Frihet, lekfullhet och berättarskap : Historiebruk och meningsskapande i det historiska dataspeletAssassin’s Creed: Unity

Sammanfattning: This essay explores the usage of history in the historical video game Assassin’s Creed: Unity. Taking a theoretical approach from Nordgren, Karlsson and Lands-bergs theories on historical consciousness, historical meaning and the usage of history, the game is analysed from the perspective of the content creator. The es-say looks at the perspective of the gamer, through Chapmans theory of reading and doing as a basis for interaction within the game world. The results show that Assassin's Creed: Unity’s narration contains messages that can be linked to ge-netic functions that intend to link the past, through development, to the present and vice versa. The usage of history in Assassin's Creed: Unity can be seen as mostly scientific and it usually comes from what Bordwell calls an explicit level. This in the sense that the historical content of the gaming world and the elements based on real historical events are clearly presented by the game developer with the aim of offering players, with a need to learn about the French revolution, fac-tual knowledge. In other words, the game assumes the role of a kind of teacher and the player can choose to absorb this content or ignore it to focus only on the game’s ludicrous aspects and drama of the game's action. Reading and doing cre-ates a sense of empathy in the gaming world. It invites the player to take part in a kind of museum visit where one can, based on the rules of the game and an inher-ent randomness in the gaming world, create one’s own historical narrative and through this, make sense of the historical content of game world. However, this el-ement is partially destroyed by a constantly recurring element of violence.