Kate Cook and Jane Draycott
Popular works which rewrite, represent and retransmit classical material (classical receptions) may be the first and fullest impression of the ancient world many people get, particularly given the decreasing numbers of schools teaching classical subjects or languages in the United Kingdom and other Anglophone countries.1 As one of the largest media industries in the world, video games draw a particularly wide audience of players and offer them the opportunity to explore and engage with classical myths and ancient civilizations. In recent years, there has also been a notable increase in the number of classically themed video games released, some of which have been particularly high profile or award-winning.2 Yet, while video games have many benefits when it comes to introducing audiences to the ancient world, there is a particular set of questions arising in this arena when it comes to the representation of a major part of that world: women.3
In many spheres of popular culture, classical reception has served as a vehicle for the excavation and restoration of women’s voices and perspectives, particularly in recent years.4 Novels,5 plays6 and TV series7 have all centred the female experience of the ancient world or of ancient myth and literature, often to popular acclaim. Yet, this inclusive attitude has not always made its way into video gaming. Commonly, the industry itself has made video games a hostile environment to women both as individuals playing or working on games, and as characters represented within those games. At the same time, in the case of games set in the ancient world or influenced by ancient myth, a further element is added into the equation in the form of claims to historical ‘accuracy’ or ‘authenticity’, marshalled not only on the side of those who would rather see more female characters in classical video games, but also on the side of those who would prefer fewer.8 This volume sets out to explore this tension by examining the roles and representations of women in classical video games as the situation stands so far.
The video games industry is one of the fastest-growing industries in the world, in 2020 making more money than other major entertainment industries, including both the sporting and film industries.9 The recent Covid-19 pandemic has further emphasized the importance of video gaming as a social, cultural and educational tool.10 At the same time, the ‘typical’ demographic of gamers is shifting. Women make up half of all gamers, with female participation in gaming increasing with age.11 In 2021, Sony revealed that owners of PlayStation consoles had gone from 18 per cent female owners of the PlayStation 1, to 41 per cent female owners of the PlayStations 4 and 5.12 In 2019, Nintendo were already reporting a 50/50 gender split in ownership of the Switch.13 Yet, the position of women both as characters within games and as players and developers has been a topic of much discussion and considerable contention in recent years. In the years 2017–21, only 20.8 per cent of games released featured a female protagonist.14 Studies have demonstrated that female characters are similarly under-represented as secondary characters within video games.15 Even where female characters do appear within games, their portrayals are often limited to stereotypes and tropes, many of which are sexist in nature,16 as explored by the ‘Tropes vs Women in Video Games’ project by Anita Sarkeesian, which itself faced enormous amounts of resistance from ‘gamers’,17 culminating in extensive abuse being directed against Sarkeesian.18 These limitations are often connected to the problems of representation within the industry itself:19 a study at the University of Sheffield in 2019 found that 70 per cent of game developers in the UK games industry were male,20 and currently worldwide, 76 per cent of developers are male.21 Recent work has also pointed to the significant problems of sexism and harassment which serve as barriers for women entering the industry.22 Awareness of these issues, as well as the problem of representation itself, however, are clearly growing. Developers and players have talked more openly about the presentation of female characters in popular genres such as role-playing games (RPGs),23 and the Gamergate conflict and responses to it have brought issues of representation and inclusion to the forefront of gaming culture.24 In the academic field of Games Studies, the work of scholars such as Adrienne Shaw, Shira Chess and Amanda Cote is exploring sexism in the industry and its games, and arguing for ways in which a more feminist gaming practice, both by players and by developers, could be progressed.25
However, although the games industry is changing, and despite the ongoing trend towards feminist or female-positive works of classical reception, the representation of women in classical video games remains problematic. Alongside these contextual, industry-wide challenges for gender representation in video games, there is an additional tension visible when it comes to video games with historical settings, including those set in the ancient world or in Greek or Roman mythological settings.26 As with other works of reception, such as films, while some degree of accuracy or authenticity may be desirable for video games which aim at historical settings, characters or gameplay, this desire must constantly be balanced with the need to make a game which is enjoyable to play, and which develops a particular narrative.27 At the same time, the interactive aspects of the game experience mean that the player’s input often leads to games which present ‘counterfactual’ histories, or in which the player’s priority is winning the game rather than how far their own experience maps on to historical ‘facts’.28 In these contexts, players also often have their own expectations of what historical authenticity will look like, which adds an additional layer of expectation on to the game.29 These expectations often function in a way that requires a game to conform to a particular narrative of history, despite the fact that such narratives are themselves subjective, selective or partly fictional.30 In the case of classical video games, the use of mythological settings, stories and characters further muddies the waters, since audiences may expect representation of a ‘truth’ or even the ‘correct myth’ which cannot be reasonably identified, given the prevalence of different versions within extant texts, the loss of other ‘fixed’ versions which can only be inferred from references elsewhere, and the influence which popular ancient reworkings themselves had on myths and the establishment of a ‘canonical’ version.31 Developers may even promise the same, further feeding these expectations; for example, the narrative director of Ubisoft’s 2020 Immortals: Fenyx Rising described the game’s representation of mythology as ‘very, very accurate’, despite immediately acknowledging that the main story was based on the lost Titanomachy, thus on a poem which the developers and audiences could not be using to make decisions about accuracy.32
The introduction of Amazons into A Total War Saga: Troy as the first downloadable content (DLC) for the game in 2020 presents a telling example of how these expectations may impact upon the representation of women, even when it is a positive desire on the part of game developers.
