Antiquity in Simulation: Global Receptions of the Classical World in Video Games

Saturday, 13 June 2026, 9am to 5pm

The reception of the classical world in video games is by no means a new phenomenon, and the past decade has seen a rapid transformation and expansion of the digital landscape, with release of massively successful titles – Assassin’s Creed Origins and Odyssey, God of War II and III, Rome: Total War, and Hades, to name only a few – introducing a global player base in the millions to the Greco-Roman world – in many cases, for the first time. Scholarly interest in the reception of the classical world in video games has given rise to a foundation of limited but fruitful scholarship, including several edited volumes (e.g., Thorsen 2012, Rollinger 2020, Draycott and Cook 2022, Sanz 2025) and monographs (André 2016, Clare 2021, Vandewalle 2026), and the recent conference New Directions in Classics, Gaming, and Extended Reality (Bristol, June 2024). Likewise, the panel ‘Game On! Teaching and Reinterpreting Classical Antiquity through Video Games’ at the 2026 SCS Conference made promising inroads into the pedagogical use of such games. While these are exciting developments, the current discussion has largely focused on titles produced by major Western developers, with little attention paid to studios beyond Europe and North America, such as those within the hugely successful East Asian sector.

In view of this research gap, this conference aims to serve as a platform for dialogue on Eastern and Western approaches to the reception of the classical world in video games. We are particularly interested in the duality of ‘Reception’: both the reception of the classical world in video games produced by non-Western studios (e.g. Elden Ring, Final Fantasy), including those hosted on mobile platforms (e.g., Fate/Grand Order, Reverse:1999), and the reception of these classically-inspired games in the non-Western world.

Venue: Ioannou Centre for Classical and Byzantine Studies - Ioannou Centre for Classical and Byzantine Studies 66 St Giles' Oxford Oxfordshire OX1 3LU United Kingdom

Department: Classics (Department)

Organiser: Clare Chang; Sarah Marshall

Host: Archive of Performances of Greek and Roman Drama (APGRD)

Register here: https://antiquityinsimulation@outlook.com