Sambuddha Acharya
History, Literature, and Criticism
Roll Number – 47
May 5, 2019
“Nothing is true. Everything is permitted.”, the tagline governing the series of the Assassin’s Creed video games, is Ubisoft’s attempt to introduce to the gaming world the sphere of philosophy. The video game, as a medium, is in relative terms a rather novel invention. Its highly-debated nature has been the source of many arguments and counter-arguments regarding its inclusion in the space of the arts. Irrespective of whether the genre is deemed worthy or not, the video game, if not art itself, is certainly a product of art. Every frame from a game, for instance, is a picture that has been meticulously crafted. It is a combination of plot, coding, music, and digital graphics. While this holds mostly true for all games from the early platformers to the latest, more technologically sophisticated, titles, a certain degree of investment in art sets the Assassin’s Creed franchise aside. For instance, the franchise is hailed for creating wide, elaborate open worlds that are as interactive as they are – as Ubisoft claims – ‘historically accurate’. ‘Historically accurate’, however, is a rather powerful phrase, and must not be assigned without question. What is interesting is that the questioning of Ubisoft’s own claims regarding their games arises out of the very tenet of the fictional Assassin’s Creed – “Nothing is true. Everything is permitted.” In this sense, the very game promotes critical thinking, that, for the purposes of this paper, is directed at the games themselves. Herein, one also confronts the ideas of representation, history, authenticity, criticism and archival – topics that this paper explores in order to evaluate the Assassin’s Creed games in terms of their engagement with the same topics. As of April, 2019, Assassin’s Creed has been in the news not because of their latest title but because of an older 2014 title and its ability to assist in the renovation of the spire and roof of the Notre Dame in Paris.
The eighth major installment in the series, Assassin’s Creed Unity is set in 18th Century Paris in the wake of the French Revolution. The video game follows Arno Dorian as he, in popular Assassin’s Creed fashion, joins the Creed and moves from mission to mission. However, a major part of every Assassin’s Creed game has always been the very elaborate setting that each game offers. That, in addition to the fact that these are often open world games, means that the player may technically choose to abandon the game to simply explore the setting. Such a commitment is tied to the idea of representation. Therefore, as art, the video game represents Paris in the form of a restless city with its streets teeming with protesting Parisians. It is through such a basic setting that Arno Dorian carries out his missions. This same setting contains familiar landmarks like the Bastille, Les Invalides, the Pantheon, the Palace of Versailles, and of course the Notre Dame. By dint of being open world in nature, the player may not only visit these landmarks after they have unlocked them, they may interact with each of them as well. In the Assassin’s Creed world, interaction usually means climbing these landmarks. Therefore, as a general rule, whatever physical structure one sees in the game, one can probably climb. Interaction, however, is not only restricted to the buildings. One may swim along the Seine, help desperate Parisians in need, or simply act in different ways to observe how surrounding non-playing characters respond to Arno. As such, this digital world aims to make the player feel like an active part of this setting. This desired output may be based on Ubisoft’s very sense of representation, however it is not necessarily dependent on a completely accurate representation. Unity has arguably valid representations in that it features the digital manifestations of the various landmarks and the general setting. Nevertheless, the authenticity of such representations are challenged in two broad ways.
Firstly, irrespective of whether video games may qualify as art or not, Unity still seeks to represent as art does. In that, it is a flawed representation. What Unity represents, or the material world, is – in Platonic terms – once removed from the ideal. Therefore, even the most accurate representation of the material would still remain an image and would therefore be twice removed from the ideal. Secondly, the representation that Unity offers is not as accurate as it is believable. Nandita Roy, in her essay, “Many Materialities in Digital Florence: Assassin’s Creed II”, makes clear how Santa Croce’s digital representation in Assassin’s Creed II presents a ‘curious anachronism’ in that it features ‘the neo-Gothic facade built in the nineteenth century’ in spite of being a game set in 15th Century Renaissance Italy. Like the digital Florence of Assassin’s Creed II, the Paris of Unity also exists as a ‘simulacrum’. For instance, an accurate representation of Paris from 1789 would involve more cramped streets and buildings than Unity offers; the relative space one finds in the game is a result of the process of radial scaling. Moreover, a number of medieval conical and slanted roofs were traded in for flatter and less aggressivey slanted roofs respectively to pave the way for an easier free-roam experience. In Baudrillard’s terms, this would qualify as a ‘distorted representation’.
As for Notre Dame, Caroline Miousse, a level artist working on Assassin’s Creed Unity, worked with historians, architects, and texture artists to render the digital version of the cathedral in about two years when, physically, it had taken 182 years to build the landmark. While the cathedral is not absolutely accurate, it is still perhaps the most faithful, and beautiful, digital representation of the Notre Dame complete with every painting exactly where it should be. As a player, one can climb the cathedral or enter it like any regular Parisian and enjoy the level of detail that has been invested in it. However, inaccuracies include – for instance – the inclusion of the iconic spires that did not exist in 1789 but were a relatively recent development. Mohamed Gambouz calls this the ‘postcard’ effect in that “When people talk about Paris they have postcards in their mind””even if this postcard isn’t accurate or truthful to the setting”.