The announcement that Amazons were joining the game was met with dismay and outrage from some players. A Total War Saga: Troy is based on the story of the Trojan War from Greek Epic, and so the mix of mythical and historical elements was already a challenge, with the designers deciding to ‘rationalise’ some elements such as mythical units (who become primarily humans with particular skills and costume) and the gods (who do not appear as characters, but can give bonuses in exchange for religious rituals).33 Yet, although the game aims towards some of these rationalizing or euhemeristic elements, it is not set in a realistic historical period (unlike other games in the series, such as Rome: Total War, 2004, or Napoleon: Total War, 2010), and, in particular, the Homeric and thus poetic influences on the game are made explicit throughout. The tutorial narrator and narrator for the setup of each faction within the game is Homer ‘himself’,34 and quotes from the Iliad appear on loading scenes throughout the game. This epic setting makes the introduction of Amazons, particularly those led by Penthesilea (seen here in Figure 0.1),35 entirely apt; Amazons are referred to in the Iliad itself (2.814, 3.189, 6.186),36 and the arrival of Penthesilea bridges the transition into the Aethiopis, another, no longer extant, poem in the epic cycle,37 conceived as a continuation of the Iliad.38 Penthesilea’s description in the Aethiopis as a ‘daughter of Ares’ further is reflected in the faction she leads in A Total War Saga: Troy, since her faction has associations with Ares, and players playing as an Amazon commander can recruit an infantry unit called ‘Daughter of Ares’.39
Figure 0.1 Screenshot from A Total War Saga: Troy showing Penthesilea’s Amazon faction on the game-loading screen.
Nonetheless, some players objected vociferously to what they saw as the introduction of ‘politically correct’ elements to the game rather than an authentic representation of the setting. Before they were announced, one commenter in a thread on the Steam forums asking whether users thought Amazons would appear, said, ‘Don’t worry, CA [Creative Assembly] is firmly in the equality camp and will throw away any attempt at historical accuracy to appease the new apostate Western revision of history.’40 When the faction was announced through a gameplay video on YouTube, multiple commentators on a Reddit thread argued against the validity of their inclusion, with commentators calling them ‘angry housewives’ and ‘the woke faction’.41 On Creative Assembly’s own forums, in amongst some positive comments, the announcement of Amazons was also greeted by negative comments focusing on their gender, including commentators disputing that there was any ‘truth behind the myth’:42 ‘I dont [sic] like the fact that these are all-women army which is very unrealistic,’ and ‘Strongly Agree! Truth behind the Myth. Maybe they kill men in their tribe that’s why they are all women.’43 One commentator even raised a wish for the Amazon elite units to wear fewer clothes, to make them more ‘tastefully sexy’.44 Thus, even where the setting specifically allows for such characters, and in a game where Aeneas can talk to and receive bonuses from dead heroes (which is, of course, not a feature of Aeneas’ character in Greek epic),45 the inclusion of women was apparently a step too far for the ‘authenticity’ of the game and for some players’ acceptance.
