Pushing in from the Margins: Player Efforts to Insert Polish-Lithuanian Cultural Heritage into Games

This study examines volunteer efforts to bring Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth (PLC) cultural heritage, and in particular its "Sarmatian" identity, into commercial video games. The Commonwealth, formed in 1569 and partitioned by 1795, has been marginalised in post-war Poland and neighbouring states, and Polish developers have largely avoided it despite their commercial success. Sarmatian-themed games have historically attracted low budgets and modest returns, while the transnational, politically charged character of PLC-related content is illustrated by Mount & Blade: With Fire and Sword, a Ukrainian-developed title with Russian financing.

The central case is The Deluge, a fan-made modification of Mount & Blade that promotes PLC heritage, especially the winged hussars, through a selective emphasis on martial history. Its development is precarious and passion-driven, and its relationship with commercial developers is multifaceted and at times mutually exploitative. Its reach, roughly 175,000 unique visitors and a 39th-place Steam Workshop ranking, is modest when set against the commercially funded With Fire and Sword, which reportedly has between 500,000 and 1.25 million owners. The hussar-promotion movement therefore remains shallow in support, and because the original mod was unpaid and generated no income, its sequel, The Deluge 2, effectively begins from scratch.

The broader conclusion is that such volunteer projects are far more often abandoned than completed, with lost time, team turnover, and overwhelming scope among the principal causes. The sequel's development has stalled since its last diary entry in August 2021. The author argues that the modders' marginal position and combat-centred approach limit the depth of cultural engagement, leaving the heritage at the periphery. The study also cautions that scholarship focusing on successful mods risks confirmation bias, and calls for systematic research into cancelled projects.