La mode rétro: French mystery games ‐ Between nostalgia and historical revisionism (1986‐91)

This article examines how games set in the past reflect contemporary social and political events without overtly communicating messages. Using a simplified version of Astrid Ensslin’s methodological toolkit, the author studies four critically acclaimed retrospective mystery games produced in France within the 1986‐91 period. The research results allow one to externalize a trend marked by ambiguous meanings called La mode rétro, namely a nostalgic re-creation of the past and a simultaneous coming-to-terms with France’s history. The author contextualizes the games examined here in terms of their references to a problematic past ‐ the nation’s wartime stance towards Nazi Germany, and colonialism ‐ and contemporaneous events such as the emergence of the National Front in France. The titles examined here demonstrate how discursively ambiguous computer games are as cultural texts.