Conversely, in the case of Assassin’s Creed: Odyssey (2018), it was the studio executives and marketers, rather than the players, who raised objections to the inclusion of a female character: the titular Assassin, Kassandra.46 Here, the objections were less concerned with authenticity, and instead represent an occasion on which the context of the sexism in the games industry seems to have become a major factor in decisions around representations of a female character within the game. The first Assassin’s Creed game of the main series to feature a female playable protagonist was Syndicate, released in 2015 and set in Victorian London, in which the protagonist role was split between twins, Evie and Jacob.47 In Assassin’s Creed: Origins (2017), set in Hellenistic Egypt (and thus the first of Ubisoft’s two ancient world games in the series), players play as the female character Aya for part of the game. For 2018’s Odyssey, set in fifth-century BCE Greece, developers originally planned to take representation a step further and release the game with a female-only protagonist. However, they were prevented from doing so by decisions within the studio (possibly led by creative director Serge Hascoët or the marketing department), who were convinced that a game led by a solely female protagonist would not sell.48 When Assassin’s Creed: Odyssey was released, therefore, players could choose whether to play as Kassandra or Alexios, her brother, for the entire game. In fact, many reviewers commented that Kassandra was the better choice, particularly given the quality of Melissanthi Mahut’s voice acting,49 and some reviewers have even suggested that this vindicates the original intention of the developers to make Kassandra the only option for the game’s protagonist.50 Pressure from the wider studio was, it turned out, also responsible for the sidelining of both Evie and Aya in comparison to the original roles planned for them within the games.51 In 2020, it was revealed that these decisions had taken place in a sustained culture of sexual harassment, assault and discrimination at Ubisoft, indicating clearly how sexism and misogyny within the games industry was at the very least correlating with a lack of full representation in the design decisions made for games, if not contributing to them.52
Thus, at a time when the games industry is (slowly) starting to consider issues of representation in relation to gender, even very recent games set in the ancient world continue to face opposition to the portrayal of female characters, particularly female characters as protagonists. Ongoing resistance to the ‘marketability’ of female characters, despite the growth in the numbers of female players, as well as the perception of an ‘authentic’ classical story which includes women both present significant obstacles to full representation, and these obstacles may come from both the players and the makers of classical video games. This volume therefore begins a timely exploration of how these tensions may (or may not) have been resolved across a range of classical video games, considering modern releases and older products together in order to examine the current state of classical play for the first time.53
The genres of many historical games, including games set in the ancient world, may also present certain problems beyond the need to balance accuracy with player expectations; Martin Wainwright has pointed to the setting in the ‘public sphere’ of many historical games, especially those in the action or strategy genres, as presenting particular problems for the makers of historical video games if they are going to include female characters.54 Similarly, the focus in historical games on ‘politics, economics, and war’ has produced a particular problem for representation of women within these games, in what Kevin Schut has described as a masculine model of history.55 Conversely, Ross Clare has examined the ways in which the visual novels Melos and Helena’s Flowers provide a space for exploration of contemporary anxieties around women and their roles both in antiquity and in modern games, mediated through their ancient settings.56
We can see that these generic pressures also often operate in combination with player expectations, in considering the examples of female leaders of ancient world civilizations in the Civilization series, particularly for Civilization V and Civilization VI, released in 2010 and 2016. Female leaders have featured in the series since Civilization II (1996), and the inclusion of a better range of female leaders has been a consistent priority for the game’s studio, Firaxis.57 However, some of the leaders chosen to lead ancient civilizations attracted criticism for the fifth and sixth iterations of the game. Dido as leader of the Carthaginians in Civilization V and Gorgo in Civilization VI were particularly criticized as they did not meet players’ expectations: in the case of Dido as she was not a sufficiently historical figure (her inclusion was felt to stray too far into the realm of myth or story rather than history), and in the case of Gorgo, due to her obscurity.58 Some players were positive about the inclusion of women even if they were less well known, arguing that they appreciated the spur to their curiosity which seeing lesser-known women leading civilizations could bring; they expressed a desire to read more and learn about these figures when they appeared.59 However, there was also considerable resistance to the inclusion of these leaders, with the presence of these and other female leaders attracting the criticism that having ‘too many women’ would be ‘not historically accurate’.60 Multiple commentators further judged the inclusion of women as leaders to be a decision made as part of marketing the game rather than for historical or gameplay reasons.61 Interestingly, the fact that the Civilization games are strategy games was repeatedly invoked across discussions as a reason why greater representation in the form of more female leaders was inappropriate, both because it was felt that women rarely formed part of the player base for such games,62 and because commentators felt that there was a greater desire for ‘historical accuracy’ in such a genre.63
In order to explore these generic ramifications further, therefore, and the ways in which the genre of a game may affect the representation of women, the chapters in this volume were selected to cover as wide a variety of games and genres possible. Along with the range of genres considered in the wider surveys of Chapters 2, 3 and 4 (Orellana Figueroa, Persyn and Goad), this includes, among other examples, early platformers (Lowe, Chapter 1), modern platformers (Apotheon, Norgard, Chapter 5), strategy games (Chidwick, Chapter 10; and Dufton, Chapter 12), roguelikes (Hades, Jones, Chapter 7), multiplayer online battle arena (MOBA; Beydler, Chapter 8), action adventure games such as God of War (Ciaccia, Chapter 9), and the action RPGs of the Assassin’s Creed series and Rise of the Argonauts (Ngan, Draycott, Cole and Tuplin, Chapters 6, 11, 13 and 14), and one example of a story and romance-driven mobile game (Cook, Chapter 15). In including this wide range of genres, we both consider those discussed by Wainwright as a problem for representation of female characters and explore how different genres may demonstrate rather different environments for representation.
