Assassin's Creed
By Jessie Zhou
What is Assassin’s Creed?
Assassin’s Creed is a game that is created by the company Ubisoft and is well known for its historical accuracy as it inculcates many aspects of rich history into the game’s context. The time period of the game takes place before 1500 CE, being held in Egypt during the reign of Hatshepsut and Thutmose III, as well as in Europe during the Third Crusade. Furthermore, the popularity of this game has further spurred on the production of “Assassin’s Creed: The Movie”.
Comparisons between the game and movie
Although the storyline of Assassin’s Creed is well-received, spanning across 11 games (as of 2018 currently), its film counterpart did not enjoy the same popularity as the game did. While the game featured many different aspects of history as well as visuals that are appealing to players, the film portrayed a rushed storyline of the Assassins with the Knight Templars, with certain content in it diverting away from their original content. Yet, I believe that the movie is relatively well made as the buildings and props used on set were chosen specifically for their similarities to the game, with the film characters leaping from roof to roof, as well as the weaponry (Templar swords etc.) that was used.
Features of Assassin’s Creed 1: Loading Screen
In my opinion, I feel that Assassin’s Creed is a good example of a game that has high historical accuracy, with many scenes as well as city plans of the past incorporated into the gameplay. One example would be the historical art and information captions on the loading screen, which serve as a reliable tool for education as it directly incorporates primary sources (evidence from history) into the game.
Screenshots from Assassin’s Creed.
Hugh R. Hopgood, Papyrus Marsh,c. 1427–1400 B.C.,Met Museum, Retrieved from https://www.metmuseum.org/toah/works-of-art/30.4.60/
Features of Assassin’s Creed 2: Discovery Tour
A second example would be the Discovery Tour function within Assassin’s Creed. The Discovery Tour features many different monuments, minute details such as the activities of the local people during that time and even artifacts or documents of history such as the hieroglyphs and pottery, etc. Other than the text conveying information within the game, there is also a narration that reads out additional information about these places or things, with the option of enabling captions for a smoother walkthrough of the tour.
Discovery Tour within the Assassin’s Creed game
The discovery tool provides a platform for users to interact with the cities portrayed in the game, by allowing players to manually control a character and move wherever they want, with glowing lines highlighting the path leading to the tour stations, represented by visible buttons.
How was the historical accuracy achieved?
Moving on to the core of the game, based on a study done by Maha and company (n.d.), an interview with the developers of Assassin’s Creed have revealed that the developers managed to achieve such historical accuracy by collaborating with a historian in the “conception phase of development” of the game, in order to help with building a foundation of research. This is where they found the diversity of designs and architecture in landscapes, which they researched and modified accordingly. Different resources and information such as the original city plans of Jerusalem etc., which date back to the 3rdCrusade were incorporated into the game. One of the buildings in the game was the infamous Lighthouse of Alexandria, which was included in the list of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World that was originally compiled around the 2nd century BC.
Two coins depicting the Seven Wonders of the World, one of Lighthouse of Alexandria. Alexandrian mint, 2nd century CE.
Ginolerhino, Illustration, 28 July 2016, Ancient History Encyclopedia, Retrieved from https://www.ancient.eu/image/5419/alexandrian-coins-depicting-the-lighthouse-of-alex/
Lighthouse of Alexandria in-game
Historical Accuracy: Recreation of lost buildings
The recreation of buildings from the past that were destroyed by frequent assaults was part of the research that has been done by the development team, whereby most architecture and designs of the backgrounds match those in the past. The Lighthouse of Alexandria is one of the buildings that was said to be destroyed, with one of the only evidence remaining to prove its existence being the old Roman coins, which have a rough engraving of the lighthouse.
With that said, the game turns the level up a notch by recreating lost architecture with just a simple reference. This then brings about doubt. Why go to such lengths in recreating history for just a mere game? The study by Maha stated that the Assassin’s Creed developers always had the intention of examining the 3rdCrusade. The study further adds on that the developers wanted to provide gamers with an entirely new level of immersion that was not possible on previous consoles, and that recreation of such buildings was a necessary step in providing players with this all-new experience.
