History PoliticallyCorrectHistory / VideoGames

* ''VideoGame/MetalGear'':
** Inverted in the first ''VideoGame/MetalGearSolid'', where Master Miller identifies Naomi Hunter as a fraud because of her family's inconsistent history: Naomi claims her Japanese-born uncle was a member of the FBI in the fifties, but Miller later points out that the head of the FBI at the time, J. Edgar Hoover, was a well-known racist and wouldn't have allowed him in the bureau. In reality, Hoover being racist is a misconception stemmed from his liberal usage of a certain N-Word (which was just the norm at the time) and his feud with UsefulNotes/MartinLutherKingJr (Hoover viewed him as a radical and feared the Civil Rights Movement had been [[RedScare infiltrated by Communists]]): in reality the FBI hired non-Whites under Hoover's tutelage as early as the 1920's and even admitted them into the ranks of Special Agent, including James Wormley Jones, James Amos, Earl F. Titus, Arthur Lowell Brent, and Thomas Leon Jefferson ([[UsefulNotes/ThomasJefferson not that one]]).
** Played straight in ''VideoGame/MetalGearSolid3SnakeEater''. The Boss was a woman who led a group of specialists during the invasion of Normandy in UsefulNotes/WorldWarII. Women were allowed in the army as nurses or other kinds of logistic support, but almost never as armed forces and certainly not in a command position. She presumably got to do more than that out of a combination of being just ''that'' good and [[spoiler:being a descendant of one of the original Philosophers]]. It's also mentioned through later details about her past in ''[[VideoGame/MetalGearSolidPeaceWalker Peace Walker]]'' that not everyone was entirely happy with a woman having a non-logistical role, which was in part the reason why [[NeverMyFault she was blamed]] for a mishandled space mission that allowed the Soviets to beat America to space in the first place, and later for why she was [[spoiler: set up as the fall-guy for the Virtuous Mission and Operation Snake Eater]] during the events of ''[=MGS3=]''.
* In ''VideoGame/OperationDarkness'', K Company, 1st Platoon, or the "Wolf Pack", allows women into front line roles -- which is wildly anachronistic for the UsefulNotes/WorldWarII setting of the game. Somewhat justified by the unusual nature of K Company, 1st Platoon -- the British Army doesn't traditionally allow [[OurWerewolvesAreDifferent werewolves]] or {{Mad Scientist}}s to act in front line roles, either -- and {{lampshade|Hanging}}d when Jude assumes that because he's being transferred to a unit containing a woman, he's thus being moved off the front lines.
* ''VideoGame/PiratesOfTheBurningSea'' provides equal male and female options for all factions. There's absolutely ''no'' way a woman would have been able to openly serve in the French, British, or Spanish navies of the time -- women have long been considered unlucky to have aboard ships, and would have been considered too timid, flighty, and incompetent to serve in the military. Pirates were less traditionalist, and there were indeed some female pirates known to history... but they tended to try to pass as male. In addition to the issue with "women are bad luck", female clothes of the period were highly impractical, and it was generally not a good idea to be visibly the only woman in a crew full of rowdy sailors who have been on the sea too long.
* The ''VideoGame/SakuraWars'' series is set in the 1920s, but seems to show many more opportunities for and much less discrimination against women (and, in the New York-based ''VideoGame/SakuraWarsSoLongMyLove'', non-Europeans) than would be expected in that time period. Of course, this is a setting with demons and HumongousMecha, ''not'' historical fiction.

