Medieval games both historical and fantasy were more popular than that set in other periods?

[Arnulf Floyd]

I am a modern and postmodern eras lover since I listen to old rock music. I wonder many times since past month why people prefer so much medieval-themed games over that set in Renaissance, modern era and WWI-WWII era. I can speaks as people still glorify middle ages as age of chivalry and romance thanks to Romantics, Hollywood and games. I guess as Japanese medieval era was underused compared to Western Europe one. Also I know as EU, Vicky and HOI were popular but not as CK because of periods. I have loved so much period of two Victoria games. I wait your opinions and considerations. Sorry for my English because I am not a native speaker

 

[Graf Zeppelin]

Prefering medieval era over the Renaissance isnt a new phenomen. This is going on since the Victorian era.

 

[Henry IX]

The general population has a much less dark view of the middle ages than more recent times. The medieval period is generally associated with knights and castles, princesses and quests. It makes for good stories. The modern period has much darker associations - genocide, poison gas, bombing of cities and Nazis (who's only real benefit from a game/fiction point of view is that they make perfect villains).

The Victorian period is particularly bad, because the powerful, technologically superior Europeans imposed themselves on the formally free peoples of much of the world, which makes for a sucky story. Even within Europe the period was largely one of the powerful amassing more power, great powers that remain dominant and the poverty and oppression of much of the population. When people think medieval they think King Arthur, when people think Victorian they think Dickens.

 

[Geriander]

Pre-gunpowder weaponry is more fun in action games. The early gunpowder to 19th century era has the problem from a gameplay point of view that reloading takes too long for shooter games to be fun but charging in with a sword will still get the player shot.

This is why I don’t like the mods for Warband with guns in them.

 

[elektrizikekswerk]

I guess it depends somewhat on the genre.

Most (popular) RPG are set in medieval-esque settings. I guess one reason is that the grandfathers of that genres (D&D / DSA) did it.
As @Henry IX said: Go on the quest, kill the dragon, loot the treasure, rescue the maiden.
That makes for a great story.

Within strategy games for example there are other things to consider. While there are some very popular strategy games in a medieval-esque setting, a modern era setting is much more appealing to others. Especially WWII. Same goes for FPS. This trend continues to games set in the future. That's because there doesn't change much from a gameplay point of view. Replace bullets with laser, shells with plasma and ocean with space and you're more or less done.

The periods between medieval and modern are much more "nerdy" I would assume. And therefore there are less games set in these periods. And even fewer great games.

 

[Kovax]

Then you have players such as myself who prefer either the very early historical periods or else the mid 20th Century. I'll buy a game about ancient civilizations (Babylon, Assyria, Egypt), better yet one about tribal nomads or hunter-gatherers just on the verges of civilization, up until possibly as late as early Rome or Greece, but then I've got much less interest in the "Dark Ages" or medieval period with linear warfare and formed battle lines, and that doesn't improve in the Renaissance (pike and shot era) until late in the 19th Century when people finally began to realize that standing out in the open while people shoot at you with increasingly lethal ranged weapons isn't necessarily the smartest thing to do anymore. Then it bogs down into trench warfare, and that's not all that entertaining either. WWII finally opens up into maneuver again, although the more modern "if it's visible, it's dead" level of technology really turns warfare into something else entirely: basically reality has become the video game. A game set in some Third World situation, with low level skirmishing, and where the technology isn't overwhelming, might be fun, and I enjoyed "Jagged Alliance" back in the day. Beyond that, you're into space, and that can be good or terrible.

Of course, a good economic simulation can be interesting, but most people would find it boring.

 

[Pyoro]

I'm certainly somewhat bored with pseudo-European-medieval-feudal-fantasy. But even then it's just got a lot of things to play around with, so I can certainly see the appeal. And in its simplified forms used for those stories the "system" behind it just works smoothly - like, I don't know how many scifi stories I've read where the star nation in question was for some incomprehensible reasons a monarchy. It makes (usually) no sense. But a monarchy is easy to handle for a writer - there's that dude in charge, if he says there's war, there's war. It's personal, not abstract. You don't need to write 2000-page convoluted drama about backdoor politics and appeasing the populace and figuring out how the economy feels about it. But you can add the scheming councilors and nobles and so on as you like. And add a bit of human drama around inheritance and marriage-for-politics vs marriage-for-love and such.

