Why aren't there any games in the Dark Ages?

Why haven’t there been any games about the dark ages? Yes, I know, the obvious problem of them being, well, the dark ages. The times we don’t know too much about (we’re in the dark.) But seriously, games generally go through the Egyptian period (forgetting the other great empires like the Persian empire around at that time) the Greek/classical period, the Roman empire… and then there’s a gap. There’s a wealth of medieval/medieval-style games around, considerably less games detailing the 15th and 16th centuries, another wealth of 17th century games, usually centred around the sea-faring era, practically silence on the first world war (not to mention the total absence of games about other great conflicts of the time) and then an absolute raft of games about the 2nd world war… and after that we have the Call of Duty games, and that’s about it for the modern period.

Having summarised the history of history-driven gaming, the question bugs me; why no games about the dark ages? We do actually know quite a bit about them now. The reign of Charlamagne, the Viking invasions, the formation of France, the rise and fall of the kingdom of the Lombards (Italy, they fell foul of Charlamagne), and the fall of the Holy Land to the armies of Mohammed. (Now THAT’S a conflict I’d like to play. Oh, and the rise of the Seljuk Turks as well.)

Out of all those exciting eras, I would’ve thought more titles would have sprung up. True we have a few strategy games regarding the period, but that’s it and they are just that; a few titles. I want to play a brave Anglo-Saxon warrior fighting off the Danes, damn it! Or a Dane raiding Anglo-saxons. :P

edited 22nd Jun '11 11:19:46 AM by GameChainsaw

Reality Is Unrealistic.

People'd complain "Wtf where's my inquisition" and stuff. There's plenty of medieval games with Dark Age technology (and even then I hate that term really)

The first part of Vampire The Masquerade Redemption is in the dark ages. The first Assassin's Creed is set smack in the middle of the Crusades, which is sort of towards the end of the Dark Ages.

As to why there aren't more games written around those times, probably because there's nothing "exciting" enough to grab people's attention to them?

Erm, the third Crusade is definetly High Medieval.

Also, there're some historians that avoid classifying that period entirely.

For example, history of literature. According to it, St. Augustine's Confessions (amazing book, read it sometime) is the first example of medieval literature as well as last example of antique literature. So there's no Dark Age, medieval follows up immediately.

Perhaps "early Medieval" is a better way to describe it.

No one even really knows what medieval is.

How do you define the early medieval? Like, Joanne d'Arc?

edited 22nd Jun '11 12:28:51 PM by Aminatep

Age Of Empires 2 took place in the Dark Ages; at least partially anyway.

I doubt strategy games even count. Because there's Total War series, Europa Universalis, etc

Its sort of vague, especially as we now know a fair bit about the "dark" ages. Also, Europa Universalis is set in the late medieval era (at the start) while Total War (Medieval) is set just after 1066, which I always thought of as being the cut off point between Dark Age Britain and Early Medieval Britain. Its that sort of era I'm thinking of. Of course, thats just Britain. Admittedly dark ages is really vague, its more like... well, most games do tend to start after 1066. Having a game designed around the timeframe of 476-1066 would be cool. Or games within that time period.

edited 22nd Jun '11 3:39:12 PM by GameChainsaw

How complete is our knowledge about that period? If there's too much missing info (or too much info that devs can't get without a lot of effort) the game might turn into an Anachronism Stew like... well... most other medieval games out there.

Unfortunately I'm not a historian and the areas I've studied casually mostly centre around Medieval Europe.

Horrifyingly incomplete in a lot of ways, but complete enough to reconstruct daily life (and warfare, which is important for a game) with a fair degree of accuracy. The worst gaps are in literature: very little's survived by comparison with the High Medieval and Classical periods, so we don't know as much about the time's taste or philosophy. It's a little light in archeological evidence, too, but enough has survived to paint an only somewhat blurry picture of how clothing, ornament, and arms looked at the time, along with most of the technology you'd encounter on a regular basis.

The best resource left from the perspective of developing a game setting might be the Icelandic sagas. While all surviving copies were written down well into the high Middle Ages, they describe events in the ninth and tenth centuries and are considered to be relatively uncorrupted; they're also a lot more grounded than a lot of similarly old literature, describing episodes in the lives of people that could probably be called upper middle class by the standards of the time. There is still the odd bit of supernatural weirdness floating around, but from a game-development perspective that's not really a bad thing.

I just realized that the OP mentioned wanting a game about the first Islamic conquest. To get it out of the way, that isn't likely to happen any time soon because it would cause a ton of backdraft both on and off the Internet. Also, the main characters would have to be omitted for the same reasons.

The Witcher kinda takes place in The Dung Ages but with a fantasy twist.

This is even more of a shame, considering what we can draw on concerning the fighting styles of the era.

Any games?

What about Dark Age of Camelot??

But honestly, most games ARE historically inaccurate anyway, so what's the point? More errors and mistakes?

Swords are for infantry. Infantry is inferior. I'd pick a saber any day thank you.

Even though I've seen this thread like ten times and read through it, I keep reading the thread title as "why weren't there any games in the Dark Ages?"

Silly troper, of course there were.

Whack-a-Moor, for one, was a very popular pastime.

In historical context, most of Liechtenauer's students (and the students of the masters in that line of martial descent) would primarily be lance cavalry anyway. The page above only refers to the sword-fighting aspect of the martial art, when the martial art itself drew small distinction between unarmed, sword, spear, dagger and mounted combat.

Besides, saber cavalry wouldn't be very effective against plate-armoured knights on foot, anyway... not to mention the limitations of a one-handed curved sword like a saber in any case. It excelled at its role as a cavalryman's sword, but it didn't have the outstanding versatility of a two-handed longsword. No close combat weapon since really has.

In any case, those two types of sword are hundreds of years apart and very different for good reason.

Not only hundreds of years apart, the most important part is geographical distance.

Not every country had a climate good enough so that their armour of choice wouldn't instantly rust. Even then, was never a big fan of plate armour myself, since it didn't have that much effectiveness in actual large scale combat if you think about it long enough - one of the best achievements of armour engineering is still chainmail textile.

edited 23rd Jun '11 12:28:41 AM by Aminatep

Well, mobility wasn't an issue. The only thing I can think of is visibility under that helmet.

Lack of mobility is very easily exploited, as demonstrated by Teutonian knights and Russian chainmail cavalry militia.

What I meant to say is "plate armour didn't cause the lack of mobility a lot of people think it did". Since most plate-armoured warriors were cavalry in any case, and even on foot the weight is evenly distributed and the joints are extremely well-designed.