In my youth-days I faced battles unnumbered: Beowulf and Video Games

In a collection of essays devoted to the representation of Beowulf in film, E.L. Risden argues that when it comes to cinematic translation of the epic poem, “the character readily accepts, even seeks, a position as a commodity: the martial and political hero necessary in the context of his world.”1 Such a claim is perhaps questionable when considering the broad spectrum of interpretations in film, but within the more restricted choice of video games based on the legend, it is most certainly true. In contrast to films and television, with only two major video games explicitly referencing Beowulf by name, ludic interpretations of the legend clearly favour a martial hero, and one whose popular-cultural early medieval setting privileges fighting, running, battles and challenges. This chapter explores the logic of Beowulf-themed video games as more than just bad translations, but as expressions of, and contributions to, popular-cultural understandings of the poem and the period. Instead of questioning accuracy and fidelity, it will examine why adaptations of the poem unduly privilege what we call ‘hack-and-slash’ medievalism, how they compare to similarly ‘medieval’ games like Lord of the Rings, Skyrim or Age of Conan, and what impression of the Middle Ages such unequal representation produces.