This volume is divided into three parts, with the intention that the broader scope of Part I sets the stage and provides some historical and cultural context for the more focused studies of Parts II and III. Part I presents a series of general overviews of different aspects pertaining to women in classical video games, Part II focuses on female gods, heroes, and monsters and Part III focuses on female mortals (both factual and fictitious).
In ‘Part I: Commencing Classical Gaming’, Dunstan Lowe first takes us back to the inception of video games in the late 1980s and explores the origins of female protagonists in classical and classically inspired video games, highlighting the role of the goddess Athena, first in the eponymous Athena and then in subsequently released related titles. Second, Jordy D. Orellana Figueroa brings us up to the present day by providing an historical overview of the portrayals of female characters in classical video games, and starts the process of investigating why, exactly, these portrayals (not to mention the controversies and debates surrounding them) are so problematic. He introduces pressing issues that will recur throughout the subsequent chapters, such as the question of historical accuracy versus authenticity, and the limitations of video games as a medium. Third, Marcie Gwen Persyn takes us further by narrowing the scope to focus on a selection of high-profile classical video games and closely analysing the depiction of female characters within them.
Then, in ‘Part II: Gods, Heroines and Monsters’, as the example of the reception to the introduction of the Amazons in one of the DLCs for A Total War Saga: Troy shows, it is not only video games which include ‘real’ historical women who face opposition and resistance from players, yet the fact that female characters are well represented in mythological characters, particularly in the forms of goddesses and monsters, is indisputable, and this allows for a wider range of possibilities for these video games. The second part of this volume, therefore, explores the mythological and supernatural female figures who appear in classical video games, ranging from goddesses, to heroines, to monsters. First, Dan Goad considers the concept of the monstrous feminine and, in light of this, explores the role of female monsters and female characters made monstrous. Then, Amy L. Norgard, Kira Jones and Katherine Beydler examine how Greek and Roman goddesses are depicted in three very different types of games: the platformer Apotheon, the roguelike Hades and the MOBA Smite: Battleground of the Gods, respectively. Following these, Olivia Ciaccia zeroes in on one goddess, Aphrodite, the goddess of love and sex, and the way in which she is portrayed in God of War III that amply demonstrates how not just sexualized but hypersexualized women can be in classical video games. Finally, Sophie Ngan explores the representation of women in Rise of the Argonauts and the ways in which creatively diverging from established mythology enables them to develop as heroes (or, indeed, heroines) in their own right rather than as adjuncts to men.
