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It may be just a video game, but if you play "Assassin's Creed 3," you will most certainly walk away from the game with a unique ? and at times stunningly accurate ? view of Revolutionary War-era America.
Sure, this best-selling action-adventure?game series features time-travelling assassins and whole lot of science fiction, but the Assassin's Creed?games are also know for taking players on a journey through?fascinating?moments in our very real history and for putting those moments on display in stunning?digital?detail.
For "Assassins' Creed 3," which launches today, the developers at Ubisoft are taking players to the colonial?America of the mid-to-late 1700s?where they?have gone to great lengths to recreate real-world locations from the Revolutionary War in highly accurate detail.
Not only did they build digital versions of locales from Boston to New York, they?take us to?the American frontier various colonial settlements. And?while gamers will?play the entirely?fictional?Connor Kenway?? the?son of a Native American mother and British father bent on revenge and freedom ? they will also?meet very real figures from history such as George Washington, Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson and Paul Revere.
"The goal was to make the game as historically accurate as possible,"?Maxime Durand, a historian?brought on to work on the?game, told me in a recent interview. With that in mind, he spent two and a half?years extensively researching the period. He says he did so much research that, during that time, he compiled?160 gigabytes of historical documents, images and data as reference.
And it wasn't just the look of the cities and?landscapes?of?time period that he and the team at Ubisoft tried to build into the game. They tried to make the people that?players?encounter in the game?? both the?famous?and the everyday kind ??as realistic as possible, down to the vocabulary they used, the clothes they wore and the jobs they performed during that era. Durand says he?even researched and put to use?some of the curse words popular?at that time.
All in all, Durand says 10 to?15 times more research went into this game's history than went into any other Assassin's Creed game.?The result:?"If you just stand and look around the city of Boston for example, it will feel like you?re actually there in that time period," he said.
In fact,?Durand?said that, ultimately, the goal in recreating a city like Boston was to make it so accurate that if you were to pluck someone from that time period and drop them into the game, they would be able to find their way around the streets.
Since sightseeing via?time travel?isn't actually possible yet, we'll have to settle on "Assassin's Creed 3."?Here's a look at five very real?locations from America's ?revolutionary history that can visit in this game.?
Boston Common
These days, the Boston Common ? which you'll find situated in the heart?of the?Massachusetts?city ? holds the honor of being the oldest public?park in the United States. But the Boston Common of today looks very different than what you'll see in "Assassin's Creed 3," which depicts the sprawling pasture lands as they were before and?during the Revolutionary War.
Durand explains that, during this period, the British used?the Common as a camp and it was from?here that they set off for various battles at Lexington and Concord.?He?says they used engravings from the time to help them build an accurate version the Common, complete with some of the rolling hills that would later be?leveled?off.
Old North Church
When it comes to the Revolutionary War, the Old North Church in Boston is perhaps?best known as the place where American rebels?were warned of the arrival of the British army.
Paul Revere had asked three patriots in Boston (including the church sexton) to hang?lanterns?high in the church?to let the patriot fighters?in Charleston know how the British troops were arriving. As the famous line from the poem?"Paul Revere's Ride"?goes: "One if by land, and?two if by sea." The?Bostonians?hung two lanterns, warning that the British were?advancing via?the Charles River. It was to be the beginning of the Revolutionary War.
The?Old North Church's?steeple has been twice destroyed since being built in 1723. For?"Assassin's Creed 3," the developers?attempted to recreate it as it looked?in 1775.
Faneuil Hall
This Boston?building isn't called "the Cradle of Liberty" for nothing. The?location features prominently in "Assassin's Creed 3" as the game?depicts some of the events that lead up to the Revolutionary War.?
As the website for the historical building?explains:
It was at Faneuil Hall in 1764 that Americans first protested against the Sugar Act and the Stamp Act, setting the doctrine that would come to be known as "no taxation without representation." Gatherings to protest the Stamp Act, the Townshend Act, and the Redcoat occupation would follow, as would one of the first in a series of meetings that would culminate in the Boston Tea Party.
Old State House
Built almost 300 years ago, this famed building was a place where the people gathered to debate the British occupation and its unfair taxation. And it was in front of this building that the?Boston Massacre took place?in 1770.
But Durant said that due to some changes to the building?over the years,?recreating the aging?state house exactly as it was before and during?the revolution?presented?a bit of a challenge for the "Assassin's Creed 3" team. "We used a lot of engravings from the period and photos from the 19th and early 20th centuries and tried to keep it as accurate as possible to the original architecture," he said.
Old South Meeting House
Built in 1729 as a place for Puritan worship, this building became that starting point for the Boston Tea Party come 1773. It was on?Dec. 16 of that year that thousands of colonists gathered at this building, all fired up about the?British tendency toward taxation without representation.
And if you paid attention in history class, you know what happened next. Some?these people headed to Boston Harbor, boarded three British tea ships (dressed as?Mohawk?Indians)?and dumped more than 300 chests of tea into the water.
Winda Benedetti?writes?about video?games for NBC?News. You can follow her tweets about games and other things?on Twitter?here?@WindaBenedetti?and you can?follow her?on?Google+.?Meanwhile, be sure to check?out the?IN-GAME?FACEBOOK PAGE?to discuss the day's?gaming news and reviews.
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