Call for Papers:

Playing Antiquity: Video Games, Teaching and Historical Knowledge
Special issue of AI & Antiquity: Journal of Teaching and Technology in Ancient Studies
https://ai-antiquity.org/index.php/ai/cfp

Deadline for submissions: February 28, 2027

AI & Antiquity: Journal of Teaching and Technology in Ancient Studies invites contributions for its first Special Issue, Playing Antiquity: Video Games, Teaching and Historical Knowledge, to be published in June 2027.

Video games have become one of the major environments through which students and wider audiences encounter the ancient world. Yet their significance for Ancient Studies extends beyond questions of historical accuracy. Through mechanics, rules, maps, narratives, economies, political systems, and player choice, games transform particular interpretations of Antiquity into interactive and playable systems.

The Special Issue therefore seeks to explore video games from three closely connected perspectives: teaching, technology and historical knowledge, and reception. We welcome studies examining how games can be used critically in schools and universities, but also contributions asking what games themselves can tell us about the construction and transmission of knowledge about Antiquity.

What happens when the ancient world becomes playable? This Special Issue approaches video games both as teaching technologies and as cultural artefacts through which Antiquity is represented, interpreted, experienced, and debated. We are particularly interested in contributions that move beyond simple questions of historical accuracy and examine how games construct historical knowledge through interaction, simulation, narrative, and player agency.

SCOPE OF THE SPECIAL ISSUE

The issue welcomes interdisciplinary contributions from Ancient History, Classics, Archaeology, Reception Studies, Game Studies, Digital Humanities, Education, Public History, and related fields.

We are especially interested in the intersection between teaching, technology, and historical interpretation. Video games can provide powerful environments for discussing evidence, causality, historical uncertainty, political structures, warfare, economy, religion, identity, and social organisation. At the same time, they reveal how complex historical processes are translated into rules, interfaces, statistics, objectives, and systems of player choice.

Contributions may therefore examine video games as pedagogical tools, as technological forms of historical representation, or as major forms of contemporary reception of the ancient world. Studies combining these perspectives are particularly welcome.

Emerging uses of artificial intelligence in historical games and simulations are also within the scope of the Special Issue, particularly where AI affects historical representation, player interaction, procedural reconstruction, game design, or educational practice.

KEY AREAS

Teaching:

The use of video games in schools, universities, museums, outreach, and other educational environments; classroom experiences; game-based learning; historical literacy; student engagement; critical comparison between games and ancient evidence; and the opportunities and limitations of using commercial or educational games in teaching.

Technology and Historical Knowledge:

The transformation of historical processes into mechanics, interfaces, rules, simulations, maps, statistics, and systems of choice; procedural representations of politics, warfare, economy, religion, and society; historical complexity and simplification; simulation, counterfactuality, and the relationship between playability and historical interpretation.

Reception:

Video games as forms of reception of Antiquity; the representation of ancient societies, individuals, landscapes, monuments, identities, and conflicts; popular understandings of the ancient world; player communities; modding; fan cultures; and the circulation of historical ideas beyond academic contexts.

Artificial Intelligence:

The use of artificial intelligence in historical video games and simulations; generative and procedural systems; AI-driven characters and dialogue; adaptive historical environments; AI-assisted design and educational content creation; and questions of bias, accuracy, transparency, and historical interpretation in AI-generated representations of Antiquity.

TOPICS OF INTEREST

• Video games in the teaching of Ancient History, Classics, and Archaeology
• Game-based learning and classroom case studies
• Video games as forms of reception of Antiquity
• Game mechanics as interpretations of ancient societies
• Historical accuracy, authenticity, plausibility, and playability
• Historical knowledge and popular perceptions of the ancient world
• Simulation, player agency, counterfactual history, and historical causation
• Politics, warfare, economy, religion, and society as playable systems
• Representations of gender, ethnicity, identity, slavery, and social structures
• Ancient landscapes, cities, monuments, and archaeological reconstruction
• Player communities, modding, and participatory historical knowledge
• Video games, museums, public history, and outreach
• Serious games, educational games, and interactive reconstructions
• Artificial intelligence in historical video games and simulations
• Generative AI, procedural content generation, and representations of Antiquity
• AI-driven characters, dialogue, and adaptive historical environments
• AI-assisted game design, modding, and educational content creation
• Bias, accuracy, and transparency in AI-generated representations of the ancient world

GAMES AND CASE STUDIES

Contributions may address individual titles or franchises—including, but by no means limited to, Assassin’s Creed, Total War, Imperator: Rome, Imperivm, Praetorians, Age of Empires, Civilization, Ryse: Son of Rome, and Expeditions: Rome—or broader theoretical, methodological, comparative, or pedagogical questions.

The list is illustrative rather than exhaustive. Contributions dealing with mods, serious games, virtual reconstructions, interactive environments, experimental projects, AI-enhanced historical experiences, or player-created content are equally welcome.

QUESTIONS WE WANT TO EXPLORE

What happens when the ancient world becomes playable? How do games transform historical processes into systems of rules and choices? What can students learn from these systems, and how can educators encourage them to question the historical assumptions behind them?

Can a historically inaccurate game nevertheless generate meaningful historical questions? How does player agency affect understandings of causation, contingency, and historical change? What happens when political authority, military loyalty, religion, slavery, identity, or social hierarchy must be expressed through mechanics rather than through conventional historical narrative?

How might generative and adaptive AI transform historical simulation, player interaction, or educational practice? What new possibilities—and new problems—emerge when representations of Antiquity are produced dynamically rather than being entirely predetermined by designers?

We are especially interested in contributions that recognise video games not simply as containers of historical information, but as technological environments in which particular versions of the past are constructed, experienced, questioned, and reshaped.

SUBMISSION FORMATS

Alongside research articles, we welcome reflective essays, teaching reports, classroom case studies, digital project presentations, interviews, and relevant reviews of video games, books, platforms, or pedagogical resources related to gaming, technology, teaching, and the ancient world.

IMPORTANT DATES

Full paper submission deadline: Feb. 28, 2027
Publication date: June 2027

READY TO SUBMIT?

For formatting requirements, peer review policies, and ethical AI disclosure guidelines, please consult our Editorial Guidelines. We welcome contributions from historians, classicists, archaeologists, game scholars, educators, developers, digital humanists, and researchers interested in exploring how video games can help us teach, represent, question, and understand the ancient world.

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