Heritage Destruction and Videogames: A Perverse Relation

This paper examines the ethical tension between real-world heritage destruction and its representation in videogames, using the 1992 destruction of Sarajevo's National and University Library (Vijećnica) as a central case. Drawing on heritage and iconoclasm theory, the authors argue that the library was deliberately targeted as an attack on collective memory and multicultural identity, and that its later reconstruction shifted its meaning toward ethnic fragmentation. The work contends that sensitive historical content is especially vulnerable to trivialization when placed in interactive entertainment, a risk that shapes the analysis throughout.

The central case study is the appearance of the Vijećnica in Sniper: Ghost Warrior 2. The authors find that the game renders the building as a recognizable heritage site while largely omitting its political and symbolic significance. They attribute this partly to the demands of first-person shooter gameplay and to a realist simulation style that handles change over time poorly. The game's fictional framing produces what the authors call an "alibi through ambiguity," which deflects criticism, and they observe that players may slip into a "gamer mode" that treats the library as a military resource, mirroring the logic behind its actual destruction. The pedagogical potential of such titles is judged real but limited.

A broader finding concerns the representational strategies of realist simulation. Such games foreground material architecture while struggling to convey intangible cultural meanings, which conceptual simulations address more readily. The authors argue that realist games adopt a naïve "reconstructionist" epistemology, presenting a single authoritative account that conceals both the developer's role and the contested identity of the site. Comparisons with Manchester Cathedral in Resistance: Fall of Man and the Metal Gear Solid 2 memorial indicate that overall aesthetic and narrative framing largely determine whether a historical site's symbolic weight is respected or displaced.