Red Dead Redemption 2 Video Game
People pick up video games for many reasons: to let off steam, to immerse themselves in a fantasy world, or to connect with friends online. One associate history professor, Tore Olsson, discovered another reason to pick up a video game: to teach American History to his students at the University of Tennessee. Using the 2018 hit release Red Dead Redemption 2 by Rockstar Games, Olsson's history course "Red Dead History" is a successful example of how educators and other educational professionals can use iconic pop culture materials like video games as a tool to teach course material. The overwhelmingly positive response to this course, both within and outside the university, inspired Olsson to write his upcoming book Red Dead's History: A Videogame, An Obsession and America's Violent Past, set to release this summer.
Pop Culture in Education
Red Dead History is not the first time Olsson used popular culture material as a tool to teach history. Before this course, Olsson created a class that integrated another one of his passions: music.
"I've always been interested in using pop culture in my classes," Olsson said. "For example, when I teach the American History Survey, a sort of big intro class, I call it 'American History in 30 Pop Songs.' We play at least one song every single lecture and then discuss it with students."
Survey classes at universities can often feel overwhelming. They cater to history majors and non-majors, covering a broad swath of history in a short period. Integrating something accessible, like popular music, to frame historical moments covered in the class makes the content more digestible and accounts for students' diverse interests and needs.
"There are a lot of students in a big survey like that who are just there to check a box to fulfill a gen-ed requirement," Olsson said. "So, I think catering to them emotionally, not just intellectually, is an important part of [my] approach."
Rediscovering Video Games
So, what inspired this history professor to use video games to teach American History? It is not necessarily a choice Olsson would have foreseen even five years ago. After all, for two decades, Olsson had thought he had put aside video games for good.
"It was a long-time hobby of mine back in the day when I was a middle schooler and high schooler in the late 90s," he divulged. "I was just absolutely obsessed with video games. It was pretty much the only thing that I cared about." However, his enthusiasm for video games came at a cost: in Olsson's case, his grades. With his gaming obsession contributing to steadily declining school performance, Olsson realized quitting video games altogether was the only way for him to guarantee himself a better future.
Twenty years later, with a successful career as a historian and associate professor at the University of Tennessee, Olsson, like the rest of the world, faced a new challenge: social distancing due to a global pandemic. Similarly to many others, Olsson decided it was as good a time as any to try a hand at playing video games once again. He bought a gaming PC and a game that would change his life: Red Dead Redemption 2.
Rockstar Games released Red Dead Redemption 2 in late 2018, receiving rave reviews almost immediately after its release. In an early review of the game, Matt Bertz of Game Informer wrote, "Using the word 'epic' to describe Red Dead Redemption 2 feels understated. This is the biggest and most cohesive adventure Rockstar Games has ever created." Equally as enthusiastically, Patrick Shanley of The Hollywood Reporter wrote, "[T]he game is a sweeping masterpiece of innovation and an enormous leap forward for gaming as a whole."
This game came out as a prequel to Rockstar Games's 2010 Red Dead Redemption but does not require playing the first to enjoy the second. You start Red Dead Redemption 2 in a western town called Blackwater in the year 1899. You play Arthur Morgan, a key member of the fictional Van der Linde Gang. Rockstar Games describes Arthur on their website as "Dutch's most dependable and capable enforcer.[...] Sharp, cool-headed and ruthless, but with his own sense of honor. A man who gets the job done." However, it is up to the player to decide how Arthur carries out his role as part of the gang. As Brian Crecente of Variety Magazine highlighted in their review, 'Red Dead Redemption 2' doesn't deliver one story, it delivers 23 of them." Set in an "open world," the player can explore as much or as little as they want of the world that Rockstar Games created, giving the player greater control over how their story plays out.
With the opportunity to play video games again, Olsson selected Red Dead Redemption 2 for two reasons. "I heard it had really great graphics and I've always been a sucker for the visual aesthetics and having not played in 20 years, I was ready to get blown away."
"The second reason," Olsson continued, "is that it came recommended to me by a colleague of mine who works on the Civil War era. And he told me, 'Hey, Tore. Check out Red Dead Redemption 2. It's not stupid."