Comparison between history’s Nizari Ismailis sect and an in-game’s Assassin
Fact or Fiction: Historical Gaps
Of course, with every game, there are bound to be some flaws in it. Even though Assassin’s Creed boasts a reputation of being one of the games with high historical accuracy, there are certain aspects of history which it fails to convey as accurately.
An example of an inaccuracy would be that there is no such organisation or group known as the Assassins, but rather, they were based off a Muslim Shiite sect known as Nizari Ismailis, a group who were extremely religious and were the “assassins” of that time. They would often kill people openly in public places in order to show their dominance and power, as opposed to the game in which the Assassins have to make use of their stealth and skills to eliminate people covertly, completing missions without any attention on them. In addition, certain landscapes might be overly exaggerated in terms of how they were portrayed, such as the statues of certain buildings being bigger in size than they are supposed to be.
However, a study done by Douglas (2013) shows that even if such landscapes are not completely accurate, they act as a simulation that influences the player’s perception, hence painting a picture of it as a real experience. According to a study done by Chapman (2012), most of the aesthetics of Assassin’s Creed are based on algorithms that attempt to represent a historical experience by reactively producing various cues within the game.
As quoted by Chapman, “An understanding of the entirety of a game requires a focus on form rather than individual content.” The inaccuracy of individual landscapes could easily be disregarded as a game that should be perceived as a whole, in its final form, rather than the individual components that it is comprised of.
Therefore, since much collaboration and fact-checking is done both prior to and during the production of the game, it is evident that Assassin’s Creed is indeed one of the games that has high historical accuracy, and that I believe could be a useful and fun platform for the teaching (or rather…showing) of history.
By Jessie Zhou, 2018
References
Al-Saati, Maha., Milam, David., Nasr, Magi Seif El., & Niedenthal, Simon. (2008). Assassin's Creed: A Multi-Cultural Read. Retrieved October 4, 2018, from http://journals.sfu.ca/loading/index.php/loading/article/view/51
Chapman, A. (2012). Privileging Form Over Content: Analysing Historical Videogames. Journal of Digital Humanities. Vol. 1, No. 2. Retrieved October 13, 2018, from https://s3.amazonaws.com/academia.edu.documents/43382928/Privileging_form_over_content.pdf?AWSAccessKeyId=AKIAIWOWYYGZ2Y53UL3A&Expires=1539369834&Signature=IJc5KrkxkVR6pJw55/gzZw5rD90=&response-content-disposition=inline; filename=Privileging_Form_Over_Content_Analysing.pdf
Douglas, N. Dow. (2013). Historical Veneers: Anachronism, Simulation, and Art History in Assassin’s Creed II.In Elliott, Andrew. B.R., & Kapell, Matthew. Wilhelm. (2013),Playing with the Past: Digital Games and the Stimulation of History(pp. 215–231). Retrieved from https://books.google.com.sg/books?hl=en&lr=&id=gZPFAgAAQBAJ&oi=fnd&pg=PP1&dq=assassin's creed history&ots=B8nadp_2dy&sig=fCSVPE_gblnJr59Prv50LfHu01U#v=onepage&q=assassin's creed history&f=false
Gray. J. (2010). Depiction of Nizari Ismailis. History Net. Retrieved from http://www.historynet.com/holy-terror-the-rise-of-the-order-of-assassins.htm
Kunzelman. C. (2016). Review of Assassins’ Creed: The Movie Vs Assassins’ Creed: The Video Game. Quartz. Retrieved from https://qz.com/870428/the-new-assassins-creed-the-movie-vs-assassins-creed-the-video-game-a-review/
Ubisoft. (n.d.). White Hooded Assassin. Retrieved from https://www.ubisoft.com/en-us/game/assassins-creed-1/
Unknown. Lighthouses of Alexandria. (n.d.).Ancient Numismatic Mythology. Retrieved October 14, 2018, from http://ancientcoinage.org/lighthouses-of-alexandria.html