So the setting basically has everything you might want ^^

The other thing is of course just classic cultural bias, and I don't particularly mean that's bad. But I found it unsurprising that Western writers go for Western history most of the time, even when it's not "actually" Western history (easily comparable to Japan where the Sengoku era is immensely popular. I mean ... why wouldn't it?).

 

[diegosimeone]

What makes me wonder is why is the fantasy setting so common in the middle ages but not so much in earlier times? We do have the mythology in antiquity, but it feels less 'realistic' than the fantasy versions of the middle ages.

Where does the fantasy theme stem from in the Middle Ages exactly and why does it feel so exclusive to that era? Was it because of the general lack of documentation?

 

[Antediluvian Monster]

The other thing is of course just classic cultural bias, and I don't particularly mean that's bad. But I found it unsurprising that Western writers go for Western history most of the time, even when it's not "actually" Western history (easily comparable to Japan where the Sengoku era is immensely popular. I mean ... why wouldn't it?)

If anything, Japanese titles in strictly historical western settings are vanishingly rare. But once you get to fantasy it tends to be contemporary or western medieval style. There are historical oriental fantasy titles in anime and games, sometimes with pretty elaborate setting building to boot (e.g. The Twelve Kingdoms, which was based on regular "non-light" novel series), but for each one like that there is probably a dozen titles set in generic JRPG influenced western style fantasy.

Random thoughts:

It's somewhat difficult to establish boundary between "historical" and "fantasy" in anime and games, since even the more historical titles (without obvious magic or fantastic creatures) tend to include fantasy-like cinematic elements, e.g. supernatural swordfighting skills.

Oriental fantasy might be somewhat more common in titles made by or for women? Gaming influence more prevalent with males?

Japanese are much more loose with their definition of medieval. Particular highlight is how 18th-19th century style costume makes regular appearance in otherwise medieval themed titles.

Where does the fantasy theme stem from in the Middle Ages exactly and why does it feel so exclusive to that era? Was it because of the general lack of documentation?

Tolkien. And others, like early Moorcock. And the RPG guys who were fans and helped to codify the generic fantasy conventions in '70s and '80s, which were then picked up wholesale by the early gaming industry.

 

[Pyoro]

It's somewhat difficult to establish boundary between "historical" and "fantasy"

Where we draw the lines just generally is probably another part of why we get the "fantasy = medieval" impression. Because quite often other forms of fantasy we just don't count. Like, if someone asks what your favorite fantasy novel is, you're going to say something like WoT or LotR or Discworld or whatever. If you say, "oh, sure, Hard-boiled Wonderland!" people will look at you oddly and say, no, that's magical realism or surrealism or whatever. "That's not the fantasy we talk about here!" But, I mean. It's some dude (of sorts) ending up (of sorts) in a made-up world (of sorts) through (when it comes down to it) magic. How's that technically different from Narnia, Harry Potter or Twelve Kingdoms?

So if by genre-definition you basically exclude non-Tolkien-esque fantasy then it's no surprise that the genre is overwhelmingly Tolkien-esque. It doesn't explain all of it of course and why it needs to be medieval-inspired specifically but I do think it plays part of the role when it comes to genre perceptions. Like every contemporary-inspired fantasy is basically automatically seen as urban fantasy these days. It wouldn't "count" as traditional fantasy. So that's one huge chunk of fiction cut off from the genre. ^^

 

[diegosimeone]

Tolkien. And others, like early Moorcock. And the RPG guys who were fans and helped to codify the generic fantasy conventions in '70s and '80s, which were then picked up wholesale by the early gaming industry.

I'm not referring only to the gaming industry.

For example Camelot is another one. With Merlin and dragons involved.

It's always a knight and a dragon. Why that and not a hoplite and a dragon? It stems from somewhere and this is what I was wondering about.

Maybe through Irish mythology where these fantasy creatures thrive? But it's not like Greek, Norse or Mesopotamian mythology lack of fantasy creatures.

Or is it due to Christianity?

 

[Sabotage13]

Escapism and anti-modern romanticism, basically.

 

[Geriander]

I'm not referring only to the gaming industry.

For example Camelot is another one. With Merlin and dragons involved.

It's always a knight and a dragon. Why that and not a hoplite and a dragon? It stems from somewhere and this is what I was wondering about.