Finally, ‘Part III: Queens and Commoners’, is devoted to mortal women, and its chapters consider the representation of the historical, rather than mythological, women of the ancient world, including both historical figures and representations of fictional women within realistic historical settings. First, Hannah-Marie Chidwick approaches the complex issue of the depiction of violence against women in classical video games, considering not only games in which women are the victims of violence but also those in which women are the perpetrators of it, in an attempt to offer a more nuanced study of violence in video games as a whole. Then, Jane Draycott and Andrew Dufton consider the portrayals of the Egyptian Queen Cleopatra VII in Assassin’s Creed: Odyssey and Dante’s Inferno, and the Carthaginian Queen Dido in Civilization VI and Salammbô: Battle for Carthage, respectively, and the extent to which these conform to or depart from pre-existing racist, sexist and orientalizing stereotypes and tropes. Fourth, Richard Cole reflects on perhaps the most high-profile and successful female protagonist in a classical video game to date, Kassandra in Assassin’s Creed: Odyssey, yet ponders the extent to which it actually matters whether you play as Kassandra or her male counterpart Alexios, and what, if anything, introducing a female protagonist adds to the game. Staying with Assassin’s Creed: Odyssey, Roz Tuplin explores the varied portrayal of sex workers and sex work throughout the game. Finally, to close out the volume, Kate Cook remains with the subject of sex workers and sex work, yet moves us away from PC and console games and over to mobile games, to examine one of the most positive depictions of women in a game set in the ancient world to date, the courtesan Arin and the network of female allies that she cultivates as the game unfolds.
It was our hope that in producing an edited volume that covered classical and classically inspired video games released from 1986 to the present, and in view of the proliferation of games appearing in the twenty-first century, we would be able to see some discernible progress in the way in which women were portrayed in them. Yet, judging by the contents of this volume, it seems that this hope was somewhat simplistic, perhaps even naive. Something to bear in mind as you peruse these chapters are the considerations (e.g. money, marketability, etc.) and limitations (e.g. historical accuracy versus authenticity, etc.) discussed at the outset of this introductory chapter, and the resultant question of whether it is even possible for classical or classically inspired video games to portray women in consistently positive ways. If it is, in fact, possible, to what extent have game developers taken advantage of this possibility and the avenues it opens for them to date? Is it merely a coincidence that the most positive portrayal of women in a classical video game can be found in a mobile game rather than a PC or console game, considering the audiences for those respective types of gaming? Or that this portrayal is found in a game written by a woman that is a classically inspired instalment in a long-running non-classical franchise rather than an instalment in a classical franchise, and is thus not likely to be played by ‘gamers’ but rather by players? To take this further, what type of games do women play, and how do they play them? Are classical or classically inspired video games, whatever the genre, ever created with female players in mind? Are female game developers involved in the creative process? As the video games industry continues its efforts to diversify over the coming years, might we come to see as the norm portrayals of women in classical video games that are positive because they are portrayals of women, rather than in spite of the fact that they are women?
Notes
1.On the decreasing numbers of schools in the UK offering Classical subjects, see Hunt and Holmes-Henderson (2021), particularly with reference to the class issue caused by the decreasing number of state schools in this area, and on the valuable role that mass-media receptions play in introducing these subjects to wider audiences, Lowe and Shahabudin (2009b: ix–xii); on games specifically, Christesen and Machado (2010). On classical reception, see Hardwick and Stray (2011: esp. 38).
2.At the time of writing, the Paizomen database of video games set in the ancient world features 259 entries, of which 93 were released between 2010 and 2021 (Vandewalle 2020). These games range from well-known triple-A titles from major studios such as Ubisoft, as in the case of Assassin’s Creed: Origins (2017), Assassin’s Creed: Odyssey (2018) and Immortals Fenyx Rising (2020), Creative Assembly (A Total War Saga: Troy, 2020); or Sony, Santa Monica Studio, (God of War, 2018), and a range of games released by smaller or independent studios such as Supergiant Games’ Hades (2018), Old World (2020), Apotheon (2015), Okhlos (2016) and Smite (2014). God of War (2018) and Supergiant Games’ Hades were particularly successful, both winning Best Game at the 2019 and 2021 BAFTA Games Awards, respectively (Fox and Kleinman 2019; Stuart and MacDonald 2021); Hades also won Best Game at the 24th Annual D.I.C.E. Awards (Rousseau 2021) and the Nebula Award for Best Game Writing (Kerr 2021). Following Hades’ success, players and voice actors for the game announced a streamed ‘Iliad Project’, during which they would read Fagles’ translation of the Iliad (held in June 2021). The event was inspired by the ‘clear intertextuality’ between the Iliad and Hades, demonstrating explicitly the ways in which engagement with these games can draw audiences to the classical texts and materials – see further Notis (2021).
3.On benefits, see, for example, McCall (2020: esp. 108–9) on how military games set in ancient Rome may aid conceptualization of battles in the same way as modelling, Morley (2020) on using a text-based game of the Melian Dialogue to understand Thucydides’ narrative and the Melian Dialogue itself more fully through counterfactual explorations, and Holter, Schäfer and Schwesinger (2020) for the possibilities of game-built environments for exploring archaeological spaces such as the Pnyx.
