Why Assassin’s Creed Maps Are the Ultimate Travel Guides in Disguise

The Assassin’s Creed game franchise loves its historicity–or tries its best in keeping accurate themes when portraying historical locations in its games. When you fulfill your wall-scaling, blade-wielding fantasies in taking out baddies, expect that the locations are based on what they were in the past. Lost in a famed landmark? Wanting to know more about history? Strange this answer may be, but playing Assassin’s Creed games lets you learn a thing or two about some places of the time. Who knows? The best travel ideas can come from a few hours of acrobatics and full-on ambushing action.

Why would you consider Assassin’s Creed maps as the ultimate travel guides in disguise?

The most detailed maps you get in a video game

Whether it be the Colosseum in Rome, the Hagia Sophia, or the Notre Dame Cathedral, you’ll find them rendered historically and architecturally accurate. Who says no studio can create astonishing maps while keeping them sensible in-game? There are some things to be desired in making the depictions achieve a true 1:1 in scale. Capturing the look, feel, and atmosphere of a place even when scaled down for better gameplay is an uncommon success in this game genre. Few titles, even today, make beautifully-drawn places the way the AC Series does.

Multiple dimensions for the best movements

There’s more to Assassin’s Creed games than watching pretty pixel versions of places. There is a lot of verticality in every map, letting you see streets and even rooftops from perspectives not possible when traveling to a location. No need to get lost in the throng of urban centers since you’d have at least a good bird's-eye view of what certain areas look like. Double the fun if you’d known what roads to take just because you’re aware of their in-game counterparts.

A nice map variety

The series has never hesitated in exploring different maps. Earlier games had most of their action in cityscapes. Starting with Origins, other map types entered the mix. There are rural areas, followed by desert terrain, forestland, and even up to the Pyramids. With realistic rendering, you’ll be surprised that these locations actually exist, and there is the joy of rediscovering them in real life.

With open-world mechanics, players get to develop the habit of looking into every nook and cranny. Sometimes, these contain secrets that are more than just in-game items. Developing these observation skills means you’ll get to experience touring a place by more than just sightseeing.

Immersive modes: an educational pre-tour

Some Assassin’s Creed titles include a Discovery Tour mode where the player can explore featured locations in the games. The absence of combat or quests draws all attention to seeing the sights and noticing the tiny details you would have otherwise ignored because of needing to achieve objectives. You can also perform period-accurate slice-of-life tasks to get a basic grasp of how people lived during those times.

Exploring a location’s real-life basis gets an educational and fun boost thanks to Assassin’s Creed’s diverse maps and realistic location rendering. Start your journey by getting a copy of Assassin’s Creed Odyssey