux told me. Academic historians, he wrote in a four-part post on his blog, must now grapple with a new breed of students “for whom Paradox is the historical mother tongue and actual history is only a second language.” Prompted by Mulder’s confusion, Devereaux hoped to illuminate the historical assumptions that underlie the games.
And yet to many players, exactly what they’re learning from these games remains a mystery. Spending that much time engaged with any sort of historically themed content will affect one’s understanding of history. Read: How will historians study video games? The average Europa Universalis player spends hundreds of hours on it. Millions of people own the games, which allow players to take control of a historical nation or individual and guide the course of history. The games made by Paradox Interactive, the Swedish studio that produces Europa Universalis, are among the most popular strategy titles in the world.
But the fact that video-game developers, rather than professional historians, were responsible for shaping so many young people’s understanding of history deserved greater examination, he thought. Bret Devereaux, a history professor at the University of North Carolina, saw Mulder’s tweet as an opportunity to explain a new phenomenon.ĭevereaux plays Europa Universalis and likes it. Students kept enrolling in his course on modern Europe because of the game, which he had only recently learned existed. Over time, you can embrace national ideas that represent both your historic legacy and your ambitions for the future.įrom grand voyages of discovery to religious wars to revolutionary governments, the entire history of the early modern world waits for you to rewrite it in Europa Universalis IV.Last year, Nicholas Mulder, a history professor at Cornell University, asked his Twitter followers to help him understand a certain kind of student in his classes: players of the video game Europa Universalis. Unlock new weapons, new buildings and new ship types. Plan for the future by spending monarch power wisely.įour hundred years of research into new ways of war, administration and trade are available. Experience rapid development under a skilled monarch only to see things slow down when a less competent heir takes over.
Your nation’s pace of development will be heavily influenced by the person on the throne. Strike when your enemies are weak, using your armies to grab new land and new potential riches. Discover and settle the New World, or resist European conquest.Ĭontrol the flow of trade by developing your trade power in key provinces, using ships and governmental policy to bring the wealth of the world to your own ports.īuild alliances into iron bonds, cemented by royal marriage or play a flexible hand, keeping your options open. Hundreds of dynamic historical events are yours to experience, from merely troubling civil wars to world changing moments like the Protestant Reformation. Or, if you wish, start your game at any date in the span, with historical monarchs and other leaders.
Choose from any of hundreds of nations and then rule up to the Age of Revolutions. Start before the Renaissance on a map of the world as it was then. Write a new history of the world and build an empire for the ages. Rule your land and dominate the world with unparalleled freedom, depth and historical accuracy. This classic grand strategy game gives you control of a nation through four dramatic centuries. Paradox Development Studio is back with the fourth installment of the award-winning Europa Universalis series.