Your company historical vicarious experience
- Game
- 6 March 2025
What do you want to be when you grow up? Some would say an astronaut, others a singer or an actor. Rarely will there be opportunities to become such an incredible character in real life. However, video games are the medium that allows you to feel like the main character of amazing adventures. This is what we call vicarious experience. Imagine yourself in an adventure that is unattainable in the modern world, such as a journey through the Far West. You ride a horse across dusty plains, duel under the scorching sun, and make decisions that shape your destiny. Video games provide a safe and immersive space to live out these dreams. They blur the line between fantasy and reality, giving you the thrill of exploration, the weight of responsibility, and the satisfaction of becoming someone extraordinary, if only for a moment.
The Red Dead Redemption vicarious experience
Immerse yourself in a bygone era.
At the very end of the 19th century, as modern America takes shape, a world is disappearing. A world of cowboys, outlaws, and untamed wilderness. Red Dead Redemption II plunges us into this world with remarkable precision. More than a game, it’s a living reconstruction: every saloon, every train station, every dusty trail seems to breathe history. This era of the Far West, now inaccessible, fascinates us with its harshness, its romanticism, and its deep love of freedom. Thanks to the Vicarious Experience, players can explore this period at their own pace, choosing whether to be an honourable hero or a hunted bandit. It’s also a way of conveying ancient values: respect for nature, honour, brotherhood, but also the moral paradoxes of a changing world. Far from being a mere backdrop, the West becomes an intimate living space to be discovered and experienced.
Cavale and the constant pressure of law
Somewhere in the mountains of Grizzlies or the dark swamps of Lemoyne, a man lives off the grid. In Red Dead Redemption II, the shadow of the law looms large. A bounty on your head isn’t just a number: it’s a silent sentence. Every town becomes a potential trap, every unfamiliar face an informant or bounty hunter. Far from a simple action game, it’s an immersion in paranoia, in the constant unease of a life on the run. Movements become slower and more cautious. The player learns to avoid, evade, to live on the edge. This muted but omnipresent pressure makes any form of normalcy impossible. Silence becomes a luxury, trust a risk. In this world of brutal law, survival means knowing how to disappear. And suddenly, the Far West loses its idealized freedom to reveal its harshest face: that of eternal flight.
The experience of a duel to the death and the law of the strongest
Under the scorching sun of a desert afternoon, two silhouettes face each other, frozen in tense silence. The wind makes the dust dance, and the world seems to stand still. In Red Dead Redemption II, the duel is a total sensory experience. It’s not just a matter of reflexes: it’s a moment of truth where every second counts, where every heartbeat sounds like a countdown. One move too early, too late… and everything collapses. The moment is charged with raw adrenaline, controlled fear. In real life, it would be unthinkable to face a man with a gun. But here, the player faces the law of the jungle with no real consequences, experiencing an intensity that few media can offer. The duel becomes an art, a dance of nerves and precision, where honour and survival are at stake in the blink of an eye.
Historical reconstruction : go back to the past
Immersion and preparation before the event
At dawn, in the soft light filtering through the tents, men, and women work in silence. This isn’t a film shoot or a play: it’s a historical reconstruction, and every detail counts. Months of research have gone into this moment. Every stitch of clothing, every belt buckle, and every weapon carried has been carefully chosen, faithful to the materials and techniques of the period. But the illusion doesn’t end with the appearance. You must also learn to walk, talk, and behave as you would in 1812 or 1914. Gestures became rituals, looks were codified. Far from being a simple leisure activity, this immersion requires total investment. It’s a collective effort, a shared passion to bring history to life with accuracy. And in this theatre without an audience, each participant becomes a living fragment of the past.