4.See, for example, on some of this work Cox (2011), Cox and Theodorakopoulos (2019) and Hurst (2006).
5.For example, Jennifer Saint’s Ariadne (2021), Pat Barker’s The Women of Troy (2021) and The Silence of the Girls (2019), Natalie Haynes’ A Thousand Ships (2019) and The Children of Jocasta (2017), Madeline Miller’s Circe (2018), and going slightly further back, Margaret Atwood’s Penelopiad (2005), Ursula Le Guin’s Lavinia (2008), and Christa Wolf’s Cassandra (1983) and Medea (1996).
6.Such as the works of Marina Carr, including By the Bog of Cats (1998) and Ariel (2004), or Ellen McLaughlin’s Iphigenia and Other Daughters (1995).
7.Such as the 2021 series Domina, focused on the life of the first Roman empress Livia Drusilla.
8.On the question of ‘authenticity’ in historical game development, see Rollinger (2020b: 5–6); French and Gardner (2020); and on accuracy and authenticity McCall (2019: 36), Clare (2021: 13–32).
9.Witkowski (2020). In 2021, the video game industry was generating $180 billion in global revenue per year (Schreier 2021: 1).
10.Barr and Copeland-Stewart (2021), Tassi (2021); the WHO even commended the efforts of leading games industry figures at the start of the pandemic to promote gaming as an alternative to in-person socializing – see further Snider (2020).
11.Yee (2017) and Anderton (2019).
12.Jim Ryan (CEO) in the 2021, ‘Game & Network Services Segment’ Report – see further Dring (2021).
13.Valentine (2019).
14.Lin (2021).
15.Williams, Martins, Consalvo and Ivory (2009).
16.On stereotyped female characters in games, see Beasley and Standley (2002), Jansz and Martis (2007) and Malkowski and Russworm (2017).
17.Much if not all of the pushback came from those who identified themselves specifically as gamers, rather than solely players of games; for the label ‘gamer’ and its connotations, see Shaw (2012) and Golding (2015), and in relation to gender, see Cote (2020: 86–110).
18.Sarkeesian (2012). Upon launching her project, Sarkeesian received abuse, threats and harassment, including the rather telling comments, ‘Women don’t belong in video games,’ and ‘Computers, and video games as well, were never meant for women’ (Sarkeesian and Cross 2015: 117).
19.Although, as Shaw (2015: 4–6) points out, the question of representation is unlikely to be so simply answered.
20.Taylor (2019).
21.Yokoi (2021).
22.Vysotsky and Allaway (2018).
23.See Whelan and Kapell (2020: 2–5) for a good overview of some recent discussion, particularly in relation to RPGs, and Cote (2020: 83–94) more broadly.
24.See further Cote (2020: 4–6) on the wider shifts and conflicts arising in gaming in the 2010s; and on Gamergate, see Z. Quinn (2017), Chess and Shaw (2015) and Golding (2015).
25.Shaw (2015), Cote (2020) and Chess (2017, 2020).
26.For more on women in historical video games, see Draycott (2022).
27.Kapell and Elliott (2013: 8–13) and Clare (2021: 20–1).
28.On games and ‘counterfactual’ histories, see Chapman (2016: 231–65), and on the player’s input Kapell and Elliott (2013: 12–13). Morley (2020) discusses a classical example.
29.Rollinger (2016: 319) and Lowe (2009: 76).
30.Kapell and Elliott (2013: 5–9) and Chapman (2016: 6–11) usefully discuss the problems of expecting a ‘true’ historical narrative against which a game’s content may be compared – indeed, Kapell and Elliott have argued that shared processes of narrative-building and selection make the historian’s own process rather similar to that of the game developer.
31.Ancient authors themselves noted the inconsistency of versions of ancient myths, as in Diodorus Siculus 4.44.5–6 – see, particularly, Gantz (1993: xv–xx) on the ways in which variety of sources leads to the multiformity of Greek myth.
32.Jeffrey Yohalem, quoted in Santomartino (2020).
33.Brown (2019).
34.The character takes the appearance of a blind bard, thus imitating the most popular perception of ‘Homer’s’ identity. For the question of whether or not any such person existed, see Fowler (2004).
