To me game-based learning is something that I believe to work, however it purely depends on the mind set and type of game. Personally I love learning about history, but watching documentaries and reading books never grasps my attention. There are two game examples I would like to share that have helped learn more about history in a more engaging way.
Assassin’s Creed
First is the Assassin’s Creed series. An open world game that allows you to explore ancient Italy, Greece, Egypt, and the Caribbean. In these games you are exposed to many historic events and characters (leaders of countries, famous pirates, and of course royal families. Over time research has been done by allowing high school students to participate in a “tour” of the games Assassin’s Creed Odyssey as their portion of ancient Greece learning (Cacho, 2019). So what makes it an easier resource to learn? According to some students it is mainly the environment. Being able to control yourself, be involved with audio dialogue and watch snippets of movie-like action creates a constant stimulation that draws into the story (Cacho, 2019).
Uncharted
Second is the Uncharted series. Similar to the game above, Uncharted allows you to explore almost the whole world, however the key difference is that it is done in modern times. Closely related to a treasure hunter story, the main characters explore a plethora of ancient ruins and explain in detail what each means to history. Personally, this game is much easier and more interesting to learn from as it takes a modern day approach to history and works backwards from the ruins to show their original state as well as what caused their downfall. Finally the idea of pirate treasure is always very interesting, and the game does a very good job of uncovering and explaining all potential theories of how one might find it. Additionally unlike the previous games this has a much easier flow to it, allowing for a great movie adaptation especially for the audience that have not had the pleasure of exploring the game.
Reference:
Cacho, G. (2019, September 18). New tool in East Bay history class: ‘assassin’s creed’ video game. The Mercury News. Retrieved May 29, 2022, from https://www.mercurynews.com/2019/09/18/new-tool-in-history-class-assassins-creed-video-game/