The Shakespeare Arcade: Learning and Teaching through Video Games

One-third of the world’s population plays video games, and the global gaming industry is more than three times the size of the film and music industries combined. Through the support of a UKRI/AHRC Standard Grant, the Shakespeare Arcade is investigating how the popularity and creative ingenuity of video games might be used to engage new audiences, and especially young people, in the artistic richness and ethical complexity of Shakespeare’s texts. With English literature A-level enrolments currently falling, UK students are at risk of missing out on crucial skills in critical thinking, cultural literacy, and multimodal analysis that the discipline builds. The Shakespeare Arcade will show how videogames can energise the study of Shakespeare and English literature, not only through their popular appeal but also their intelligent and even visionary engagements with Shakespeare’s texts.

Objectives

The project explores the following research questions:

1. What video game adaptations of Shakespeare currently exist, which plays are they based on, and what game genres do they use to reinterpret these texts?
2. How do the interactive mechanics, narrative design, and multimodal features of these games generate new insight into Shakespeare?
3. How can this insight be used to support in-depth, engaging study of Shakespeare in the classroom?
4. How can lessons involving game adaptations be aligned with national curriculum statements and examination objectives?

The project team will answer questions 1-2 through a systematic survey of existing video game adaptations of Shakespeare, which range from homemade microgames to commercial indie games. We will share our findings through a new, open-access digital platform, called The Shakespeare Arcade, which will serve as a gateway to Shakespeare-inspired games and provide guidance about their content, scope, and technical requirements.

Working with our Project Partners, the English Association (EA) and National Association for the Teaching of English (NATE) – both leading English subject organisations in the UK – we will answer questions 3-4. With the support of the EA and NATE, we will present the Arcade to UK English teachers, recruit a team of Teaching Champions interested in trialling select games in the classroom, and analyse teachers’ and students’ perceptions of the games’ impact on motivation and learning. Through this co-created work, we will produce lesson plans that will be published on the Arcade and support learning in Key Stages 3-4, the years when students in the UK most often study Shakespeare.

Dissemination

Academic findings will be disseminated through scholarly publications and a final conference called ‘Playing the Classics’ in summer 2028, which will form the basis of a journal special issue. Findings from classroom research will be published through short, teacher-facing essays and an open-access, co-authored book on Shakespeare, video games, and pedagogy. In collaboration with the EA and NATE, we will co-produce a final report that will be shared with educational stakeholders including the Common English Forum, which meets with the UK’s Department for Education, and on Hwb, the Welsh government’s national learning platform.

Collectively, we will produce a step-change in both scholarly and public understanding of the value of video games to the future of Shakespeare and English studies.

Meet the team

Project lead

• Erin Sullivan (Shakespeare Institute, University of Birmingham)

Project co-lead

• Sarah Olive (Aston University)

Project partners

• The English Association
• The National Association for the Teaching of English

Advisory board

• Gina Bloom (University of California-Davis)
• Andrew Burn (UCL)
• Diana Henderson (MIT)
• Varsha Panjwani (NYU London)
• Hannes-Martin Rall (Nanyang Technological University Singapore)
• Paolo Sacerdoti (Specto Studio, Milan)
• Ai Salt (Aston University)
• Liam Semler (University of Sydney)

Teacher steering group

• Hayley Bissell (Windsor Academy Trust, West Midlands)
• Gemma Boon (Painsley College, Staffordshire)
• Zoe Cooper (Ysgol Bryn Alyn, Wrexham)
• Vicki Edmunds (Chipping Campden School, Gloucestershire)
• Annabel Kristensen (Ikast Brande Gymnasium, Denmark)
• Cassie Martin (King’s School Gloucester)
• Ben Miller (Repton School, Derbyshire)