Immersive Historicity in World War II Digital Games

In this article I examine the potential feeling of time travel – historical immersion – in the World War II games Medal of Honor: Underground, Medal of Honor: Frontline, Wolfenstein 3D and Return to Castle Wolfenstein. To accomplish this, I make a semiotic analysis of visual and auditory signs based upon the three categories of space, time, and sound. I also consider the element of myth to be an influencing factor. WWII games contribute, in their own way, to our collective memory. Nevertheless, in these games historical facts are not considered as important as excitement, heroes, villains (the dichotomy good/evil), and gothic surroundings. Thus, although they claim to have historical settings and narratives, they are rather reshaping WWII as a stereotypical event with more connections to popular films than to actual historical events.