Video Games and Slavery

This analysis examines how digital games represent the traumatic history of slavery and what these portrayals reveal about the nature of player agency and freedom. By comparing video games to traditional slave narratives, the study explores the inherent difficulties in depicting the human condition of non-freedom within an interactive medium that typically emphasizes player power and choice. The analysis focuses on prominent titles such as Fallout 3, BioShock: Infinite, Assassin’s Creed: Freedom Cry, Thralled, and the controversial Playing History: The Slave Trade.

The findings suggest that video games struggle to convey the experience of slavery firsthand because the medium is fundamentally built upon the exercise of agency. When players inhabit the role of a free protagonist—even one tasked with liberating others—they remain "tourists" to the trauma of enslavement. Attempts to gamify the experience, such as the widely criticized "Slave Tetris" mechanic, often result in dehumanization or trivialization. Even in games that attempt to adopt the perspective of a slave, such as Thralled, the experience is mediated through memory and the struggle for selfhood, mirroring the post-facto nature of historical slave narratives.

Ultimately, the study concludes that video games act as a remediation of the slave narrative genre, carrying forward its inherent ambiguities and limitations. The presence of player-created modifications that allow for the enslavement of non-player characters highlights a persistent, problematic tension between historical reality and the perceived freedom of play. The analysis posits that the most profound realization for the player is not found in the act of play itself, but in the palpable trauma that arises when the game mechanics confront the absolute absence of agency.