Vikings Became the First Civilization to Cheat by Accessing Console Commands on the Battlefield
- When landing at another faction’s base, Vikings would often use the “kill.all” command to completely decimate the population without engaging in one-to-ne combat. Enemies at the time claimed that this was unfair, but then again, that’s what Gamers always say when they’ve been owned so completely.
- Vikings popularized a system of looting called “pillaging,” where they would rummage through the bodies of those they killed for gold, weapons, quest items, and various fur skins.
- Many historians believe that Vikings were the first Europeans to travel to the Americas, but because they never once bragged about it on a forum, the achievement is likely lost to time.
Review: The Roman Empire Was an Extremely Ambitious Experiment in Worldbuilding, But Ultimately Too Large and Unfocused to Hold Together
- An extremely impressive feat of environmental storytelling, packed with memorable characters, luscious landscapes and intense combat, but ultimately much too large and inconsistent to hold together as a cohesive work — 6.3/10
The Middle Ages Kick-Started the Castle Defense Genre that Took the World by Storm
- The Gamers in the castles found this game to be fun, but ultimately repetitive, and eventually they got complacent and stopped paying attention. That’s when it all came crumbling down, and the feudal Lords had to start from the beginning or quit playing. They decided to quit, and that’s when the Enlightenment began.
The Nintendo Dynasty Unified Japan Before Falling From Grace and Becoming a Game Company
- This marks the very beginning of the powerful Nintendo family, which began as a dynastic power, and then became a board game company after a fall from grace, and ultimately the video game company it is today.
The Bloody Battles of the Crusades Received the First M Rating for Gratuitous Violence
- The Crusades became the largest ever fandom battle in history with Jesus stans facing off against all other religious simps. Like with most fandom battles, nobody truly “won” and the fans only became more entrenched in their fanaticism.
- These historically bloody battles were the first to earn an “M” rating from historians for “gratuitous violence.”
The English Lost Their Fucking Shit When the French Introduced Joan of Arc, the First Ever Playable Female Character
- Many historians refer to this period, the Hundred Years War, as the Original GamerGate.
The Shakespeare Theatrical Universe Broke Box Office Records Even Though Half the Plays Weren’t Even That Good
- Quote: “All the world’s a Game, And all the men and women merely Players.”
- Establishing a storytelling template that later would be used by Marvel’s cinematic universe, all of Shakespeare’s plays are part of one extended Shakespearean universe.
- What people don’t remember is that there was a rival playwright, Dwight Clovert, whose plays were much darker and less consistent, and was given much more negative reviews despite a devout fanbase who thought Shakespeare was just “dumb popcorn entertainment.”
- Perhaps the most famous play from Dwight was one that was completely about a court jester who was fuckin’ twisted.
- Alternate Quest Path: Some historians believe that Shakespeare was not one person, but a collection of various playable writers at the time.
An artist’s rendition of how this may have worked.
Christopher Columbus Became the World’s Little Brother When He Saved Over An Entire Continent’s Save Data
- The history of Columbus as a Gamer is highly controversial. The world’s little brother, Columbus is known for saving over an entire continent’s save data — completely destroying all of the progress and culture they had made in the society they had built up.
- The Age of Exploration was characterized by groups of colonists who settled the new world, beginning the tradition of uncreative gamers naming towns they built after themselves with settlements such as Jamestown and Maryland.
The Reformation Began When Martin Luther Made His Own Fan Cut of the Catholic Church
- A fan cut of the Catholic Church after the creators “drank their own Kool-Aid and got way too up their own asses.” Martin Luther thought the original series of scriptures were excellent and that we should return to that and forget a lot of the content from the sequels and offshoots, especially the “indulgences” storyline.
King Henry VIII Rerolled Pregnancy Until He Got a Child With Good Stats
- King Henry’s first marriage to Catherine of Aragon resulted in six pregnancy rolls beginning in 1510, all of which were garbage. Only one survived, but it had the “Female” modifier, which would be fine today, but back then was not considered top tier.
