In August 2014, a major scandal impacted the videogame industry and gaming journalism, which would become known as #GamerGate. Gaming journalists, specifically those identified as “feminists,” faced mass harassment from self-identified gamers. Four years later, the developer Creative Assembly would be the target of another wave of harassment for an update to their historical game Total War: Rome II, in which women became playable characters. This project explores the link between toxicity in gaming culture and Western historical concepts in historical video games, as well as how gaming culture in online discussion of Historical Strategy has changed since the initial GamerGate scandal