Maybe through Irish mythology where these fantasy creatures thrive? But it's not like Greek, Norse or Mesopotamian mythology lack of fantasy creatures.

Or is it due to Christianity?

I would guess that its due to the middle ages being the more recent "heroic age" in the, predominantly Anglo-Saxon, culture that gave birth to the modern fantasy genre and still dominates the gaming industry in the West. Greek and Norse mythology do have a large impact on the fantasy genre though.

Escapism and anti-modern romanticism, basically.

Modern settings are still very common in games. "Escapism and anti-modern romanticism" doesnt explain why game designers choose that spcific period to escape to.

 

[Ming]

I'm not referring only to the gaming industry.

For example Camelot is another one. With Merlin and dragons involved.

It's always a knight and a dragon. Why that and not a hoplite and a dragon? It stems from somewhere and this is what I was wondering about.

Maybe through Irish mythology where these fantasy creatures thrive? But it's not like Greek, Norse or Mesopotamian mythology lack of fantasy creatures.

Or is it due to Christianity?

In this specific case it stems from a particular Christian legend popularized during the medieval period, and as Geriander says, the Middle Ages being the most recent heroic age in western menory.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saint_George_and_the_Dragon

 

[Abdul Goatherd]

Prefering medieval era over the Renaissance isnt a new phenomen. This is going on since the Victorian era.

You mean since the Elizabethan era.

 

[Graf Zeppelin]

You mean since the Elizabethan era.

Well there has always been some nostalgia of the past. The Franks had Roman Empire nostalgia. Heck they even considered themself to be the Roman Empire.

That said the medieval nostalgia really took of in the Victorian era when city walls been restored and medieval literature hit the shelves. Arguably a bit earlier with books like Ivanhoe.

 

[Abdul Goatherd]

I'm not referring only to the gaming industry.

For example Camelot is another one. With Merlin and dragons involved.

It's always a knight and a dragon. Why that and not a hoplite and a dragon? It stems from somewhere and this is what I was wondering about.

Maybe through Irish mythology where these fantasy creatures thrive? But it's not like Greek, Norse or Mesopotamian mythology lack of fantasy creatures.

Or is it due to Christianity?

First, hoplites aren't heroic. They are rank-and-file spearmen. Even the ancient Greeks constructed their tales around non-hoplites, i.e. individualistic nobles riding around on chariots.

That said, Graeco-Roman legends were an enormous source of art - especially during the Renaissance and the Romantic era (1790s-1830s). It wasn't overlooked - on the contrary, Western culture was over-saturated with it.

But if you ask why Medievalism, then the answer is straightforward: romantic love.

Medievalism depends greatly on two cycles of chivalric legends - the Arthurian and the Carolingian. These were the main source material for Medieval Anglo-French troubadors, and as a result ended up infused with love stories.

This is something you won't find in other sources. Neither Biblical nor Graeco-Roman legends have alluring love stories. The few women they have - Delilah, Jezabel, Salome, Helen, etc. - are awful persons.

But the Arthurian and Carolingian cycles are chock full of romantic material.

Now, the reason we end up dominated by Anglo-French legends is not merely cultural imperialism. Other countries, e.g. Italians and Spaniards, had their own Medieval legends, often set in the Crusades or Reconquista. There's some really nice stuff here, like Torquato Tasso's "Gerusalemme Liberata" or the beautiful Spanish ballad of "Abenamar". But fighting Moors in battles is too general and, given on-going wars, too real - not so much room for individual feats nor mythical fantasy. If you tried going the individualistic route, you end up with heroes on both sides, and cross-religious love - the stock character being the "Moorish princess" - which was frowned upon by Church & State. And you have to be very careful in how you deploy Christian lore in any literary setting - magic is tolerable as a literary device, but if you dare bring in Christ, Saints, miracles, or any bishops and priests into your romance, you are then stepping into the Church's monopoly of interpretation and you must be very careful. Or put another way, the Crusades & Reconquista stories were "too real" for comfort.

