Assassin’s Creed, and Thoughts on History

Recently, I’ve been playing through Assassin’s Creed: Brotherhood. I was drawn to this series of games because of the vibrant graphics, excellent atmosphere, and interesting setting. After all, there are not many games that focus on the Crusades or Renaissance Era, so it is a relatively new experience and one that Ubisoft has taken much care to produce.

For people who like time periods in history, it is a joy. It is a rare opportunity to wander around the streets of a city in the past; getting a sense of what day to day life must have looked like. With regards to Assassin’s Creed: Brotherhood, the monuments especially attract your attention, as Rome possesses Roman as well as Italian buildings of note. Important historical figures feature in the story as well, so it is an opportunity to try to glimpse what they were like, how they behaved, and what they wanted.

However, games loosely based on history can also be a potential nightmare – at least for historians. Entertainment mediums place story and drama above all else, because they want to make a compelling product. However, in choosing fantasy over fact, they often distort history and its players. I remember a similar kind of experience, visiting Scotland shortly after the movie Braveheart was released. The tour guide was giving us a tour of Sterling Castle, and was regularly interrupted by tourists who would say, “But in Braveheart…” I give the guide much credit for keeping his cool and reminding the tourists that it was just a movie.

But perhaps I’m making a mountain out of a molehill. Is this really such a big deal? In the case of Assassin’s Creed, many of the game players will have had little exposure to Renaissance Italy. Should they later choose to pursue knowledge about this area, by researching online, studying history or art, or traveling to Italy, they will learn the authentic history. For those that don’t, it is unlikely that this ‘creative history’ will have any real effect on their day-to-day lives.

All in all, I relish the fact that we have the technology to be able to simulate environments – past, present, and potential future – in order to better understand what life was like at that time. Now, to encourage developers to create games featuring some of the ancient wonders of the world, like the Hanging Gardens or Colossus, which we cannot even visit in real life!

-          Al