Jane Draycott - Women in Classical Video Games

Imagines Classical Receptions in the Visual and Performing Arts

Series Editors:Filippo Carl-Uhink and Martin Lindner

Other titles in this series

Ancient Greece and Rome in Videogames: Representation, Play, Transmedia

by Ross Clare

Ancient Violence in the Modern Imagination: The Fear and the Fury

edited by Irene Berti, Maria G. Castello and Carla Scilabra

Art Nouveau and the Classical Tradition

by Richard Warren

Classical Antiquity in Heavy Metal Music

edited by K. F. B. Fletcher and Osman Umurhan

Classical Antiquity in Video Games

edited by Christian Rollinger

Geographies of Myth and Places of Identity: The Strait of Scylla and Charybdis in the Modern Imagination

by Marco Benot Carbone

A Homeric Catalogue of Shapes

by Charlayn von Solms

Orientalism and the Reception of Powerful Women from the Ancient World

edited by Filippo Carl-Uhink and Anja Wieber

Representations of Classical Greece in Theme Parks

by Filippo Carl-Uhink

Screening Love and War in Troy: Fall of a City

edited by Antony Augoustakis and Monica S. Cyrino

The Ancient Mediterranean Sea in Modern Visual and Performing Arts

edited by Rosario Rovira Guardiola

The Smells and Senses of Antiquity in the Modern Imagination

edited by Adeline Grand-Clment and Charlotte Ribeyrol

Screenshot from A Total War Saga: Troy showing Penthesileas Amazon faction on the game-loading screen

Screenshot of Princess Athena as a new game begins in Athena (1986)

Asamiyas Neo Max move in King of Fighters XIII (2010)

Yearly breakdown of (a) Video game titles indicating historicity issues, and (b) Details of the portrayal of women

In a beguiling illusion, Kratos is nearly seduced and entrapped by the Furies

Nikandreos confrontation of Ophion the Tyrant

Screenshot from God of War II

Screenshot from Kid Icarus: Uprising

Hera (r.) offers to help Nikandreos (l.) (2015). Alientrap Games Inc.

Artemis (r.) hunts Nikandreos as a vulnerable stag (l.) (2015). Alientrap Games Inc.

Female characters from RotA (l.r.: Alceme, Atalanta, Medea, Medusa). Liquid Entertainment. Codemasters

Male characters from RotA (l.r.: Jason, Hercules, Argos, Pan, Achilles). Liquid Entertainment. Codemasters

Eurydice and Orpheus from Supergiants Hades, 2018. Art by Jen Zee. Courtesy of Supergiant Games, LLC

Screenshot from God of War III. Image courtesy of Olivia Ciaccia

Screenshot from God of War III. Image courtesy of Olivia Ciaccia

Screenshot from Assassins Creed: Origins

Screenshot from Assassins Creed: Origins

An initial meeting with Dido in Civilization VI

The first appearance of the titular character in Salammb: Battle for Carthage

Combat sequence from the Launch Trailer for Assassins Creed: Odyssey Ubisoft Quebec/Ubisoft, 2018. Here, Leonidas is fighting the Persians while Myrrine draws comparisons between Leonidas and Alexios

Opening sequence from the Power of Choice trailer for Assassins Creed: Odyssey Ubisoft Quebec/Ubisoft, 2018. Note the contrast from the aesthetics of the launch trailer

Purchasing outfits or additional scenes. Screenshot from Choices: A Courtesan of Rome

The freedom of a courtesan? Screenshot from Choices: A Courtesan of Rome

List of variables used for the summary quantitative analysis

Video game development information

Statistics of character gender identities in first hour of play

Statistics of English voice cast credits

Table of NPCs by location found

Table of NPCs by function

Katherine Beydler is Assistant Director at the University of Iowa Center for Teaching and Lecturer in Classics at Cornell College, USA. She holds a PhD in Classical Studies and MA in Classical Archaeology from the University of Michigan. Her research interests include ancient agriculture and medicine and pedagogical methods in Classics, particularly assessment and course design.

Dr Hannah-Marie Chidwick is Lecturer in Classics and Ancient History at the University of Bristol, UK. Her research interest is war. She works across Roman history and literature, and also War Studies, exploring different methodological approaches to narratives of war and violence. Her interdisciplinary work also informs outreach projects designed to enrich the way in which ancient warfare is studied in higher and further education. She is currently developing her PhD thesis on Lucans Civil War for publication, and is editing a collected volume, The Body of the Combatant in the Ancient Mediterranean.

Olivia Ciaccia is a doctoral candidate at the University of Bristol, UK, researching how British and American Goddess Spirituality revives ancient Mediterranean and Egyptian goddesses in the twenty-first century. She has Bachelors and Masters degrees in Egyptology from Swansea University and has a forthcoming article for the Pomegranate: International Journal of Pagan Studies, entitled: Seeking Sekhmet: The Veneration of Sekhmet Statues in Contemporary Museums.

Richard Cole is Research Associate in Ancient Greek History and Virtual Reality at the University of Bristol, UK. His published work includes the chapter, Unboxing AGE OF EMPIRES: Paratexts and the Experience of Historical Strategy Games (2021) for Paratextualizing Games: Investigations on the Paraphernalia and Peripheries of Play, edited by G. S. Freyermuth, B. Beil and H. C. Schmidt, the specialist feature Time Loops and Ethics in the Total War Series (2021) for the Historical Games Network, and the article Breaking the Frame in Historical Fiction (2020) for the journal Rethinking History.

Kate Cook is (at the time of writing) Teaching Fellow in Classics at Durham University, UK. Her research interests include gender and language in Greek tragedy, and the reception of ancient women. She has forthcoming works on Praise and Blame in Greek Tragedy and Women in Greek Tragedy, and has published chapters in Ancient Memory (2021) and Women and Objects (2022). She has been a regular guest on the History Respawned podcast to discuss the reception of the Greek world and its myths in video games.

Jane Draycott is a Roman historian and archaeologist. She investigates science, technology and medicine in the ancient world, and is particularly interested in the history and archaeology of medicine; impairment, disability and prostheses; and botany and horticulture. Recently, she has begun exploring the use (and abuse) of history and archaeology in video games, particularly those set in classical antiquity. She is currently Lecturer in Ancient History at the University of Glasgow and Co-Director of the University of Glasgows Games and Gaming Lab. She has discussed aspects of her research on television, in vidcasts and in podcasts.

Andrew Dufton is an Assistant Professor of Archaeology at Dickinson College, USA. He received his PhD in Archaeology and the Ancient World from the Joukowsky Institute at Brown University, Providence, Rhode Island, USA. His research asks questions of how cities ancient and modern shape the daily experiences of their inhabitants, with a particular focus on the long-term dynamics of urban change in North Africa. He also considers the reception of North African antiquity in the politics and pop culture of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. Recent publications include, The Architectural and Social Dynamics of Gentrification in Roman North Africa in the