* A major facet of ''VideoGame/EmpireTotalWar'' is your faction's participation in the 18th century's colonial/maritime economy, but Creative Assembly really tries their damnedest to ignore the fact that African slavery was arguably the most vital cog in that economy. Two of the "trade theaters" in the game are West Africa and East Africa/Madagascar, and they exclusively produce... ''ivory''. Slavery is also glossed over on the flavor texts for the plantations; the most mention that the practice gets is the late-game "Abolition of Slavery" technology... Though Revolutionary France abolished the practice in 1789, it was reinstated by Napoleon. The long game's ending year of 1799 was long before any American/European nation permanently abolished slavery. This is especially weird since the game just prior, ''Medieval II'', did feature slaves as a tradable resource.
* ''VideoGame/WorldOfTanks'' includes the following:
** Black and white people in the same tank crew during World War II.
** Female tank crews for various nations even though only the Soviets used them in real life.
** NoSwastikas.
** Adding the ability to give Soviet and Chinese troops better rations although this could just be GameplayAndStorySegregation since every nation has a food related consumable [[note]] Chocolate for Germany, Cola for the US, Tea and Pudding for the Brits, Onigiri for Japan and Strong Coffee for France [[/note]] with the same effect (improving crew performance).
* Interestingly, ''VideoGame/WorldOfWarships'' zig-zags this. US Navy commanders, for example, are strictly white this time around, though there are still NoSwastikas for the Germans.
* In ''VideoGame/SidMeiersAcePatrol'', the player can have both male and female pilots, despite the games taking place during the UsefulNotes/{{World|WarI}} UsefulNotes/{{W|orldWarII}}ars, and only the Soviet Union had female combat pilots during WWII (and, of course, the USSR is absent in the WWII-set ''Pacific Skies''). The second game, at least, does give you the option to disable female pilots in order to be more historically accurate.
* In ''VideoGame/SilentStorm'', both sides of UsefulNotes/WorldWarII has men and women of all races serving together in all branches of the military. This would only be true for the USSR.
* Most of the games in the ''VideoGame/{{Civilization}}'' franchise gloss over slavery. The Call To Power series explicitly has a ''Slaver'' unit (as well as an ''Abolitionist'' unit), but beyond that slavery is largely abstracted. Civs I through III basically ignore it completely; III has a different graphic for "workers" you "capture", and they work at half the normal rate but don't cost upkeep. In IV, you have the option of ''Slavery'' for your Labor civic, but all it does is lets you rush a project at the cost of population. It's mostly gone from Civ V as well, although you can demand "workers" from City States.
** ''Videogame/{{Colonization}}'' only does two parts of the Rum trade triangle - the third were slaves. However, the game allows the player to massacre Native Americans if they wish to, which leads to a mild WhatTheHellHero towards Creator/SidMeier in the Prima guide.
** However, slavery wasn't completely glossed over in Colonization. While slaves are not used as a trade good, they are present as actual colonists - they are as productive as regular colonists at producing raw resources, but almost useless for manufactured goods. Indentured servants, essentially people who have sold themselves into slavery for a certain time until paid off by their labour, fall between slaves and free colonists in productivity. So while the slave trade itself is not depicted (and would be difficult to include sensibly since Africa is not present at all), slavery as a source of cheap labour for the fields is.

* ''VideoGame/FallenLondon'' is set in the Victorian era and concerned with Victorian values like scandalous manners, but the game treats men and women equally for the most part, with exceptions being mostly for flavour and comedy. Apparently women can't vote in Fallen London, but it's not as if it would do much even if they could. Both male and female characters are treated respectfully by others and EveryoneIsBi by default (although the player can choose to only pursue one gender or no-one if they choose).
** Although you can see things that would have never occurred in the era (Same-Sex marriage, female police officers) there's still plenty of the problems that ''did''. Namely colonialism, imperialism, corruption, poverty, PoliceBrutality and terrible working conditions.
** It should be noted that the game is set in an AlternateUniverse, several decades after the city of UsefulNotes/{{London}} was ''literally'' stolen by AlienSpaceBats, and has demons, golems, and sentient mushrooms wandering around in it. There's also another justification in-universe: [[spoiler: the heart of the city is [[GeniusLoci sentient]] and desires love stories (including the kind with pictures), so it would want to increase their supply.]]
* The titular Order in ''VideoGame/TheOrder1886'', which is a continuation of Arthur's Knights of the Round Table, has no qualms letting women into their ranks to fight for them, as evidenced by Isabeau/Lady Igraine as well as the other female knights seen throughout the game. Of course, the game takes place in an AlternateHistory with SteamPunk technology and a centuries-old war against lycans (ahem, [[OurWerewolvesAreDifferent "half-breeds"]]), so obviously some aspects of the Victorian era would be different.

