Blackhaven is a first-person mystery about the legacy of slavery

Those that fail to learn from history are doomed to repeat it

As a Canadian, I probably already know too much American history. I say “too much,” but there really isn’t such a thing when it comes to history. Especially when it comes to the darker side that we’d much rather not repeat. So, while we’re up here grappling with the implications of the discovery of hundreds of unmarked graves in residential schools set up for indigenous children by the church and government, maybe let’s look at someone else’s dark past.

Oh, look! It’s Blackhaven, a game where you explore a museum built around the burned remains of a colonial farm. You play as Kendra Turner, an HBCU sophomore and summer intern at the Blackhaven Hall Historical Society, who finds herself unraveling the true story behind the whitewashed history of the plantation.

Put together by HBCU students and historians, Blackhaven covers themes of slavery, emancipation, and white supremacy. All of this is told with carefully researched architecture, furniture, and documents. It’s a first-person narrative game that gives you free rein to explore and unravel the mysteries for yourself.

An uncomfortable topic for sure, but one worth learning about, and you can do so for free as Blackhaven releases July 27 on Steam. Brought to us by Historiated, it looks like a worthwhile experience that makes use of the video game medium to create an engaging history lesson.

Zoey Handley

Zoey is a gadabout gaming hobbyist. She’s been playing video games all her life and is a lover of both new and retro games. She enjoys digging in the dirt and picking out the games that are perfectly fine if you clean them up a bit.