Virtually Historical: Performing Dark Tourism Through Alternate History Games

Abstract

This chapter argues that performing dark tourism through alternate history games allows us to explore the violent trajectories that our almost-histories may have taken. By contrasting the Bioshock series as a foray into our fictionalized past against the Fallout series as a foray into our fictionalized future, Milligan explores where these gaming franchises find their root in the facts between. Virtual dark tourism does not have to stop at the digital representation of what has already happened, but may venture even darker into what may have been or will be. Gaming alternate timelines through dark tourism, from Bioshock’s past to Fallout’s future, involves the player in another side of the historical: the virtually historical.