The Arthurian & Caroligian cycles were safely obscure. You are not fighting any enemy in particular. In both cycles, you have a Medieval king sending out his knights on specific individual quests, not submerging them in grand battles. You have ample space for individual feats of chivalry and damsels in distress, without crossing any sensitive lines of religion or politics. Christianity is safely side-stepped or goes almost entirely unmentioned, allowing you to insert fantasy beasts, sorcerers and magical spells at will. So, even the Spaniards and Italians during the Renaissance embraced the Anglo-French stories for themselves. Perhaps the greatest of Carolingian epics - Boiardo's Orlando Innamorato and Ariosto's Orlando Furioso - were written by Italians.

 

[Abdul Goatherd]

Well there has always been some nostalgia of the past. The Franks had Roman Empire nostalgia. Heck they even considered themself to be the Roman Empire.

That said the medieval nostalgia really took of in the Victorian era when city walls been restored and medieval literature hit the shelves. Arguably a bit earlier with books like Ivanhoe.

Don Quixote is all about mocking Medieval nostalgia for good reason - the Arthurian & Carolingian chivalric literature were at the height of popularity in the 16th C. The catalog of Don Quixote's library was real.

Later bursts & re-bursts were never as dominant. Scott's Ivanhoe was popular, but not nearly as popular as his Waverly novels set in the modern Highlands. Weimar classicism far outshone their medievalist experiments. The Victorian Medievalists was never more than a small oddball community.

 

[diegosimeone]

Medievalism depends greatly on two cycles of chivalric legends - the Arthurian and the Carolingian. These were the main source material for Medieval Anglo-French troubadors, and as a result ended up infused with love stories.

This is something you won't find in other sources. Neither Biblical nor Graeco-Roman legends have alluring love stories. The few women they have - Delilah, Jezabel, Salome, Helen, etc. - are awful persons.

But the Arthurian and Carolingian cycles are chock full of romantic material.

First of all, no need to lump Roman stories with the older Greek ones. Virgil for example isn't Homer's pupil so his view on the Homer tales is something completely different.
Stories such as Dido and others of course may be lumped into a 'Greco-Roman' context, but not all of them.

And how is Helen an awful person? She's barely even mentioned, there's not even a description of her (for some odd reason she's depicted as a blonde but Homer leaves her undescribed because she's left to the imagination of the reader/listener to have a description of "the most beautiful woman") other than her love for Paris and her regret for abandoning her husband which she later reunites with upon Paris' death.

Then we have to define what 'alluring' means? Alluring to whom? Because that's rather subjective, no?

The Greeks also have the story of Orpheas, who is quite possibly the most romantic tale of them all with Euridiki. Pure love, no wars and bloodshed for a love of a woman.

An even more ancient tale was Eros (Love) and Psyche (Soul), which imo should be considered the greatest love story of all time but it's not even half known around the world. It's very underrated and lesser known in Greece too.

Another epic one is Jason and Medea. Perseas and Andromeda is a symbolic one.
Another would be Leandros and Ero, which I think was also highly rated by the Romans.

There are also other rather weird ones, but they fall into this 'magical' realm. Alfios and Arethousa for example. End of the story is something like she became a fountain and he couldn't bear away from her so he became a river that connects with her etc.

And there's possibly several other 'big' ones at some point or more regional ones that got lost in time.

I think the biggest difference in the ones you mentioned is their randomness. As you say, they are 'safely obscure'. They have no geographical context and no historical context. Whereas in the Greek ones (and the Roman ones later on), they are more literal in the sense that they want to show attachment to something. Be it a historical situation, a real life person that lived, a heroic tale (see Heracles and Dionysus), a religious/mythological affair and so on.

So essentially you are describing the birth of popular novel literature as we know it. We have evidence of ancient novels, but we do not know of them as some sort of epic literature that influenced people and had its popularity survive through time. I'm not even sure how many romantic novels still exist in Greek or Latin from antiquity, but it's not something you stumble upon.
But for many the legend of Arthur is something like early English mythology, the death of ancient Britain and the birth of England and so on. It also has this mythological allure, it's not just a fiction novel and it's not even a novel as you could find a bunch of variable versions. Though I'm guessing that by Arthurian legends you are referring to legends that were referring to this period of time more than the actual Arthur legend of course.

So back to the question.

Why always a dragon? Christianity? Or were dragons popular in the folklore of that region for centuries?

