And there's nothing wrong with that of course, just makes sense that the people who make the games want to make them about their culture and their history and right now the people who make the games are almost all in the northern hemisphere.
Totally agree that the memory of the Aztecs (or really any of the great New World civilizations) isn't valued enough, how the Inca for example built their great empire in the mountains with no beasts of burden or written language is almost unbelievable.
Oh certainly, I agree. I must have 200 hours in Rome 2 Total War.
Games like these show just how powerful video games are as a site of public memory. They shape our collective understanding of the past. Since the Aztecs are part of that past, it’s good to have a game about them.
I’m neither really good nor huge fan of games like this, but the aspect of religion having a huge impact on the social aspect but also the phisicality of the city made me very interested in it. Putting in my steam wishlist to play as soon as I get some money for trying out new games. Thanks for the post.
I do agree with you that when we leave out the Dark Ages and Roman Empire we can do some amazing things with games, especially historically as to have a glimpse of what life was like. Feel like Assassin’s Creed wanted to move in that direction, giving us the experience of living in these now distant worlds, but they had to keep the brand, so it kinda got lost.
I'm actually not a fan of city builders either. I've tried all the greats: Sim City 4, Cities: Skylines and I've never gotten into them but Tlatoani is the exception for me. Glad you took interest in it!
It did seem that way for a while but once again it returned to catering to whatever history was trendy: Valhalla when the Vikings TV show was winding down after massive popularity, then Shadows when Ghost of Tsushima proved popular.
Northgard is one that worked well for me. It’s much simpler than pretty much all of these, but the slower pace made it interesting for a while. It reminded me a little bit of the younger days playing the Age games.
Yeah, that sucks. Especially cause you can feel the dissonance between what they want to achieve and the Creed religion pouring into each one its games. Hope one day they get to do something smaller for different places like Central/South America and maybe something related to Sumerians and old cultures like that.
So much untapped potential for historical games, I think Kingdom Come has proven that even something quite obscure like the Hussite Wars and general Holy Roman Empire shenanigans can make for a great game under the right people
I really liked this post, not because it was about a game necessarily but the research and history you included. Understanding things deeper is my kind of thing. Nice one!
I enjoyed the demo for Tlatoani a lot - one of the games I played most when I was younger was Pharaoh, the Egyptian themed spinoff of Impressions' Caesar series of city builders. Just one thing stopped me from pulling the trigger on it the same way you did... I still have to finish Nebuchadnezzar, a Mesopotamian setting Impressions-like I bought a few years ago. But if Tlatoani is good enough to spark this kind of post, I might have to get off my ass and finish those ziggurats already.
And I agree heartily [heh] that the pre-Columbian American world is rich and interesting enough to support a lot more media, especially videogames, than it does. I really enjoyed Mulaka, which was a low-poly 3D platformer set in northern Mexico. A few months ago I found a guy on YouTube who was theorycrafting proposals for dozens of new civs in Age of Empires II, including a lot from Mesoamerica and South America, and now I'm a little obsessed with the idea of a full 'meso' DLC. [meso in AoE terms just means any of the 3 American civs because they share 'regional' unit types, even though one of them is the Inca] Forget Three Kingdoms, I'd pay 20 bucks for that!
I should probably mention it's in early access (due to launch in the Spring) but it's not a case of loads of stuff being missing, just balancing being not quite right, certain things not being quite up to snuff yet and the combat being a bit shallow but even since I got the game in March it's seen a lot of improvement, especially in the UI.
I can't tell you how much I mourn historical Total War; Three Kingdoms was cool but I consider Attila to be the last true game in the series. I'd love to play something like the Aztec campaign from Medieval 2 but expanded across all of South America with the Inca, Portuguese etc. but the series is so far gone now that I know it'd be a disaster.
Early access doesn't scare me, not when a game looks like it's coming along well and isn't just being thrown out for a few extra dollars before getting abandoned.
A full scale grand strategy game set in South America would be incredible, but yeah, I don't exactly want CA doing it these days, same as I don't really care if Assassins Creed toys with a good setting.
Europa Universalis 5 has an extra century added in which means a whole 170 years of gameplay before European show up, super looking forward to that. I want to claim Cortes' heart for Huitzilopochtli
We do need more games like this, but we don’t get them because people sadly don’t value the public memory of the Aztecs.
In America and Europe, people care more about the public memory of Rome and the Middle Ages. So that’s what we get.
