Games of Byzantium: The Image of the Empire in Three Strategy Videogames

At least through the Fantasy genre, the Middle Ages have been part of the videogaming landscape since the 1980s, but Byzantium did not make its debut until the end of the following decade. Despite a handful of roleplay and adventure video games displayed some Byzantine-like themes or exploited Byzantine-inspired atmospheres, the limited ‘commercial appeal’ of the eastern Romans hindered the creation of a product entirely set in Byzantium. Therefore, the basileia mostly appeared in historical strategy video games set during the Middle Ages or the Early Modern era. This paper takes into account three of these products, namely Age of Empires II: The Age of Kings (1999), Medieval II: Total War (2006) and Europa Universalis IV (2013) and deals with how the Byzantines are portrayed in each of them through an analysis of their descriptions, general features, armies, language and physical appearance.