- After nine more years of attempts, Henry VIII finally rolled a child with the “Male” modifier in June of 1519. However, this was with his mistress, so the child had the “Bastard” perk which made him basically unplayable. At this point, King Henry realized that his wife had a bad RNG seed and decided he had to start fresh.
- His first pregnancy with his next wife, Anne Boleyn, which resulted in a “Female” roll again. Henry kept trying two more times, and both those were miscarriages. At this point, Henry became incredibly frustrated, and did the olden times equivalent of throwing his controller at the screen (beheading his wife).
- Finally, in 1537, he married Jane Seymour and got that natural crit roll he had been searching for: a healthy baby boy who didn’t die immediately and wasn’t a bastard. That boy would later be crowned King Edward VI at the age of nine years old, making him comparable to today’s competitive eSports champions, who are as young as they are powerful.
Renaissance Astronomers Began a Massive Flame War Over Heliocentric and Geocentric Models of the Solar System
- Copernicus flames Aristotle’s theory that the sun revolves around the Earth, bumping a centuries-old forum thread on the subject. Ultimately, the mods ban him and people continue to believe Aristotle.
The French and Indian War Saw Great Britain and France Locked in a Brutally Violent Game of Civilization
- The colonizing nations Great Britain and France played a brutally violent game of Civilization, using Native Americans as soldiers.
- As is often the case throughout history, the powerful played the powerless like a video game for their own pleasure, and the result was bloodshed.
America’s First Cosplaying Convention, ConCon, Got Totally Out of Hand
In the 17th century, the British Empire unveiled an impressive new gaming platform: a group of colonies on the east coast of North America. The Gamers who inhabited these colonies were Protestants seeking a place where they could worship freely outside of the control of the Church of England. By crossing the ocean and squadding up together in the new world, these colonists would become players of the first Massively Multiplayer Overseas Religious Protection Game, also known as an MMORPG.
Like with any major game launch, early adopters of the colonies had to deal with their fair share of bugs, including texture pop-in, low drop rates for food and health items, and insta-death by measles. Over time, thanks to player feedback and many patches and bug fixes, the colonies eventually fostered a healthy player base with plenty of quests and user-generated content across its thirteen playable areas. Some of these colonies were simple farm simulators; others were complex strategy games with their own in-game economies and class systems. What united them all was a resentment of their oppressive guild master, King George III of England.
Although he ran the guild, King George never participated in raids or even socialized with the colonists—except for his frequent announcements about new loot-sharing rules which he would shout in the public chat. This angered the colonists who resisted this taxation without representation, finally coming to a head during the Boston Teabagging: a stealth mission where protesters dressed as Native Americans dipped crates of imported tea into the Boston Harbor over and over again by crouching repeatedly. In addition to being a provocative political protest, the Boston Teabagging stands as the first recorded instance of cosplaying on American soil.
Americans found themselves addicted to their newly discovered pastime of cosplay. This led to the planning of the inaugural Continental Congress, or ConCon, in 1774. At the first ConCon, colony representatives gathered to show off their costumes and commission elaborate paintings while dressed up. The attendees started to bond over their shared interests, and that’s when things started to get out of hand. It was at this ConCon that they began to seriously discuss plans to break off from King George and start their own independent guild.
The delegates from the colonies eventually developed a new ruleset to demo to their fellow colonists. This would eventually become the Declaration of Independence. Unfortunately, like many other big development efforts throughout gamer history, the creation of the Declaration of Independence involved months and months of crunch by Thomas Jefferson, who wrote the original draft of the document in an all-night binge. 
When he finally finished, he sent the draft to John Adams, Ben Franklin, and other members of a QA team. Finally, the delegates from the second annual ConCon gathered on July 4th, 1776 to sign the final version of the document with their gamertags, such as “xXxNoTaxWOutRepxXx”, “th3_1337_revolter”, and “John Hancock”, which historians have long suspected of also being an online pseudonym.
It began as a simple intra-guild dispute within a single MMORPG—now, it was replaced with something else entirely: the great Game of Revolution.