Olsson's colleague is not the only person who thought the game was, at minimum, "not stupid." For its visuals alone, Red Dead Redemption 2 won multiple awards in 2019, including "Outstanding Technical Achievement (D.I.C.E. Awards)," "Best Technology (Game Developers Choice Awards)," "Best Art Direction (Italian Video Game Awards)," and "Excellence in Technical Achievement (SXSW Gaming Awards)."
Beyond the graphics, Olsson was impressed by their historical storytelling. "Frequently, the video game alluded to big historical dilemmas, the thorny stuff we talk about in history classes like women's suffrage, the inequality of race in Gilded Age America, corporate capitalism and warfare between the U.S. army and native people." Sometimes, these topics weren't in the foreground of the game's main storyline, but they were on the sidelines, filling in the color that created the game's world.
Designing the "Red Dead History" Course and Its Impact
Given this impressive nod to America's history and the vast popularity of the game, Olsson started thinking that he could use this game as a teaching tool. "Maybe I could try to design a course that took those big ideas the game gestured towards and place those [ideas] center stage," Olsson said, adding, "[I could] use the fictional content of the games as a sort of window to explore the actual and often very violent history of the United States in the fifty year period after the Civil War."
With a solid, almost decade-long track record as a professor at the university, the department heads at the University of Tennessee's History Department could trust that Olsson would make the class appropriately academically rigorous and not let it devolve into "a Red Dead Fanclub." They gave him the green light to teach the course, saying, according to Olsson, "We have no idea what Red Dead Redemption is, [but] if you think students will sign up, go for it."
Creating the course was a little more challenging than a typical course, if only because it included one major, unique factor: he had to play a video game. "I really didn't want my students thinking I barely knew the game or that I was some sort of poser who was just pretending to get into this. I needed to know the game back and forth. It required a lot of homework, in regards to playing through the game's plotline and doing the side missions with a very different eye than I had when I started, playing the game just for fun."
Otherwise, creating this course was similar to developing his previous lecture-based courses: Olsson went to the library and researched. He gained a better understanding of the topics the game covered, some of which he knew little about but would need to learn far more in-depth to teach them to an upper-level history class. He also had to craft entirely new assignments for this uniquely framed class based on his research and the game's trajectory.
"It was a boatload of work," Olsson admitted. "But it was all worth it because the students loved it."
And, boy, did they. Enthusiasm for the course started almost as soon as Olsson announced he was running it. Once again, the COVID pandemic had a hand in the future of this course. Since students were not milling around the college campus, looking at bulletin boards for any announcements—course or otherwise—that may be of interest, Olsson took to social media to spread the word about "Red Dead History." As a result, the course had many people sign up for it, far more than those who usually sign up for an upper-level history course and a good portion of those registered students came from entirely different majors, from computer science to engineering to child and family studies.
Not only was there greater equality represented between majors and non-majors in the class, but also a surprising one between gamers and non-gamers. Although this course drew the attention of those who played and loved the game, it drew other students in for different reasons, including the sheer novelty of taking a history class through the lens of a video game, especially one as popular as Red Dead Redemption 2.
Breaking down the class, Olsson estimated that approximately 70 percent of the students had played the game. Among these, half were serious 'completionists' determined to explore every aspect of the open-world game. The remaining 30 percent either had no prior gaming experience or had never played Red Dead Redemption 2, showcasing the course's ability to attract a diverse range of students.
Was there an advantage given to gamers who played and knew the game over those who never held a game controller? "None whatsoever," Olsson assured. "Some of the best students were 'Red Dead Heads,' and some never played the game." He set up the course to never test students on the fictional aspects of the game. So, no matter how many hours you played, it would not necessarily do anything to help you be a better student in the class.
"All it does is contribute enthusiasm and that you could find in spades." Most conversations in the class centered around the actual history that inspired the games, not the game's content. "The levels of engagement and enthusiasm in those discussions were really unprecedented for me. At least, it really surpassed what I'd seen in my other classes."
The History Department's initial support for the course remains constant over the years that "Red Dead History" has been offered. Beyond the department, the University of Tennessee also showed its approval of the course by presenting a unique opportunity for its students this past spring semester. In March, students taking the course were surprised with a visit from two of the voice actors from the game, Roger Clark and Rob Wiethoff, who came to speak with them. Together, they discussed the impact of 'gamifying' the past and the actors' parts in bringing the game's characters, however strictly or loosely based in history, to life.
