An Unintentional Education

Assassin’s Creed II did not teach me how to be an assassin, despite what game critics such as Jack Thompson might think. It also never succeeded at teaching any obvious lessons through procedural rhetoric; there were cries of conspiracy theories and terrible science-fiction truths about the universe, but they weren’t enough to make me question my own government or deeply consider censorship.

What Assassin’s Creed II did do was teach me about the Italian Renaissance, and the relevant historical figures of the time. Boasting a who’s who of the late 15^th and early 16^th centuries in its cast, and an in-game encyclopaedia on the era, it was a goldmine of information. At the outset, I could’ve told you Leonardo Da Vinci was an unmatched painter—by the end I knew about his medical pursuits, performing autopsies to understand the human body at a time when they were largely frowned upon. I had learnt about the fearless Caterina Sforza of Forli, and the long reign of the Medici family. The entire game opened up a wealth of Italian history to me I’d never even contemplated—and prompted me to seek out more information on the era.

Leonardo Da Vinci: Man of Science!

Outside of the realm of procedural rhetoric and children’s educational games, there’re a variety of videogames—usually historical—that lace in interesting lessons about the world around us. Playing through the Shadow Hearts games, set in a dark fantasy version of the 1910s, I was given brief lessons in Cyrillic, the first Sino-Japanese war, and the myths surrounding the Ars Goetia. Sengoku Basara taught me about the figures involved in Sengoku era Japan, from Masamune Date to Motochika Chosokabe. 999 taught me about Prosopagnosia, morphogenetic field theory, and the existence of the Britannic. The list goes on and on.

All of these games, rather than drawing attention to their educational content, weave it into the narrative—Sengoku Basara, for instance, is a hack-and-slash third person action game, which allows you to fight your way across Japan as dozens of different warlords. Even though the player is aware the game has greatly altered these characters from their factual counterparts, aspects of their lives come into the plot now and again and influence their fictional copies. The aforementioned Motochika, for example, was in reality a very frail and effeminate child, calling him their ‘Little Princess’. Insulted and determined to prove himself, he became a great tactician and a fearless warrior, managing to make his family proud, uniting the four separate territories of his island home Shikoku—the first in history to do so. In honour of these aspects of his character, Basara’s Motochika wears an outfit entirely composed of pink, purple, and floral fabric, befitting a classic ‘Princess’, and tries to unite different warring factions in the story. While, for gameplay’s sake, his real life could not be accurately depicted, the remainders of it produce interesting quirks in his character—and the techniques used to create him carry over to the rest of the cast. This gives Basara a hidden educational slant, wherein the game design, character design, and the gameplay all give approximations of history—whether or not you realise it, you’re learning lessons in Japanese culture as you play.

A lovely purple princess jacket to match Motochika's inexplicable neck brace

While fact checking is a must due to the fictional nature of these titles, I think they do provide examples of an unsurprising yet oft ignored concept—the concept that games, as much as books and film, can be educational without forcing their lessons down a player’s throat. Much as critics may put the medium down as a bastion of unintelligent shoot-‘em-up nonsense, there are definitely games out there that seek to teach without making their approach entirely patronizing or childish. Learning practical information doesn’t stop at Reader Rabbit and Carmen Sandiego, and doesn’t have to be as subtle as in the case of procedural rhetoric. Sometimes, there are facts simply woven into the tapestry of a game’s narrative or play—all that the player needs to do is open themselves to them, and do a little research.