Introduction
The year is 1940 and the situation is desperate for the Canadians. Fascist British troops under the leadership of Oswald Mosley swarm out of Labrador and seize ports and railroad hubs as they push towards the industrial heartland of central Canada. Although allied with a number of other Communist powers like Mexico through the Mutual Aid Bloc their assistance may be too slow in arriving as the newly renewed imperial efforts of the British Empire smash the ill-equipped forces of a Canada that had been focused on building up industrial power in the prairies. This was one of my most recent experiences in the Hearts of Iron Four (HOI4). Created by Paradox Interactive a Swedish based video game company and released initially in 2016 HOI4 is a grand strategy video game that places the player in control of a nation in the period leading up to, during, and immediately following the Second World War.
While it is possible to play a historically accurate game, as can be assumed from my experience above, the player is always free to change the course of history for their own nation and with a push of a button can randomize the path of the AI nations. This can create numerous alternate history and bizarre turns of fate where things like a now Fascist Australia joining the Axis, and the Soviet Union restoring the Czar can take place.
These decisions are enacted through a focus tree, a series of decisions that benefits the player and allows them to chart a course for their nation. Canada gained its own unique focus tree in the DLC “Together for Victory” and as such presents an interesting ability to examine how Canadian history, and alternate Canadian history is presented in a public setting.
Canada in Hearts of Iron Four
The player of Canada is introduced to a number of things immediately by opening the country panel Mackenzie King is Prime Minister, and through the political pie chart that democracy is by far the dominant ideology, but not the only one.
The player then has the option of appointing a number of different advisors all offering different abilities and based on different historical figures.
The player is also introduced to the concept of Canada as a dominion and faced with two modifier spirits, The Great Depression and Conscription Crisis Among French Canadians. By hovering over these spirits, the player gains small descriptions of each and is presented with two key gameplay challenges. The Great Depression severely limits their ability to up industrial production, and Conscription Crisis severely limits their recruitable population for military efforts.
This one panel introduces a player to not only the political leader of the period, but also two key issues tied to the Second World War. This is where the strength of HOI4 as a piece of public history lies, by facing a player with historical issues it allows them to engage not only with how they will choose to work around them, but what they will enact to fix them. This is then further built upon in the focus tree, where players are given a number of different branching decisions and the ability to prioritise them. These decisions generally, except in the case of some of the ahistorical ones, are based on real historical events or ideas.
For example, the first focus a Canadian player can take if they want to begin addressing the Great Depression is called the Rowell-Sirois Commission. Based on the real-life commission of the same name this focus introduces and gives a small summary of the commission stating “The Rowell-Sirois Commission has determined that Canada’s federal constitutional arrangement hinders recovery from the Great Depression. We should equalize the standards of service nationwide.” Although this also serves a gameplay purpose by providing political power this then introduces the player to a fairly obscure, but relatively important part of Canadian history.
While the introduction of historical events and decisions holds obvious value to introducing the public to history, I would argue some of the ahistorical events also hold value. This is accomplished by introducing minority movements like the Canadian Fascist and Communist movements and eventually their leaders if you pursue focus paths that switch your ideology. Through this players are not railroaded to remain historical while still engaging with historical aspects.
Conclusion
Where HOI4 fails as a work of public history however is in the absence of many of the less military or economic focused aspects of the war, notably the Holocaust. By doing this HOI4 removes much of the darker side of many of the political movements and governments it presents creating a risk of sanitizing things like Nazism into just another political ideology. While useful then in presenting a player with some introductory historical knowledge in a manner that takes advantage of play it by no means offers a deeper historical learning and may in fact create a false historical narrative by exclusion.