This historical study develops a working model to investigate digital games with historical stagings as knowledge systems for commemorative cultures. A research overview identifies shortcomings in the historical approach to digital games that numerous examples and preliminary works from other disciplines help to solve. As a result, the study reveals components of the knowledge system and epistemological interests. Considering their media characteristics leads to a concept of the Historical of digital games, a reference system for gaming experiences, and ways of accessing commemorative cultures. Applied empirically to the online role-playing game The Secret World, the model brings together insights into historical knowledge systems, user perspectives and commemorative cultures that are linked to issues of historical fields of work. Thus, this study advances the exploration of digital games as a historical subject and, through impulses to the fields of work, historical science itself.