Tatiana Tochilova
The intense experience of combat and life in the field
The ground vibrates under the cadenced steps, the orders fly, the drums beat – suddenly the past becomes tangible. In historical re-enactments, the moment of combat is a brutal adrenaline rush. Two sides face each other, each following a rigorously studied strategy, reenacting the precise movements of a forgotten battle. The tension is real, even when the weapons are neutralised. The body reacts: shortness of breath, a pounding heart, tense muscles. In the field, the heat or the rain, the rudimentary bivouacs, the long hours of waiting, create real fatigue. You don’t sleep much, you eat simply, you live the old-fashioned way. Cohesion became essential: everything was based on coordination, respect for roles, synchronisation of attacks and retreats. It’s no longer a game, but an embodied collective memory. And in the midst of all this, history comes alive again, with flesh and breath.
The impact of reenactments on memory and the transmission of history
When the smoke clears and the uniforms are put away, there’s something deeper than a simple performance. Historical re-enactment provides a unique bridge between the past and the present. By living – if only for a moment – the reality of an era, we go beyond books, dates and museums. History becomes flesh, movement and emotion. For the audience, it’s a sensitive plunge into events that are often distant or abstract. For the participants, it’s an active exercise in remembering, a way of sharing information that is both rigorous and humane. But the question remains: where does truth end and staging begin? Historical accuracy is always in tension with the need to attract attention, to move people. But it is precisely in this in-between that reflection is born. Reconstruction does not impose a truth, but invites us to approach it, together, step by step.
Dassault Systèmes: the past digital reconstruction
Porta Nigra – Dassault Systèmes
Presentation of the company
When it comes to innovation at the service of the real and the virtual, Dassault Systèmes is a benchmark. Founded in 1981, the French company has become a global player in 3D modelling, digital twins, and immersive simulations. While its solutions are widely used in sectors such as aeronautics, architecture, and medicine, they are also finding an original application in another field: the reconstruction of historical heritage. Thanks to its technologies, it is possible to accurately recreate places or events that have disappeared based on scientific data and archives. This allows for a new way of exploring that is more sensitive and accessible. A “vicarious experience”, not to freeze the past but to renew our understanding of it – between memory, research, and experience.
The importance of preservation
When a monument disappears, it is not just the stone that is lost but a part of our collective memory. In 2019, the images of Notre Dame in flames left a lasting impression. On that day, the digital surveys carried out years earlier became indispensable: they made it possible to plan the restoration with precision. That’s what historical reconstructions are all about. In many cases, as in the case of certain ancient cities or ruined monuments, there is very little left to see. But by combining scientific data, archives, and archaeological knowledge, it is possible to rediscover the shapes of the past, to make solid hypotheses, and to understand things differently. Through these reconstructions, Dassault Systèmes contributes to preserving a trace that is not static but living, evolving, rooted in reality, and open to discovery.
Going back in time
What if we could walk the streets of ancient Rome, enter Notre Dame before it burned down, or walk in the footsteps of the soldiers who landed in Normandy? This is the ambition of the Living Heritage programme, supported by Dassault Systèmes. This project brings together historians, researchers, and engineers with a common goal: to digitally reconstruct major historical sites and make them accessible to everyone. Thanks to immersive technologies such as virtual reality, artificial intelligence and the collaborative cloud, these places will take shape, in detail, in space, and in time. The aim is not just to preserve but to understand, share and experience. These reconstructions become powerful tools for teaching, research, and cultural outreach. They offer a different way of experiencing history – no longer as a fixed narrative but as an experience to be explored, questioned, and shared.
The historical travel
Whether it’s through the open world of Red Dead Redemption II or the precision of digital heritage projects, one idea ties it all together: experiencing history, not just learning about it. Video games and historical reconstructions offer more than entertainment or education – they allow us to step into someone else’s shoes, in another place, at another time. These vicarious experiences blur the lines between fiction and memory, emotion and information. They show how technology can deepen our connection to the past, whether through the dust of the Far West or the stones of ancient cities. In a modern world where attention is fleeting, creating immersive, meaningful ways to understand history is more important than ever. We may never become outlaws, soldiers, or architects of cathedrals, but for a moment, we can feel what it was like – and that may be the most powerful way to remember.
Integrate a new artwork into your company ?
Co-create experiences where silence has meaning!