And there's nothing wrong with that of course, just makes sense that the people who make the games want to make them about their culture and their history and right now the people who make the games are almost all in the northern hemisphere.
Totally agree that the memory of the Aztecs (or really any of the great New World civilizations) isn't valued enough, how the Inca for example built their great empire in the mountains with no beasts of burden or written language is almost unbelievable.
Oh certainly, I agree. I must have 200 hours in Rome 2 Total War.
Games like these show just how powerful video games are as a site of public memory. They shape our collective understanding of the past. Since the Aztecs are part of that past, it’s good to have a game about them.
It’s giving Pharoah vibes and I love it
Exactly the inspiration
I’m neither really good nor huge fan of games like this, but the aspect of religion having a huge impact on the social aspect but also the phisicality of the city made me very interested in it. Putting in my steam wishlist to play as soon as I get some money for trying out new games. Thanks for the post.
I do agree with you that when we leave out the Dark Ages and Roman Empire we can do some amazing things with games, especially historically as to have a glimpse of what life was like. Feel like Assassin’s Creed wanted to move in that direction, giving us the experience of living in these now distant worlds, but they had to keep the brand, so it kinda got lost.
I'm actually not a fan of city builders either. I've tried all the greats: Sim City 4, Cities: Skylines and I've never gotten into them but Tlatoani is the exception for me. Glad you took interest in it!
It did seem that way for a while but once again it returned to catering to whatever history was trendy: Valhalla when the Vikings TV show was winding down after massive popularity, then Shadows when Ghost of Tsushima proved popular.
Northgard is one that worked well for me. It’s much simpler than pretty much all of these, but the slower pace made it interesting for a while. It reminded me a little bit of the younger days playing the Age games.
Yeah, that sucks. Especially cause you can feel the dissonance between what they want to achieve and the Creed religion pouring into each one its games. Hope one day they get to do something smaller for different places like Central/South America and maybe something related to Sumerians and old cultures like that.
So much untapped potential for historical games, I think Kingdom Come has proven that even something quite obscure like the Hussite Wars and general Holy Roman Empire shenanigans can make for a great game under the right people
I really liked this post, not because it was about a game necessarily but the research and history you included. Understanding things deeper is my kind of thing. Nice one!
Thank you! I briefly debated making a history Substack a few months ago but I think I'd like to keep weaving it into other topics like this.
This also may or may not be an attempt to court Paradox for a review code.
I enjoyed the demo for Tlatoani a lot - one of the games I played most when I was younger was Pharaoh, the Egyptian themed spinoff of Impressions' Caesar series of city builders. Just one thing stopped me from pulling the trigger on it the same way you did... I still have to finish Nebuchadnezzar, a Mesopotamian setting Impressions-like I bought a few years ago. But if Tlatoani is good enough to spark this kind of post, I might have to get off my ass and finish those ziggurats already.
And I agree heartily [heh] that the pre-Columbian American world is rich and interesting enough to support a lot more media, especially videogames, than it does. I really enjoyed Mulaka, which was a low-poly 3D platformer set in northern Mexico. A few months ago I found a guy on YouTube who was theorycrafting proposals for dozens of new civs in Age of Empires II, including a lot from Mesoamerica and South America, and now I'm a little obsessed with the idea of a full 'meso' DLC. [meso in AoE terms just means any of the 3 American civs because they share 'regional' unit types, even though one of them is the Inca] Forget Three Kingdoms, I'd pay 20 bucks for that!
I should probably mention it's in early access (due to launch in the Spring) but it's not a case of loads of stuff being missing, just balancing being not quite right, certain things not being quite up to snuff yet and the combat being a bit shallow but even since I got the game in March it's seen a lot of improvement, especially in the UI.
I can't tell you how much I mourn historical Total War; Three Kingdoms was cool but I consider Attila to be the last true game in the series. I'd love to play something like the Aztec campaign from Medieval 2 but expanded across all of South America with the Inca, Portuguese etc. but the series is so far gone now that I know it'd be a disaster.
Early access doesn't scare me, not when a game looks like it's coming along well and isn't just being thrown out for a few extra dollars before getting abandoned.
A full scale grand strategy game set in South America would be incredible, but yeah, I don't exactly want CA doing it these days, same as I don't really care if Assassins Creed toys with a good setting.
Europa Universalis 5 has an extra century added in which means a whole 170 years of gameplay before European show up, super looking forward to that. I want to claim Cortes' heart for Huitzilopochtli