This weekend, the United States will celebrate Independence Day, a holiday commemorating the ratification of the Declaration of Independence. 249 years! Can you believe it? That’s a lot of history!
History has had a fun way of showing up in video games. So, today, I’d like to explore the Top Ten instances of historical figures who appear in them! Can you think of any others? Do you have any favorites of your own? Tell me about them in a comment!
10. Liberty or Death
(DOS/SNES/Genesis, 1993/1994)
Before we had Lin-Manuel Miranda rapping to us about the history of America, we had Liberty or Death, a strategy game where you played out the events of the Revolutionary War. Think Risk combined with very very basic Fire Emblem. One of the most interesting components of the game was that you could choose to either play from the perspective of the Americans or try to get the ultimate alternate reality revenge as the British!
9. Bill & Ted’s Excellent
Video Game Adventure
(NES, 1991)
No way!? Yes, way. They made a video game out of the iconic 1989 Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure movie, one of my favorite movies of all time. But, the adaptation itself is maybe one of the worst games of all time. The main gimmick revolves around shooting your time machine phone booth through the circuits of time to spell out a phone number, sending you to your destination where you meet all sorts of historical figures after a series of seemingly random fetch quests. It’s just too bad that this game is so non–non–non–non–heinous – I think there’s a lot of potential!
8. Mozart Requiem
(Various, 2008)
“Mozart has 24 hours to unravel one of the greatest mysteries ever.” There’s a sentence I never thought I’d read under a game description. Well, as it says, Mozart’s Requiem is a “point and click” adventure where you solve a conspiracy surrounding the Hungarian Emperor. I don’t remember learning about this in music school!
One thing’s for sure, if this game doesn’t have Mozart’s iconic laugh, I’ll be deeply disappointed.
7. Zoda’s Revenge:
StarTropics 2
(NES, 1994)
Distancing itself from the “tropics” part of the game’s title, StarTropics II sends our beloved yo-yo touting baseball star, Mike Jones, through the tunnels of time to collect what are obviously blocks from Tetris. Along the way, he meets all sorts of famous faces – my favorite being his run-in with Leonardo DaVinci who lets Mike pilot a flying machine (via an amusing cut scene) to his next destination. Still waiting for StarTropics III over here!
6. Command & Conquer:
Red Alert 2
(PC, 1998)
In the universe of Red Alert 2, Albert Einstein rids the world of Hitler through the magic of time travel. But, this doesn’t stop the war as the Soviets fill in the gap left by the now non-existent Nazis. Command & conquer your way to victory in this real time strategy game which uniquely uses live actors in their cut scenes!
Is this the same timeline where Einstein helped Tim Robbins and Meg Ryan fall in love?
5. Eternal Sonata
(XBox 360/PS 3, 2007)
“On his deathbed, Chopin, the famous composer, drifts between this life and the next. In his dreams, happenstance encounters with a young girl facing a terrible destiny and the boy who will fight to save her, leads to Chopin’s discovery of the light that shines in each of us in this enduring tale of good and evil, love and betrayal.” – Amazon Product Description
We are striking absolute gold with these composer-related game descriptions. What’s next? Rachmaninoff’s Reckoning? Super Beethoven Brawl? Erik Satie Falling Block Puzzle? In any case, Chopin and his music are front and center in this JRPG that really showcases the guy’s incredible sense of melody – and fighting style?!
4. I Am Jesus Christ
(PC, 2025)
“Your [game developers] were so preoccupied with whether or not they could, they didn’t stop to think if they should.”
Good news, everyone who thinks they’re God – now you can live out your dreams! This game caused quite a stir when it was announced, proclaiming that players could “perform powerful miracles, meet biblical figures, and explore the Holy Land from Jerusalem to the Galilee.” Truthfully, the footage looks pretty incredible with gameplay akin to the likes of Skyrim and Witcher 3. It’s just the…content that seems a little sacrilege.
I Am Jesus Christ will have people asking if you really can “walk across their swimming pools.”
