Collaborative History: After Action Reports in Empire: Total War and the ways players can re-write history

The 21st century has seen a rise in the growth and popularity of the gaming industry. Video games present a unique opportunity to provide individuals with a new form of historical learning as players can interact with history and even form their own version of history. Recently, academics have studied first-person shooters and action/adventure games but strategic video games have received little scholarly attention. An even less studied area is that of After Action Reports (AARs), which are defined as “the recounting of a single game, often in a series of episodes that the author updates as the game is played”. AARs are often writer by strategy game players and contain unique narratives regarding counterfactual history. The following thesis analyses AARs in Empire: Total War, a turn-based strategy and real-time tactics video game that is set in the 18th century. The thesis aims to answer the research question: How is the past narratively configured in the ‘After Action Reports’ of the game Empire: Total War? The thesis will apply theories such as historical culture, emergent narrative and imagined communities. Additionally, it will analyse the narrative produced in AARs by means of various narratological tools such as narrator, identity, discourse and plotlines. Prior to the analysis of the AARs, the thesis will study the video game Empire: Total War and research how the past is represented in the game. The analysis examines AARs which are from non-modded and modded gameplay separately. Mods are modifications added to the game by players themselves aiming to increase realism and improve the gameplay. The thesis concludes that narrative has a significant effect on the configuration of the past in AARs. AARs with a character-bound narrator develop more distinctive narrative and AARs from modded gameplay create unique types of narratives which include combined narration and interactive narration which adds elements of roleplaying.