I thoroughly enjoyed my guided tour, led by Ted, of Assassin’s Creed Origins with Kaitlyn. I defiantly would have had a harder time analyzing the game by myself because I know next to nothing about the Roman occupation of Egypt. I enjoyed being on “baby-mode,” as Ted called it, because it allowed us to pay more attention to the tiny details. I found it so cool that Ted just looked at a wall of hieroglyphics and knew exactly what the name of it was. We talked about the mummification process after we spotted some canopic jars and open tombs. Additionally, the game offers incredible visuals of the pyramids as well as the library and lighthouse of Alexandria. When Ted was climbing to the top of the pyramid, I kept thinking about how tiny our character was in comparison to it, let alone the surrounding environment. It is incredible that humans were able to construct such massive buildings out of stone and basic tools. The simple boats made of sticks tied together were super interesting, despite them being incredibly difficult for me to control since I have not used a control in years, because Egypt's terrain is mostly desert so why would they need boats. It also shows where a civilization lacks in one field of technology, they can excel in others. We unfortunately did not get to beat the game, but we did get to interact with Cleopatra. The player also gets to kill Julius Caesar which I am upset we did not get that far in the storyline. I enjoy getting to see how types of media choose to portray historical figures. It is said Cleopatra was very beautiful, intelligent, and determined, which was well reflected in the game. It also shows Cleopatra’s darker side of killing to keep her power. This was tied in nicely to the plot of Bayek and Aya trying to revenge their son by murdering his killers.
Our group playthrough really reflects the points McCall stresses in the chapter four of “Gaming the Past” in which he gives instructional strategies for using video games in the classroom. One of his main points is about the importance of group work when it comes to using video games for educational purposes. Ironically, he argues that “Teams of three students tend to be highly effective. In this configuration one person acts as the controller of the game while the others contribute to gameplay decisions and take steady observation notes” (McCall, 78). We took turns controlling but Ted was our main navigator since Kaitlyn and I are not familiar with controller-based games or the Assassin’s Creed franchise. McCall also explains that video games help develop collaborative skills. Our group had quite different skill sets which made things very entertaining. Ted was our resident expert both in video games and history. Kaitlyn knows the traditional education system like the back of her hand so, our gaming experience was a step out of her comfort zone. She still did great for this being her first time using a controller! I was just along for the ride as a backseat gamer and comic relief. Overall, games are just more fun when you get to play with friends.
Another one of McCall’s main points is that teachers are responsible for the proper time, resources, and support for students to be able to get comfortable with controls before they begin analyzing the game. He states, “Perhaps the most common mistake made when implementing these kinds of lessons is to assume students will quicky learn how to play even a complex game without explicit training” (McCall, 73). My favorite part of video games is always the graphic design, so when playing a game, I am much more focused on that than beating the game. Because of this, I am extremely thankful we got three weeks to complete the game instead of one and as well as that we got to work in groups. The problem is that in college courses where we have the time. In middle and high school, there are strict curriculums and barely enough time to fit everything in. Reserving slots of class time for weeks is not an option. I do not know how accurate this is but according to How Long to Beat, Assassin’s Creed Origins main story takes thirty hours to beat and a completionist run could take around eighty-four hours. It would not be worth the time for most students because they have more important things to do. McCall also points out that assigning games as homework is not an option because most students do not have the money to buy games, a correct system to play them on, or even Wi-Fi. I relate to this because I was always the kid at the library growing up because we did not have Wi-Fi at home. When the pandemic started and schools went virtual, I had to operate my Chromebook off a hotspot on my phone. Additionally, my school’s Wi-Fi router would crash if all of us students were operating strenuous programs on our Chromebooks so, I could not imagine trying to operate a game like this on such a weak signal. I would be against using a game as complex as Assassin’s Creed as an educational tool because of its difficult controls and how difficult it would be to provide students with needed resources to run it.
Other reasons why I am opposed to using Assassin’s Creed Origin’s as an educational tool would be that Egyptian history is not a huge part of the history curriculum. As I have mentioned before, I learned very little about the subject and most of it was because of TV conspiracy documentaries. This ties into the next reason I would not use Assassin’s Creed Origins, the plot of the game is based in fiction with most of it dealing with aliens and time travel through memories. I do not want my students to start down the conspiracy theory rabbit hole by having them believe that the pyramids were constructed by aliens. Sure, a teacher could use this as a teaching tool to have the student's critic the game themselves based on previous lectures, like Nicolas Trépanier argues for in his article “The Assassin’s Perspective: Teaching History with Video Games,” but it just seems like a waste of crucial class time for middle and high school kids to comb through hours of story for a few scraps of educational information. The game’s main purpose is just entertainment. Lastly, and most obviously, I would not use this game because of its graphic content. The game is rated 18 and up. Despite us being adults, my group was still wincing at some of the violence and laughing at inappropriate scenes. Sure, a teacher could have parents sign a permission slip, but with a title containing the word “assassin,” odds are that parents would not approve, even if they are child plays similar games at home. Teachers have received angry phone calls for lesser ‘offenses,’ so this risk is not worth talking.
All that being said, I did some research on the Assassin’s Creed: Origin Discovery Tour mode and found it to be an interesting tool for classroom use. In this mode, you can select a character from the game to give you a guided tour of various map locations (with dates) in the game. You also have a passport that keeps track of all the tours you have completed. The rating is ages seven and up because it does not depict graphic content like the full game does. This experience is like a museum tour, and with Covid making field trips impossible, this could be a great alternative. It could also serve as a very cool post-test day or Friday class activity. The teacher could control it from their personal laptop and project it onto the board to help students visualize the environment like a movie would. I am all for using these types of simulations in class because I am a visual learner. (I would be against teaching an action-adventure game like Assassin’s Creed. Sorry Ted!) A quote that expressed my feelings towards incorporating newer technology resources is from Nicolas Trépanier which states, “[Teachers] would be missing an exceptional opportunity to show students that history is not merely “what happened,” but rather the result of research, source criticism, and debates in theoretical approaches” (Trépanier). I am so glad the developers and historians that worked on Assassin’s Creed realized the potential the game’s world had for educational uses and decided to make the tour mode. Additionally, the tour comes free with the game, so that is very handy for teachers since they would need to have the game to familiarize themselves with its content for lesson planning. Overall, after my first experience of Assassin’s Creed, I would be willing to give the other games a shot. I also really want to actually play through the guided tours!
Resources:
Trépanier, Nicolas. "The Assassin's Perspective: Teaching History with Video Games."
Perspectives on History, American Historical Association, 1 May 2014, www.historians.org/
publications-and-directories/perspectives-on-history/may-2014/the-assassins-perspective.
Accessed 6 Mar. 2022.
McCall, Jeremiah. Gaming the past. Routledge, 2011.
https://www.ubisoft.com/en-gb/help/assassins-creed-origins/gameplay/article/discovery-tour-mode-of-assassins-creed-origins/000062699