* In-universe in ''VideoGame/AfterTheEndAPostApocalypticAmerica'', which takes place in a post-apocalyptic FutureImperfect FeudalFuture. The great power of the Southeast is the Holy Columbian Confederacy, but the average peasant is entirely unaware what the last nation-state in the area to call itself a "confederacy" was -- it bears more resemblance to the Holy Roman Empire than anything else, and the cultures there are disproportionately likely to generate mixed-race [=NPCs=]. Invoked in that the HCC's founder, the African-American Emperor Leonidas I, [[MonumentalDamage absolutely razed the old Confederacy's legacy]] -- whether his motivations were disgust or pragmatism are left ambiguous.

* The developers of ''VideoGame/CallOfDutyWWII'' have [[https://www.polygon.com/e3/2017/6/14/15798864/call-of-duty-world-war-ii-black-female-german-soldier gone on record stating]] that, for the multiplayer modes, they want the players to have their choice of how to customize their character, regardless of historical propriety. The ability to play as a black female German soldier spawned a minor meme, since this would have run completely counter to almost everything the Nazi party believed - the whole "master race" thing was very heavy on the ''white'' Aryan race. It's not that much better for the American side, either, as women were only allowed in logistical roles, and while blacks were allowed to serve on the front lines at least as far back as UsefulNotes/WorldWarI, they were in segregated all-black units like the 92nd Infantry Division, though [[RealityIsUnrealistic 10 White Divisions (including the 1st Infantry Division, which the main characters are in) did eventually have all black companies]]. In the campaign however, this is {{Averted}}, with the developers keeping things as historically accurate as they can.
* ''VideoGame/{{Battlefield}}'':
** NoSwastikas applies to all the World War 2 games, starting with the very first one, ''VideoGame/Battlefield1942''.
** ''VideoGame/Battlefield1''.
*** While many armies had non-white soldiers, they are overrepresented in multiplayer given how the American, British, French and German armies have at least one out of seven classes represented by a person of color. Most egregiously, the German Scout and Calvary classes are black, whereas there were only ''five'' recorded Afro-Germans in the Kaiser's army in Europe during World War I.[[note]]Germans had the Askari regiments... but those fought in Africa only, and the game has no such map. In contrast, the British and French historically had more non-white soldiers because they controlled the sea lanes and thus were able to ship over soldiers from their colonies. But even then, only 8% of France's troops in total did not come from Europe.[[/note]]
*** For Russian Army in the ''In the Name of the Tsar'' DLC, female soldiers (in reference to Russia's Women's Battalion of Death) appeared as the Russian Scout class. Again, this one is somewhat justifiable given the history behind Russia's female soldiers, but they were treated as propaganda value and disbanded before the end of the war.
** ''VideoGame/BattlefieldV''
*** The game became the first in the series to feature full-fledged character customization and female avatars, something that's been requested for years. Only problem is, the game is set in ''UsefulNotes/WorldWarII''. The reveal trailer depicts a squad of four British soldiers consisting of two white men, a black man, and a [[TwoferTokenMinority woman with a prosthetic arm]] all fighting together as equals and [[CustomUniform featuring designs that aren't authentic to the era in the slightest]]. It was even more controversial when the box art was revealed, featuring a woman standing front and center of the WWII shooter, despite the fact that out of over 100 million people who fought in the war, less than 1% of them were women - and the vast majority of those (over 800,000) were in the Soviet military. To say that there was controversy around the trailer would be putting it mildly, especially since it was supposedly a "return" to the roots for the series.
*** The released game, possibly in response to the backlash, took a few steps back: the multiplayer still lets you customize your character as you please, but the story mode features female and coloured fighters only where they really existed (for the latter) or where they might plausibly have existed (for the former). There are also no prosthetic arms to be seen.
** The campaign war story ''Nordlys'' depicts a mother-daughter duo sabotaging a heavy water plant in occupied Norway when in reality the heavy water plant sabotage was carried out by an all-male team of British SOE commandos.

* ''Videogame/TheSimsMedieval'' features gender equality and acceptance of same-sex relations and marriage in the medieval period. It's sort of justified in that the Sim world is not the same as the real world, and bigotry may never be a thing in their universe.
* The [[VideoGame/CriminalCaseMysteriesOfThePast fourth season]] of ''VideoGame/CriminalCase'' is ostensibly set in the late 19th century, but there is a distinct lack of racial segregation (in fact, your team features two black characters and one Asian woman), and no one seem to show any prejudice against interracial and same-sex relations (such as the one between Evie Holloway and Katherine Woolf). Instead, most of the prejudice and discrimination you come across tends to be directed at Irish people.
* It is highly unlikely Annet (and Restiana) in ''VideoGame/ElViento'' would be able to wear such a [[{{Stripperiffic}} scantily-clad]] outfit across America in the [=1920s=]. Annet is also a dark-skinned South American, but no prejudice shows up, including any against her (alleged) interracial relationship with the white Earnest Evans.

