Experiencing History in Assassin’s Creed
laphamsquarterly.org
laphamsquarterly.org
I recently introduced my young son to the trashy film Gods of Egypt, explaining it was not a good film. He asked why then was I showing it to him, and I explained that I just wanted something that gave him a feel for the world, though it is obviously juiced up to ridiculous levels of pomp.
It led to a long time looking at satellite maps of the Nile, how important it was to the region, the farms on floodplains, looking for burial sites on the western side of the river, talking about how the shape of farm plots might hint at the age of the farm, sizes of tombs for wealthy vs common people, etc. We then found a Nat Geo doco on archaeologists working in Egypt on various projects, to see the real world view of desert, funerary objects that tied in with themes from the trashy film, etc.
This week the school run car conversations (kids are 9 and 6) have been speculating about polytheistic religion there, animals and various other topics. It's always rewarding when any silence breaks with a relevant question that sparks another angle of chitchat.
Sounds like I need to get AC: Origins...
Does it cover the full environment? As in, can you safely roam the towns/houses/countryside exploring and then the guide kicks in for specific features (pyramids, etc)? I watched some videos but it was hard to tell how hand-holdy it was versus broad exploration.
Found the game second hand and wondered about getting it for my son to explore, but he's 9yo and the full game sounds a bit inappropriate (language, brothel, violence probably a bit gratuitous - we play Halo where the violence is a bit less realistic).
https://www.ubisoft.com/en-us/game/assassins-creed/discovery...
https://assassinscreed.fandom.com/wiki/Discovery_Tour:_Ancie...
You can explore all of it I think, haven't played it in a while. There are also tours of specific areas as well, like the Pyramids.
FYI if you don't want your son to play the base game due to violence, you can buy the discovery tour versions of Egpyt, Greece, Vikings separately as stnadalone, which only contain the tours and not the stabbing and killing gameplay.
Outside of this example, the community has scenarios like Antistasi, which is a dynamic gamemode that consists of two factions fighting to control a region, and your third insurgent force taking over. No scripted events, just AI making tactical decisions in response to your actions. The most predictable things are QRFs and increasing attacks on your positions as your war levels increase.
I have never had a session of Antistasi turn out similarly, other than people attaching to the roles they love (pilot,engineer,medic,etc.) Mods increase this to a next-level experience with TFAR for radio simulation, ACE for improved ballistics and medical systems, etc. There is a LOT to find, from WW2 to present day.
There are other more roleplay style servers, and I had a blast creating execution videos of in-game politicians and carbombing city squares on a roleplay server in 2014 or so as the Islamic State.
Great fun, great skills you can learn here (I learned a LOT about logistics and communications from ARMA, Foxhole, and Squad.) Game actually runs decently now too.
Be warned that the community is incredibly toxic - but even so, it’s an interesting peek into the mindset of a typical soldier in that type of warfare. There is extremely little information available to you; you very rarely know if the round you just fired (that you spent thirty seconds loading) hit anything.
I'm personally grateful they made this mode at all.
Ancient Greece in a little cartoon in a history textbook is boring, running around ancient Greece being spoonfed a little classics is fun and visually appealing.
And creating in them completely wrong idea about how it functioned may he fun, but I would preferred to skip whole topic if you have to do that. Boring but at least sorta true is better then cool but mostly elaborate diorama.
As opposed to all those reliable primary sources our concept of history is based on?
But, 2000 fiction whose primary goal is entertainment is in fact not reliable source of history.
“If a video game or movie or novel is going to base sales on historical content, then there exists an ethical obligation to deliver more than entertainment.”
I admire Christopher's hubris regarding the film & video game entertainment industries, and I can truly empathise with this desire, but I think that ship sailed an awfully long time ago.
I think it looks nice on my desktop monitor, and absolutely wonderful on my retina laptop screen.
Assassin's Creed games were good and historically accurate untill they got the original creators out (and Desmond dies) From there onwards is pure shit intended to sell games to button-smasher type of players....