Assassin’s Creed (1) is a game where you play as an assassin named Altair. Well, kind of it's not that simple. You are actually playing a character named Desmond who is part of Altair’s bloodline. He is put into a machine called the Animus that allows him to live the memories of his ancestors. The game takes place for the most part in the time period of the Crusades. The game is not the most accurate. I think other games in the franchise of Assassins Creed do a better job of portraying history.
Assassins Creed could be used in an educational setting, but I think its use would be limited. McCall the writer of “Gaming the Past” says that it does not have its place in education and that simulation games are better (McCall). I would agree with his statement for the most part. I think that simulation games help you to engage with the history inside the game better, but I don’t believe that Assassin’s Creed should not be used at all. The main problem that I have with it being used in an educational setting is that the game was made to be a game first. It focuses on the gameplay and the killing of historical figures rather than what actually happened. In an article on Gamerant by Ryan Woodrow he talks about how the yes, the historical character are in the game, but their personalities are completely made up (Woodrow).
The gameplay is very fun and engaging. That is what this game has going for it the most. You can climb buildings and run in a way that makes it fun to move around the map. The game looks great too especially for being from 2007. The gameplay is part of the reason that the game, in my opinion, does not work for education at least for certain types of students. The gameplay is too different from what we are trying to teach. Yes, if you look deeply the history is there but at the end of the day, most of the game is just assassinating people. It especially should not be used in any education lower than the college level. However, for classes like History Through Gaming, it can work. Playing this game and discussing its historical accuracy is an important skill to have when deciding to use games for education. We can use Assassin’s creed to teach how to interpret historical literature. Not everything we read is one hundred percent historically accurate, but different interpretations of those events. Assassin’s Creed is a great tool for learning the skills to learn how to understand historical literature. McCall also talked about this point of history just being different historians’ interpretations of what actually happened (McCall).
I think the newer Assassin’s Creed games are a better source than the first one. I chose to play the first one because it was nostalgic for me. I played the first three games in the franchise and then thought that they were getting too repetitive after that. That being said the newer games, from what I have seen, are better for educating people on history. They seem to be putting more importance on having everything accurate than they did in the early games. In the same article by Ryan Woodrow, he talks about Assassin’s Creed 3. This game was set in the time of the American revolution. He claims that it might be because this event has much better-kept records, but it is far more accurate than Assassin’s Creed 1 (Woodrow). Like I said I believe that the newer the game the better tool it would be for teaching. Dr. Pitt my professor for this class talks about how Assassin’s Creed Origins has a history walk-through that displays the accurate history in the game.
Assassin’s Creed 1 is not the best game to use as a teaching tool. This is because the gameplay focuses too much on the killing part and not the historical part. The game is not completely useless in the historical field however, it can be used to learn how to use historical literature in creative ways. The Assassins Creed franchise could also be further explored to see which games would work best in the educational setting. Assassin’s Creed is a great game for what it is. I think it is a very fun game that keeps people engaged. If that is the type of educational tool that you need it could work but it would need to be used right and have a lot of supplemental literature to support, it.
Sources
McCall, Jeremiah B. Gaming the Past: Using Video Games to Teach Secondary History. Routledge, 2011.
Woodrow, Ryan. “Assassin's Creed: All the Times the Series Changed History.” Game Rant, 15 Oct. 2021, https://gamerant.com/assassins-creed-series-historical-accuracy-changes/#:~:text=Assassin's%20Creed%20(2007)&text=While%20the%20game's%20version%20of,kill%20are%20real%20historical%20figures.