Normanowie, wikingowie a ich przedstawienia w świecie gier komputerowych (na wybranych przykładach)
Normans, Vikings and Their Image in the World of Computer Games (on Selected Examples)

Summary/Abstract: Despite the tremendous progress in Scandinavian and Normans studies, there is yet another field in modern pop culture that shares certain old stereotypes. This is the market for computer games, which has been flourishing globally for more than forty years. Therefore, in this article, we will outline some of this phenomenon, which we will show chronologically on selected examples from the 80s to the present. We do this based on PC titles, most often strategies and RPGs (Role Playing Games), because this player platform is the oldest and despite the rapid development of consoles, it still does not give up on them. Unfortunately, we do not have any scientific literature in our country and abroad, so Vikings and Normans in video games, so to a certain extent our research will be pioneering. While about the Vikings there are publishes several titles almost every year (their full list, description, and analysis would take the work of the size of the phone book), the Normans are used uncommonly as background games other than adventure or arcade (like Assassin’s Creed series). The Vikings were not dressed in leather or furs and wearing robe helmets. These are the people we would call today the term dandy, very clean and very well dressed, in things of some unusual color. They also possessed extremely developed spirituality, which some of its descendants inherited from them (the Normans). That is why computer games devoted to them should go through an evolution that takes into account the true image of these people rather than the distortion, which becomes a comfortable attribute in all sorts of political games in the modern world. The Computer Games as a phenomenon that creates the knowledge of young people today are an important historical tool that can and evidently affect the reception of both past events and long lost peoples. Unfortunately, the historical objectivity does not go to dozens of computer companies, especially those that offer MMOs, somehow referring to the subject matter, which we are analyzing here. On the Polish market to be praised CD Projekt Red, which in a very accurate way, some Scandinavian themes (mythology, construction, shipbuilding, clothing, and armament) transferred to the world invented by Andrzej Sapkowski saga about the Witcher (especially in the third part). There is an image of horned warriors. It is difficult to escape this stereotype.

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