3. Bionic Commando
(NES, 1988)
While Command & Conquer erased Hitler entirely, Bionic Commando took a different route which tasked you with facing him (er…*mAsTeR d*) head on. It’s totally obviously Hitler and even the Japanese straight up called it like it was. Nevertheless, there was nothing quite so rewarding as spiderman-swinging off a high platform and bazooka-ing the guy right in his face – resulting in a rather *explosive* scene!
2. Day of the Tentacle
(PC, 1993)
We already saw George Washington in Liberty or Death, but his best appearance is easily from the classic Day of the Tentacle game from LucasArts. Featuring another time traveling heist spanning the past, present, and future, our main characters solve puzzles across generations in order to return to their own time and stop the evil purple tentacle from taking over the world. Washington’s puzzle, amusingly, involves his infamous wooden teeth being set ablaze by a cigar, only to be replaced by a set of chattering teeth from the future, leaving his fellow founding fathers thinking that he’s cold.
Honorable Mention:
NBA Jam
(SNES/Gensis/Arcade, 1993)
You weren’t a true gamer if you didn’t use the secret code to play as Bill Clinton in NBA Jam.
1. Civilization
(PC, 1991)
An easy first choice for me, Sid Meier’s Civilization series puts us in the shoes of famous world leaders from all generations as they try to expand their cities while peacefully (or not peacefully) dealing with those who have the same ambitions. I loved that each nation had benefits relating to your chosen leader, cities were named automatically after real places, and players could construct famous “Wonders of the World.” I learned a lot about geography simply by playing this game, and my knowledge of world leaders deepened because of the graphic interactions that commonly took place throughout each session.
Famously, Gandhi made a name for himself in Civilization V when a weird software glitch caused the peaceful pacifist to resort to full-on nuclear warfare!
Thanks for stopping by to read my post! Can you think of any other historical figures in video games? Leave me a comment, and tell me about them!
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Eric Hagmann Music 
this is so fun! Great list. I learned a lot!
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Thank you!! You’re now an expert at history (in video games)!
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I wish all of my history lessons were as entertaining as some of these games.
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Right?? Edutainment needs to step it up!
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What a perfect list. Any time I thought “well what about–” it was the next item on the list!
Honestly Red Alert 2 is fantastic, but Tim Curry’s performance in Red Alert 3 can’t be topped… I don’t remember any of the characters in that game being actual historical figures though!
Fantastic job as usual. I’ll never tire of these!!
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Thank you!! And I agree that Tim Curry performances in games are iconic. Maybe a future list can be about celebrities who appear in video games!!
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Civilization, both my son and I recognized, but only he had played it/thought it was fun. I recognized Eternal Sonata, but can’t remember from where! He also mentioned Leonardo da Vinci in Assassin’s Creed!
Otherwise he did recognize a few others that he’d known about but hadn’t played, mentioning Tim Curry, etc. 🙂 He and I really enjoy going over these posts of yours together. 😀
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Yay! So happy you guys enjoyed it. Someone else mentioned to me the Tim Curry thing – though we weren’t sure if he was playing anyone of historical significance (besides being himself!).
I should have another one coming soon!
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Love this list (and, like you, am still waiting on a return to the land of StarTropics). I remember renting Mario’s Time Machine (yes, I’m that old) and being super disappointed to discover that it was not a Mario game proper, but more of a learning game. I still finished it, but I was a sad panda when I first started playing it.
This is the second time in a couple of weeks I’ve come across Liberty or Death, which is a game I was completely unaware existed. I’m terrible at strategy games, but would really like to give the game a try now, just to see how it plays. Excellent job, as always.
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I also rented Mario’s Time Machine and was equally disappointed! I’ve come to appreciate it a little more now since playing similar games – though looking back, the concept is still poorly implemented compared to something like Carmen Sandiego.
Likewise, I had just come across Liberty or Death for the first time in these past couple weeks (thanks to a Facebook group I follow). It was hard not to include it after seeing how directly it tied into my post!
Thanks for taking time to read and comment!!
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It had to be the same FB group I follow. I don’t remember the group, but it was their game of the week. I thought it was a rom hack at first. Lol
Carmen Sandiego is the GOAT. I still love those games.
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Yeah! It’s the SNES Fans group. I think they’re doing Legend of Mystical Ninja now. Great source of nostalgia. Agreed about Carmen!!
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