* ''VideoGame/PrincessMaker2'' is set in roughly the medieval period, yet gender doesn't seem to be an issue for anyone, as Olive is completely free to pursue any educational course or career she chooses without anyone batting an eye. A few characters do imply that such equality for women is recent, but that's about it.
* The classic Amiga/NES strategy game ''North & South'' received a VideoGameRemake that very prominently features a black Rebel soldier, both on the main map screen and as a random playable character or NPC in the fort/train capture minigames. While the Confederate army did conscript plenty of black laborers for the war effort and it wouldn't be accurate to say that no black man ever picked up a gun on behalf of the Confederacy, there is also (for reasons that ''should'' be obvious) no historical evidence of any who were pensioned as soldiers for the CSA, nor are there any records of them serving under any Rebel officer's command. Also present is the Union army side featuring black and white soldiers fighting side by side, which is less egregious than depicting the same thing in the Confederate army but still not true to history; plenty of black soldiers did fight for the Union in the Civil War, but they fought in segregated units.

* The classic Amiga/NES strategy game ''North & South'' received a VideoGameRemake that very prominently features a black Rebel soldier, both on the main map screen and as a random playable character or NPC in the fort/train capture minigames. While the Confederate army did conscript plenty of black laborers for the war effort and it wouldn't be accurate to say that no black man ever picked up a gun on behalf of the Confederacy, there is also (for reasons that ''should'' be obvious) no historical evidence of any who were pensioned as soldiers for the CSA, nor are there any records of them serving under any Rebel officer's command.

* The classic Amiga/NES strategy game ''North & South'' received a VideoGameRemake that very prominently features a black Rebel soldier, both on the main map screen and as a random playable character or NPC in the fort/train capture minigames. While the Confederate army did conscript plenty of black laborers for the war effort and it wouldn't be accurate to say that no black man ever picked up a gun on behalf of the Confederacy, there is also (for reasons that ''should'' be obvious) no historical evidence of any who were pensioned as soldiers for the Confederacy, nor are there any records of them serving under any Rebel officer's command.

* The classic Amiga/NES strategy game ''North & South'' received a VideoGameRemake that very prominently features a black Rebel soldier, both on the main map screen and as a random playable character or NPC in the fort/train capture minigames. While the Confederate army did conscript plenty of black laborers for the war effort and it wouldn't be accurate to say that no black man ever picked up a gun on behalf of the Confederacy, there is also no historical evidence of any who were pensioned as soldiers, nor are there any records of them serving under any Rebel officer's command.

* ''VideoGame/PrincessMaker2'' is set in roughly the medieval period, yet gender doesn't seem to be an issue for anyone, as Olive is completely free to pursue any educational course or career she chooses without anyone batting an eye. A few characters do imply that such equality for women is recent, but that's about it.

* A major facet of ''VideoGame/EmpireTotalWar'' is your faction's participation in the 18th century's colonial/maritime economy, but Creative Assembly really tries their damnedest to ignore the fact that African slavery was arguably the most vital cog in that economy. Two of the "trade theaters" in the game are West Africa and East Africa/Madagascar, and they exclusively produce...''ivory''. Slavery is also glossed over on the flavor texts for the plantations; the most mention that the practice gets is the late-game "Abolition of Slavery" technology... Though Revolutionary France abolished the practice in 1789, it was reinstated by Napoleon. The long game's ending year of 1799 was long before any American/European nation permanently abolished slavery. This is especially weird since the game just prior, ''Medieval II'', did feature slaves as a tradable resource.

* The [[VideoGame/CriminalCaseMysteriesOfThePast fourth season]] of ''VideoGame/CriminalCase'' is ostensibly set in the late 19th century, but there is a distinct lack of racial segregation (in fact, your team features two black characters and one Asian woman), and no one seem to show any prejudice against interracial and same-sex relations (such as the one between Evie Holloway and Katherine Woolf).