The year is 1868, the peak of the Industrial Revolution, and in a bird’s eye view of London, the distinctive economic and class differences are hard to miss. It is an enthralling scene with goons and guns, horse drawn carriages, steam engines and combats atop them, brutal murders and endless chases. No, it is not a high-budget movie that we are talking about but a video game, Assassin’s Creed, which revolves around real events in history.

Parents usually discourage their children from playing video games but they can be a fun way to learn. Take Adrish Banerjee. The 14-year-old student of La Martiniere for Boys, Calcutta, finds it difficult to sit down to study for half an hour but has the dates of the Industrial Revolution at the tip of his tongue, thanks to Assassin’s Creed.

The pros and cons of using video games to stimulate learning have long been debated; the scales are now firmly tipped towards them piquing the interest of players, increasing concentration and enhancing visual and motor skills.

“Games such as Theme Park and Capitalism simulate real world systems. They involve a combination of skills, strategy and tactics and are often used in management, marketing, economics, stock exchange and hospitality education. They permit students to test themselves in situations before encountering them in real life,” says Debasis Banerjee, economics teacher at St Thomas’ Boys’ School in Kidderpore, Calcutta.

Learning through video games is not a recent concept. Remember Carmen Sandiego? The legendary thief from the video game series, Where in the World Is Carmen Sandiego?, tricked children into learning about various countries — Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Canada, China, Egypt, France, Hungary, Nepal, India — in their efforts to solve the mysteries of her heists. This series provided clear lessons in geography (cities and countries) as well as culture.

Many games available on the Play Station continue that trend. They cover a gamut of topics from world leaders to religion to past eras to timelines on technological breakthroughs like the printing press and the advent of electricity to scientific skills.

“Assassin’s Creed – Unity is set in Paris during the French Revolution, so while playing it I learnt the dates of the revolution and that it ended with the ascent of Napoleon Bonaparte. I also got to know about the social and cultural scenario as well as leaders of those times. While playing Assassin’s Creed – Syndicate, I learnt that the steam engine was invented during the Industrial Revolution and that figures like Charles Dickens, Karl Marx, Alexander Graham Bell and even Duleep Singh, the last maharaja of the Sikhs, lived in that era. Florence Nightingale started her career as a nurse during this time and in the 1800s the Statue of Liberty was being built by the French to be gifted to the United States,” says Varenya Churiwal, another student of La Martiniere for Boys. Assassin’s Creed Origins is about ancient Egypt while Assassin’s Creed II is set in Italy during the Renaissance and Assassin’s Creed III during the American Revolution.

Here are a few more games we can learn from: 

Portal 2

The player uses the laws of physics, such as gravity and inertia, to advance through the game’s series of test chambers. Chell, the silent protagonist, has to escape from a secret underground research facility and the life-or-death obstacle course puzzles put in place by its evil artificial intelligence, GLaDOS, armed with only a portal gun — which can open one entrance and one exit portal at a time. Players must be creative and take into account basic concepts of physics to survive. The game is a great way to teach scientific methodologies with its emphasis on hypothesis and experimentation.

Minecraft

During the day, players can accumulate materials and build things with them. At night, enemies emerge to destroy them. It is important to have created structures that protect players from harm, otherwise death and destruction ensue.

Minecraft encourages coding. To play the game, players must intuitively grapple with the principles of physics and architecture to put together structures that can protect them. They have to learn and use economic principles to acquire goods, resources and capital.

“I got to know of obsidian — a hard, glass-like volcanic rock formed by the rapid solidification of lava without crystallisation — while playing Minecraft. It is very strong and able to withstand blasts,” says Tanushree Mittal, a student of Mahadevi Birla World Academy. Incidentally, obsidian is referred to as Dragonglass in the popular TV series, Game of Thrones.

Plague.Inc

The player wants to infect all humans and thereby eliminate mankind. It teaches you a great deal about infectious diseases, how they spread and how to infect (and also protect) populations. Players also have to learn geography and demographics, how viruses mutate and how to make a virus maximally virulent.

Age of Mythology and God of War

These games take their inspiration from Greek, Norse and Egyptian myths. Its campaign follows an Atlantean admiral, Arkantos, who is forced to travel through the lands of the game’s three cultures, hunting for Cyclops, a giant who is in league with Poseidon against Atlantis.

Though video games can help learn facts, keep in mind that not all details are accurate. Also, video games cannot replace textbooks; they can just enhance the learning experience.