BOOK SPOTLIGHT - The Germanic Heroic Tradition in Video Games: Playing Mass Medievalism
Enrique Torres-Hergueta (2025); Palgrave Macmillan; Game Studies
I was excited to see The Germanic Heroic Tradition in Video Games sitting atop my pile of bedside must-reads. I’ve been diving a bit deeper into these “playing-the-past” works over the past year, and while some veer into dense academic abstraction and gatekeeping jargon, I had a good feeling about this one. Those feelings were immediately reinforced when the book’s introduction opened with “Dovahkiin, Dovahkiin, Naal ok zin los vahrinn”…Skyrim’s Song of the Dragonborn.
I found this monograph to be a sharp, easy-to-read, and genuinely meaningful work of cultural analysis that reframes video games as the latest evolution of myth. Rather than treating medievalism as simply a nostalgia or aesthetic flavor, Torres-Hergueta persuasively argues that games like Skyrim, God of War, and Assassin’s Creed: Valhalla are not merely ‘passively inspired’ by the past; but are active, living continuations of the heroic code found in works like Beowulf, Nibelungenlied and the Saga of the Volsungs.
Let’s take this down to the basics. Think about a medieval story. You might be imagining knights, dragons, and noble quests; a romanticized vision shaped less by history and more by centuries of cultural retelling. But it’s important to remember that the medieval world was once dismissed as the dark ages. A world very different than the one you might be envisioning. Over time, literature, film, and now video games have actively reimagined it. Torres-Hergueta makes it clear that our concept of medieval today is not historical memory, it’s mythic memory.
The book’s greatest strength is its clarity. Renaissance, Romanticism, Remediation…I’m familiar with these terms, but a far cry from a historian, and Torres-Hergueta does a great job explaining these complex ideas and periods in a way that feels accessible. And we can use those as building blocks as we progress through the book. He draws a powerful throughline from ancient warrior ethics (honor, conviction, courage in the face of fate) to modern digital systems (boss fights, loot, reputation, player agency), showing how games preserve not just a look of medieval culture, but its moral logic. He even goes as far as breaking down monsters as embodiments of psychological fear. Draugr representing the dark side of heroism, corrupted by greed. Trolls representing humanities basist instincts. And valkyries representing corrupt motherhood.
What also stands out is how the book doesn’t glorify the past or pretend games are perfect; it openly engages with masculinity, representation, emotional maturity, and the shift from fate to player-driven choice. Kratos learning restraint and Eivor leading through diplomacy are not just game mechanics; they are evolutions of myth. Video games, Torres-Hergueta suggests, are not escapism but rituals of meaning, updated for digital consciousness.
In the end, the book delivered a message that made me feel the significance of the argument. That games are not only fun or artistic, but inherited cultural memory. The Germanic Heroic Tradition in Video Games isn’t just a strong contribution to game studies; it’s a declaration that myth has survived, and its new home is interactive. Medievalist or not, if you’re a fan of Skyrim, God of War or Valhalla, there’s real insight to be found here. I certainly found it.
You can find more about the book right here in The Video Game Library.