WILLIAMSBURG — The Colonial Williamsburg Foundation and iCivics released a new game that uses the eve of the American Revolution to teach upper elementary students how to apply critical-thinking skills and engage with multiple perspectives.
Uncovering Loyalties with Colonial Williamsburg helps young learners in grades 3–5 understand the tensions of pre-revolutionary Williamsburg by encouraging them to learn how people from different backgrounds brought unique perspectives to American history, according to The Colonial Williamsburg Foundation.
Funded by the Bob and Marion Wilson Family, Uncovering Loyalties is set in 1774 Williamsburg. With independence in the air, Lord Dunmore, Virginia’s last royal governor, asks players to explore the colonial city and see if rumors of revolution are true.
Players engage with young people across different social classes and life experiences, identifying clues to determine if loyalties in colonial America stay true to Britain or lie with soon-to-be American patriots, the foundation explains.
Clues vary from conversational snippets to found items.
A ledger at a local pub shows that Thomas Jefferson had visited and that sentiment for a revolution may be moving south from Boston. The teapot found at the silversmith’s home is decorated with anti-British Stamp Tax sentiment, and a conversation about trade demonstrates the neutrality of a character in the marketplace.
All of the artifacts that students explore are renderings of items found in the Colonial Williamsburg museum collection, the foundation said.
Players ultimately report their findings to the governor and in the end, they must decide whether they feel pulled toward the loyalist or the revolutionary cause.
Uncovering Loyalties merges the game-building expertise of iCivics and the historical expertise of The Colonial Williamsburg Foundation, which lent a team of historians to make the game true to history.
Museum specialists, historians and onsite interpreters collaborated with the game team at iCivics to bring to life both well-known and underrepresented historical characters, including indigenous people, enslaved and free Black residents, and those from the political elite and artisan classes, the foundation explained.
“Uncovering Loyalties represents a new frontier in Colonial Williamsburg’s nearly 100-year storytelling tradition. This new digital offering brings the world’s largest U.S. history museum to classrooms across the nation, encouraging students to thoughtfully consider the motivations that led to the American Revolution so they can make up their own minds about America’s shared history,” said Mia Nagawiecki, Colonial Williamsburg’s vice president for education strategy and civic engagement.
Uncovering Loyalties is the first game that iCivics has created exclusively for elementary students, representing a further expansion into the K–5 space. It is also the first game that iCivics has developed that focuses on a specific place in U.S. history.
“We are incredibly excited about partnering with The Colonial Williamsburg Foundation to develop a new game about the pre-revolutionary period just in time for the anniversary of America’s founding in 2026: Uncovering Loyalties,” iCivics Chief Executive Officer Louise Dubé said. “Civics and history education, like Math and Literacy, needs to start early so that we can teach young people the skills they need to become informed and engaged citizens. Uncovering Loyalties is a building block to teach young people how our country came to be.”
The game is available in English and Spanish and includes robust educator support materials designed to inspire deeper learning, engagement, and conversation in classrooms, the foundation said.
The game is available for free at icivics.org/games/uncovering-loyalties.
