Atlantis

Lore & Background

In Plato's account, Atlantis was a naval empire from the west that had conquered most of Europe and Libya, but after an ill-fated campaign against a fictionalized Athens, it lost divine favor and submerged into the Atlantic Ocean. The story was intended to illustrate the superiority of Plato's ideal state. Despite its minor importance in Plato's work, the Atlantis story has had a considerable impact on literature and has inspired much pseudoscientific speculation.

In Their Own Story

The water around me was thick with silt and the silence of the deep, broken only by the distant, rhythmic thrum of alien engines. I swam past a colossal marble pillar, its surface etched with symbols that predated my own time, now draped in glowing green vines from the Void. Above, the ruins of Atlantis floated upside down against a sky that wasn't a sky at all, but a swirling vortex of purple and black. A swarm of Piglets darted between the broken arches, their chittering echoing off the submerged temples. I tightened my grip on the rocket launcher, knowing that in this place, history was just another casualty waiting to be fired upon.

Reader's Guide

The source article does not describe any gameplay or level associated with Atlantis in any video game series.

Did You Know?

• Plato introduced Atlantis in his dialogue Timaeus, written in 360 BC.
• The only primary sources for Atlantis are Plato's Timaeus and Critias.
• Some ancient writers viewed Atlantis as fictional or metaphorical; others believed it to be real.
• The allegorical aspect of Atlantis was taken up in utopian works by Renaissance writers such as Francis Bacon and Thomas More.