35.The Amazons are divided into two possible factions, those led by Penthesilea, seen here and who appears on the cover of this volume, and a group led by Hippolyta. The two factions have slightly different gameplay mechanics: Penthesilea’s armies have no fixed cities (they operate as a ‘horde’ faction in the game), whereas Hippolyta’s forces can capture and hold cities, like the other major Greek and Trojan factions.
36.On the epic Amazons, see Dowden (1997: 98–103) and Mayor (2014: 287–304).
37.Aethiopis fr. 1 (West), ‘So they busied themselves with Hector’s funeral. And an Amazon came, a daughter of Ares the great-hearted, the slayer of men.’ These lines are unlikely to have been the standard beginning of the Aethiopis (see further Rengakos 2015: 312–13), instead they come from a tradition which connects the Aethiopis to the Iliad, thus suggesting an even closer relationship for Penthesilea with the main source, the Iliad, rather than solely her presence in a different poem of the cycle.
38.West (2015: 98).
39.See Total War Wiki (n.d.).
40.stevebullpasture (2020).
41.https://www.reddit.com/r/totalwar/comments/h80aya/amazon_factions_from_the_latest_gameplay/.
42.‘Truth behind the myth’ was one of the key principles behind the development of A Total War Saga: Troy (McConnell 2020). The repetition of this phrase also featured in some of the reddit complaints about the Amazons.
43.Achilles13 and jamreal18 (2020).
44.gholin (2020).
45.Aeneas has a fairly minor role in the Iliad itself, most notably engaging in duels with Diomedes and Achilles and being rescued by the gods (Il. 5.312–4, 20.307–39). In the later Roman poem, the Aeneid, Aeneas does visit the underworld and speak to the dead (Aen. 6), including the dead hero Deiphobus (Aen. 6.494–534), so it is likely that this game mechanic was influenced by the Aeneid rather than the Iliad.
46.For more on Kassandra see Cole in this volume.
47.A female protagonist, Aveline, also featured in Assassin’s Creed: Liberation in 2012, but this game was not part of the main series. Analysis has shown that Syndicate was particularly popular with female gamers in comparison with other titles in the same genre, see further Yee (2017) and Cote (2020: 193). On the development of female characters beyond the protagonists, and their relationships to history, in the Assassin’s Creed series, see Wainwright (2019: 163–8).
48.Schreier (2020). As Schreier notes, Hascoët himself was accused of sexual misconduct and harassment of employees, and has since left his role at Ubisoft.
49.Cote (2020: 93).
50.Tassi (2020).
51.Schreier (2020).
52.Ibid.
53.Scholarship on classical videogames is relatively limited, but scholarship examining the representation of women in such games is even more so – only one chapter in a recent volume on the topic addressed the representation of women specifically (Beavers 2020).
54.Wainwright (2019: 168–9).
55.Schut (2007: 220–3); and see further Chapman (2016: 177–8), who notes that even open-world games which provide more opportunities for the appearances of women often feature these characters as those having history done to them rather than being subjects in history.
56.Clare (2021: 141–56).
57.Strenger (n.d.).
58.For example, Liufeng (2017) described Dido as ‘too legendary’ and Gorgo as ‘too obscure’, and DoGeLoaF (2016) described the inclusion of Gorgo as the leader of Sparta as ‘the feminists taking over’, since Gorgo was ‘a woman who has as an obscure background as any individual in spartan history’. iammaxhailme (2017) claimed similarly that due to their less well-known statuses, ‘picking somebody like Gorgo, or Dido in Civ 5, gives a really “quota filler” feel’. For more on Dido in Civilization, see Dufton in this volume.
59.E.g. UWHabs, Mr. Shadows and sonicmyst (2017).
60.Murphy (2013).
61.E.g. Starfleet (2013): ‘I believe it is a market strategy that goes a little beyond the historical events,’ or Strategikal in the same thread, ‘Yes, I think this is the real reason, marketing.’
62.Strategikal (2013) followed up their belief that the inclusion of female leaders was a marketing strategy with the comment, ‘But seriously, how many women play civ? I wouldn’t have thought that a strategy game would appeal to many women (or most other types of games for that matter).’ Thus, the genre, strategy, was explicitly connected to the expected gender of players when discussing whether or not female leaders should be represented within the game.
63.E.g. synderwine (2016).