But there's one thing I'd love to see: the filth and life. I want to see horse manure and mud on the streets, urine and faeces pouring from houses, the immense slums that would surround the city but left so few archaeological remains, graffiti on the walls, wear and tear on the streets (like what you can see in Pompei), the smoke from kitchens, pubs and bakeries, etc.
I did have the urge to climb up everything. Thankfully I didn’t try and then flip around and accidentally stab a passerby like I did hundreds of times in the game.
AC was sold in the Uffizi’s gift shop in Florence which was cool to see.
I know with Origins (the best of the games) they had an option to explore and not play the game.
It's also available as a stand-alone if you don't already own the game: https://store.ubi.com/upc/discovery-tour-by-assassin-s-creed...
Sure it's not the most inspiring game, but they nailed the setting and the gameplay loop is superb
I'm sure there are notable examples of unhygienic cities or buildings (I've read about a few) but in general one suspects there may be a tendency to exaggerate the "uncivilized" nature of people from the past. Romans clearly put a lot of values in their baths, for example, which suggests a people who value cleanliness.
Uninformed on this, so interested to hear a perspective!
That said, I’m not sure to what extent this applies to Ancient Rome (as in Republic to fall of western empire). They _did_ have sewers, with public toilets attached to them, and they probably didn’t have that many horses wandering the street, as the horse collar hadn’t been invented yet. Ancient Rome presumably wasn’t as bad as a large medieval city (which wouldn’t usually have had proper sewers), and things may even have gotten worse later on, because at a certain point bathing really did become a lot less common in much of Europe (due to weird medical beliefs and religious objection to public bathhouses).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_horse_manure_crisis_of_1...
It seems highly unlikely to me that this would have been a problem in Ancient Rome.
https://enfilade18thc.com/2015/07/14/the-sound-of-paris-june...
Romanes eunt domus?