Analysis (Didactic) of a Historical Video Game: Democracy and Citizenship Education in Civilization VI (Revue de recherches en littératie médiatique multimodale; no. 9)

Civilization VI, published in 2016, is a turn-based strategy game allowing the player to go through historical eras by leading a civilisation toward cultural, economic, military or technological sophistication. This new entry introduces a civic tree presenting new gameplay with government systems and civics policies. This research is descriptive and aims at a formal analysis of the gameplay. We examine the various components and the principles of design as well as the conceptual and civics limits of such a game. We believe this game is an opportunity to analyse and talk about these limits with pupils to foster critical thinking about democracy and citizenship.