Therefore, the representations that Ubisoft offers are based not as much on truth as they are on popular perception. However, even popular perceptions of Paris are inconsistent in their depictions of the city. For instance, while the 2012 Les Miserables directed by Tom Hooper has an aggressively cold colour grading, Woody Allen’s 2011 Midnight in Paris has a rather warm colour scheme. Between these perhaps sits Baz Luhrmann’s 2011 Moulin Rouge! with its relatively balanced colour grading. One must note, however, that the very poster of Midnight in Paris is of a blue shade and therefore cold in colour temperature. Therefore, one finds in these films – in spite of the inconsistencies – the common trait of the cold colour temperature or roughly the appearance of the colour blue. Even though it does not dominate Midnight in Paris as it does in Les Miserables, the former still borrows of the idea of a blue Paris for its poster — the very tool intended to draw an audience to watch the film. Coming back to the game, one notices that the colour scheme of Assassin’s Creed Unity is undoubtedly cold and it dominates the sky, the roofs, the default clothes of the protagonist, and even the digital shadows of the Parisian cobblestones. This is a clear testament to the ‘postcard effect’ in which people are meant to recognise the Paris that they perceive, or – in this case – the Paris that they have been visually conditioned to perceive by popular media.
After the disaster that the Notre Dame faced on the 15th of April, 2019, Ubisoft pledged to donate half a million euros to rebuild the iconic cathedral, however perhaps the most significant piece of news was the potential aid that Ubisoft with their detailed three-dimensional digital representation could provide for the revival of the cathedral. Whether such an option will be entertained is yet to be confirmed although Ubisoft has promised their complete support should they be consulted. This may be an example of the technological marvel that the 21st century offers, but from a mimetic lens, such a revival can technically carry the odds of being an obscure representation. In this case, the resultant representation, if it were to accurately represent the digital structure, would be imitating an imitation that is already twice removed from ideal. Not only would such a representation be thrice removed and thus relatively obscure in mimetic terms, it would also mimic a relatively distorted structure with anachronic spires composed – at least in its digital form – by keeping free roaming convenience as the first priority.
To add to this, one may note how the video game acts not only as a rather tangible and interactive variant of art but also as a space of archival. It may not be a space of accurate archival but it is indeed an arhival of the ‘postcard’ perceptions of people. While accurate maps and data may be preserved otherwise on such landmarks, Ubisoft has the ability to guide the popular perception of people or to utilise an existing popular perception. Just as they have utilized the idea of a blue Paris as a tool to propagate the idea with their own video game, in Assassin’s Creed Odyssey, the player is offered the ability to perform a ‘Spartan kick’ which is a horrible, but simlarly appropriated, move from Zack Snyder’s 2007 film adaptation of 300. The potential viability of these archives is rendered possible by their storage in the cloud – a space free from, or at least much more resistant to, the fire that laid waste to the spires of Notre Dame. The video game industry’s primary motive is far from archival. While powerful capitalist firms like Ubisoft serve the market and its demands, by propagating the same perceived ideas that the market sells, they – in a way – are complicit in ensuring the convenienve of these demands. As a result, what such a space for archival can be expected to offer – as long as the space exists only for the documentation of a distorted, commodified, market-driven representation – is rather sparse.
Assassin’s
Creed Unity, while it is arguably a well-made game in itself, depicts little
viability as an authentic archive of details. The representations it offers are
true insofar as their sources exist and
are, in a number of ways, similar to their corresponding representations.
However, its twice-removed nature as art and its precarious role as a basis for
future reference renders it incapable of being considered an accurate
representation. However, what these representations may excel in perhaps is the
ability to serve as a basis for future digital maps of media that may rely on
the ‘postcard effect’ or popular perceptions. As a commodity, the video game as
an archive is an investment which may give rise to further commodities as
films, musicals, or further games and propagate the procedure.
Bibliography
Baudrillard, Jean. Simulation and Simulacra. The University of Michigan Press, 1994.
Gilbert, Ben. How Assassin’s Creed Unity could help rebuild Notre-Dame Cathedral. 18 April 2019. <https://www.businessinsider.in/As-France-rebuilds-Notre-Dame-Cathedral-the-French-studio-behind-Assassins-Creed-is-offering-up-its-over-5000-hours-of-research-on-the-800-year-old-monument/articleshow/68944661.cms>.
Les Misérables. Dir. Tom Hooper. 2012.
Midnight in Paris. Dir. Woody Allen. 2011.
Miller, Frank. 300. Dark Horse Comics, 1998.
Moulin Rouge! Dir. Baz Luhrmann. 2001.
Plato. “The Republic.” 380 BC.
Roy, Nandita. “Many Materialities in Digital Florence.” 2016.
Ubisoft. “Assassin’s Creed II.” 17 Acharya 2009.
—. “Assassin’s Creed Odyssey.” 5 October 2018.
—. “Assassin’s Creed Unity.” 11 November 2014.
Webster, Andrew. BUILDING A BETTER PARIS IN ASSASSIN’S CREED UNITY: Historical accuracy meets game design. 17 April 2019. <https://www.theverge.com/2014/10/31/7132587/assassins-creed-unity-paris>.
History, Literature, Criticism 