The buzz this course drew within the university also stirred excitement beyond its walls. Because Olsson used social media to advertise his course and drum up interest within the University of Tennessee population, word quickly spread about the course worldwide.
"I had dozens and dozens of people write to me after that social media stuff went viral and ask me, 'How can I audit this class?' 'How can I participate?'" People reached out to him from beyond the United States, including countries like Germany, Turkey, and the People's Republic of China.
Red Dead's History Book
"All these requests convinced me there was a significant audience for this kind of work outside just the college classroom." Since writing is essential to his associate professor and historian role, Olsson decided this would be a fruitful idea for a book.
Red Dead's History: A Video Game, an Obsession and America's Violent Past is Coming Soon
The book, Red Dead's History: A Video Game, an Obsession and America's Violent Past, published by St. Martin's Press, will be coming out on August 6, 2024. It will be available in hardcover, e-book, and digital audio. In a beautiful, coming-full-circle moment, the voice actor for Arthur Morgan, Roger Clark, will narrate the audiobook, giving fans of the game one last wild ride exploring the history of the world that makes up "Red Dead Redemption 2" with the beloved main character of the game.
"Just like in my class, there is no need to be familiar with the game before cracking the cover of the book," Olsson guaranteed. "In that regard, I assume no knowledge on the part of the reader about the game. Of course, I know many people who pick it up do know the game, but that's not required."
Olsson sees opportunities for this book to be used as a resource in classrooms, both at the collegiate and high school levels. "I think that this book has a lot of potential in the classroom to reach this generation of students for whom video games are an even more important form of pop culture than movies or T.V. or novels were for my generation." Olsson intentionally wrote this book so it would have "an outreached hand" to the reader, without assuming they have familiarity with the game or its subject matter.
Integrating Video Games into College Curriculums
So, video games in college curriculum: does this work as a model for educators moving forward? Should more community programs use video games as a conduit for educational opportunities? "It's a complicated thing," Olsson admitted. "Video games are not taken as seriously as films and literature and there are good reasons why. But video games as an industry and medium have changed so much in the past ten years, just in the size and diversity and the type of games you can find out there. Given the reality that video games are only going to grow in significance and emotional meaning to student-aged people, it would be silly to completely ignore them and write them off. "
"But at the same time," Olsson added as a caveat, "this is not the case for everybody. Doing this kind of thing is best for people who enjoy the medium." If you are not a videogamer, this is not a warning that you need to develop video game expertise to engage your students in an exciting way.
Olsson emphasizes, "For me, it was fun. It started as a hobby. I still enjoy gaming, [but] that's a minority of people, especially professors at colleges and universities. In no way am I saying this is the only way to connect with students."
However, it is hard to deny one of the qualities that video games do not share with other mediums: the time a person needs to commit to complete them.
"I do think there is a possibility in using these digital forms of pop culture as different ways to engage students on historical topics, partly because this is a particular type of pop culture because many games engage students for dozens if not hundreds of hours," Olson said. "I think the level of interactivity within these games produces a more powerful emotional connection between the player and the media, as opposed to watching a T.V. series."
Olsson speculated how the greater educational community—like librarians—can play a role in integrating video games and education. "I have great allies here at the University of Tennessee," Olsson said. "There is a game lab set up in the library with the hardware required to play games as a group." While he has not used it for his class yet, having such a space available for faculty and students can increase the opportunity to interact with the media, like the game Red Dead Redemption 2, for those who may not be able to buy the gaming console or P.C. necessary to play the game at home.
As professors feel encouraged to incorporate popular media, like video games, into their courses, college communities will likely find new and exciting ways to support those innovative courses and the students partaking in them. This partnership between professors and their communities could inspire students to break through and blend the boundaries between pop culture and academia in ways we have yet to imagine.
"Red Dead's History: A Videogame, An Obsession, and America's Violent Past" is available for preorder at https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781250349866/reddeadshistory and will be released on August 6, 2024. To learn more about Tore Olsson, visit his faculty page at https://history.utk.edu/person/olsson-tore/.