Video Game / History Channel Civil War Games

aka: History Civil War Games

From 2003 to 2008, The History Channel had published video games that took place in The American Civil War. It spanned from Real-Time Strategy games to First-Person Shooters. They were primarily developed by Cat Daddy Games, Mad Minute Games and Cauldron, and was produced by Activision.

Although receiving mixed to poor reviews during their launch due to poor graphics and gameplay, the games have become a landmark in historical video games for their well-researched and innovative use of the American Civil War setting, in a time when most historical games either used a World War II or contemporary setting. The game series is accompanied by other Civil War products produced and distributed by the History Channel.

The series overall took place in the aforementioned American Civil War, a conflict spurned by the debate of whether or not slavery should continue to exist and expand in the United States. Several states, mostly those in the South where slavery has been integral to their economy and culture, seceded from the country, resulting in a war that took the lives of thousands of people. Each game places the players in the shoes of either a general or a common soldier fighting in the civil war, depending on the game. The setting of each game and its mission were created to give an authentic feel of the time period, from the environment, diction, as well as the firearms and technology. There isn’t much of a story in the series, although there are briefings before every mission, as well as cinematic cutscenes, that present the mission's stakes and objectives. Several named silent protagonists are playable in the first-person shooter games.

The games of the series are:

• The History Channel’s Civil War: The Game - Great Battles - The first game in the series released in 2003. It is one of the earliest turn-based and real-time strategy games of the era to use 3D models.
• The History Channel - Civil War: The Battle of Bull Run - Take Command: 1861 - Another real-time strategy game released in 2005 created by Mad Minute Games and is also part of the Take Command series.
• History Channel’s Civil War: A Nation Divided - A first-person shooter. Although not the first shooter game that takes place in the Civil War (it was the movie tie-in game Gods and Generals) it was the first to showcase that it was possible to create a fun playable action game set in the Civil War.
• History Civil War: Secret Missions - The sequel to A Nation Divided, showcasing better graphics, sound, and improved gameplay.

For more information on the series, there is a dedicated wikia site.

This game series includes examples of:

• Action Hero: The protagonists of the first-person shooter games, especially in missions such as “The Great Train Raid of 1862” from Secret Missions that depicts the player character going against a whole army by himself.
• Actionized Sequel: Early games in the series focus on realistic portrayal and strategy concerning the Civil War, sometimes even bordering on tragedy of the costs of war. The last game in the entry played it differently by being a more explosive and adrenaline-fueled shooter, with faster regenerating health, the ability to spam grenades, and faster-firing guns, obviously inspired by the shooters that were being released at that time (particularly 2008). It even has a gunship mission like in Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare where, instead of an AC-130, the player is riding inside an ironclad warship.
• Alternate History: Since the strategy games have players leading Confederate troops to victory, with some like Take Command: 1861 taking place in a battle that actually happened in the Civil War, one can assume or imagine that these victories showcased turning points that may lead to the Confederates becoming victorious in the whole war.
  • Lampshaded further in Take Command: 1861 where there is a mission where players control General Irvin Mcdowell and his army, and wins the Battle of Bull Run. In reality, Mcdowell actually lost the battle, and may or may not have been the cause why the Civil War lasted for so long.
• Antiquated Linguistics: Diary pages of the protagonists of A Nation Divided contain a lot of words and phrases that are seldom used in common basic English. The first-person shooter games also has the player’s squadmates yelling old-fashioned battle cries and even insults.
  Sgt. Mckinley: Hooray! Hooray!
• Apocalyptic Log: Every entry made by the protagonists of each mission in A Nation Divided might just turn up as one, especially since many of these log entries were written in the early stages of the war AND were already horrible to behold. God knows if any of these people survived until the end of the war.
• Acceptable Break from Reality: To make the games more fun, the developers have to make a few adjustments on the weapons, most notably on power and reload time.
• A Commander Is You: Whenever you are playing the strategy games.
• Bloodless Carnage: Even though the series takes place in the American Civil War, arguably the bloodiest conflict in American history, there is little to no blood and gore, even in the shooters. This is probably because, although they are war games, they are still edutainment products published by the History Channel.
• Blown Across the Room: Both the strategy games and shooters humorously portray the destructive powers of cannons and explosives. This is made even more evident in Secret Missions where the game engine takes full use of ragdoll physics.
• Bottomless Magazines: Heavy weapons like cannons and gatling guns have unlimited ammo.
• Cold Sniper: Sharpshooters in the shooter games, especially the playable ones, are silent.
• Most Writers Are Writers: Many of the protagonists seemed to be this based on the colorful language they use in their diaries.
  • In the mission selection screen of Take Command: 1861, there are excerpts of diaries from the commanders the players will be controlling that can be read.
  • Similar to Call of Duty 2, the loading screen for every mission of A Nation Divided shows diary pages of the protagonists. These pages contain mission briefings as well as their perception of these missions, either they be positive or negative.
  • The only named protagonist of Secret Missions, Edward “Eric” Hogger, aspires to become a writer before the Civil War. The back-up short story of the game details possibly a page from Eric’s diary.
• Pinned Down: Seen in many of the games. Strategy games often has the player making their troops hold their ground in a defensive position against the enemy — the latter sometimes being larger than the former. Same with the shooters. The first mission of Secret Missions has the player and his two squadmates fighting for their lives while pinned down by the Army of the Potomac with cannons. They have to hold out until reinforcements arrive.
• Pyrrhic Victory: Every game ends with the player victorious… but with heavy costs and casualties. Lampshaded further in the shooters, where every battle ends with towns and cities being destroyed and becoming uninhabitable, and a countryside filled with broken trees and bodies of the dead.
• Ranger: Many of these games have the player controlling rangers and scouts and taking part in covert operations, mostly as members of small irregular units.
• Take Cover!: Since many of the firearms at that time were slow and inaccurate, players often have to use cover, although there is no cover system in the game.
• Trope Codifier: The series has been a poster boy and mascot of games taking place in the American Civil War. Although they weren’t the first, they were some, if not the most, recognisable examples. Both Gamerant and What Culture think so too.
  • One could also say that the FPS games of the series pioneered historical shooters that takes place in other eras besides WWII, Vietnam War, and the War Against Terrorism. Although historical first-person shooters did exist before the series like Gods and Generals (taking place in the Civil War), Western Outlaw: Wanted Dead or Alive (taking place in the Old West), and Mob Enforcer (taking place in the Prohibition Era), these games did not attain much popularity for the subgenre. It was only after Secret Missions where the genre truly bloomed, and years later there would be first-person games about less-used and obscure historical events like World War I, the Spanish Civil War, and even the prehistoric era.
• War Is Hell: Although the series lack blood and gore, this doesn’t mean that it shies away from brutally portraying the worst conflict in US history. This is seen quite well in A Nation Divided, a game where the developers really put the effort in making the soldiers and the environment as ugly, strained, and damaged as possible.