I'm not agreeing that the Medieval era has much to do with 'romantic love' as I think it has more to do with the closeness of origin in terms of the timeline. It was the closest 'previous era' available and it was rather undocumented so it was easy to create random stories and people probably wanted more of that. And they were also situated in proximity of those who had written them. How many stories from then were written about people in India, Persia, Eurasia, Greece or Africa? My guess would be zero and if I were betting I'd say it's definitely less than 5 in total.

 

[Abdul Goatherd]

And how is Helen an awful person? She's barely even mentioned, there's not even a description of her (for some odd reason she's depicted as a blonde but Homer leaves her undescribed because she's left to the imagination of the reader/listener to have a description of "the most beautiful woman") other than her love for Paris and her regret for abandoning her husband which she later reunites with upon Paris' death.

She dumped her (admittedly imperfect) husband for an unheroic idiot. Nobody is cheering for Paris & Helen.

Then we have to define what 'alluring' means? Alluring to whom? Because that's rather subjective, no?

Alluring to readers - esp. women, top consumers and sponsors of romantic literature.

The Greeks also have the story of Orpheas, who is quite possibly the most romantic tale of them all with Euridiki. Pure love, no wars and bloodshed for a love of a woman.

Boring and conventional. Achilles & Patroclus were a hotter item.

An even more ancient tale was Eros (Love) and Psyche (Soul), which imo should be considered the greatest love story of all time but it's not even half known around the world. It's very underrated and lesser known in Greece too.

That's not even a good story, just a lot of allegory. At any rate, overdone.

Another epic one is Jason and Medea. Perseas and Andromeda is a symbolic one.

Not ignored - used aplenty. But still rather standard fare for founding myths. Not romantic.

Surprised you did not mention Daphnis & Chloe. That's probably the most romantic story from antiquity.

I think the biggest difference in the ones you mentioned is their randomness. As you say, they are 'safely obscure'. They have no geographical context and no historical context. Whereas in the Greek ones (and the Roman ones later on), they are more literal in the sense that they want to show attachment to something. Be it a historical situation, a real life person that lived, a heroic tale (see Heracles and Dionysus), a religious/mythological affair and so on.

Well, they do have a historical context - Arthur is king of the Britons, and Charlemagne the king of the Franks. They are obscure in the sense that they are unrelated to contemporary settings. There is no political or religious implications from these stories. Merlin is not a stand-in for the Pope, a wicked king is just a wicked king, not Charles or Louis.

Graeco-Roman myths are just as disconnected. And they were also used as "safe" source material. But for mock epics, not romance.

So essentially you are describing the birth of popular novel literature as we know it. We have evidence of ancient novels, but we do not know of them as some sort of epic literature that influenced people and had its popularity survive through time. I'm not even sure how many romantic novels still exist in Greek or Latin from antiquity, but it's not something you stumble upon.

Well, the aforementioned Daphnis & Chloe would be an example.

But for many the legend of Arthur is something like early English mythology, the death of ancient Britain and the birth of England and so on. It also has this mythological allure, it's not just a fiction novel and it's not even a novel as you could find a bunch of variable versions. Though I'm guessing that by Arthurian legends you are referring to legends that were referring to this period of time more than the actual Arthur legend of course.

I am actually referring to the Arthur legend. Arthur, Guinivere, Merlin, the knights of the round table, Lancelot, Gawain, Tristan, etc. Those specific characters. While explicitly English in origin, it was not parochial in extent. Indeed, the set of Arthurian tales was built up mostly in French courts, by French poets. The vague tales of some obscure Romano-British king across the channel was imported into France by the Normans, woven into romantic fabric by Languedoc troubadors in the court of Eleanor of Aquitaine in the 12th C., and then re-exported back to England. They went on to be exported to other countries (Italy, Spain, etc.), brought by Anglo-French princesses who grew up on this stuff and introduced them into the foreign courts of their husbands. Arthurian legends became a continent-wide phenomenon.

My original point is that these "imported" stories were more romantic (& "safer") than existing local material, and so supplanted it. It became a new style and theme.

Thereafter plenty of continental writers set about writing outright Arthurian or post-Arthurian material, much of it weirdly set in England (a "kingdom far away"). The Carolingian cycle picked up later, during the Renaissance, primarily in Italy, in imitation of the Arthurian cycle, with Charlemagne and his seven paladins replacing Arthur and his round table.

So the Arthurian legends, built up in 12th C. France, is the source of this entire tradition. Why? Because that's simply what happened.