Walking around ancient Athens is possible in games. But how historically accurate is it?
Walking around fifth-century Athens? In a game like Assassin’s Creed: Odyssey, it is possible. During a workshop organised by UvA Media Studies on history in games, about 50 students watched as a researcher made her way through ancient Greece. “As historians, a game allows us to really experience and understand historical events for the first time.”
More than 50 students stare at a huge screen Thursday afternoon in Lab42, the modern center for AI at Science Park. They watch game researcher Corine Gerritsen run a soldier from the historical game Assassin’s Creed: Odyssey through fifth-century B.C. Athens. “This experience is something we archaeologists could never offer,” Greek assistant professor Aris Politopoulos explained, as the Athenian soldier crashes from a temple.
The Leiden researchers were invited by UvA organizers Toni Pape and Georgia Samaritaki to speak about how video games interpret history. Gerritsen and Politopoulos are part of the VALUE project that explores how video games can be combined with science. “And the Assassin’s Creed series has been mixing historical education with a lot of fun for years,” Politopoulos stated.
Academic debates
It soon becomes clear what the Greek archaeologist means by that historical context. Assassin’s Creed: Odyssey is set in ancient Greece. Today it is being played as “Kassandra,” the female of the game’s two selectable main characters, who meets many existing historical figures within the game. “For example, who here knows Euripides?” asks Politopoulos about the knowledge in the room about the legendary Greek playwright. Although a few hands go up, few students recognize the drunken character who appears on screen.
“We are part of a symposium, at the time the name for a male drinking party with female wine servers,” Politopoulos explains. Kassandra walks through a marble house full of wine amphorae, pink blossoms, and bowls of grapes where the loquacious comedian Aristophanes, the half-naked playboy politician Alkibiades, and the unavoidable philosopher Socrates also pass by. “We have some idea of what such a symposium was like from literary sources, but because few archaeological finds of a feast have survived, for a long time we had difficulty imagining it,” Politopoulos said. “As historians, a game allows us to really experience and understand historical events for the first time.”
Plus, games challenge academic debates about gender or the history of the normal man. “I would choose the female lead character anyway, but I don’t really know if that is historically correct,” one student remarks. However, it is the first game in the Assassin’s Creed series where the gamer can play as a female character at all. But it is also special “that you see so many ‘normal’ people walking around in the game,” according to Gerritsen. “It’s not just about the big political characters. In doing so, the researchers explain, it is also modern that no partisan political point of view is taken. “The main character is not necessarily pro-Athean democracy but is more like a murderous tourist in a politically charged Greek era.”
Not accurate
Some passing students who were raised on the Assassin’s Creed series join the lecture. “I really thought the first games set in the Renaissance were the coolest anyway. But I also think ancient history is cool,” states an interested KI student. Arriving at the Parthenon, a huge Greek temple in Athens, it turns out that certain parts of that history are not painted quite right, however. Not a bad thing, according to Politopoulos. “Any representation of this time cannot be completely accurate; even historians simply have too few sources for that.”
However, Politopoulos does find it striking that maker Ubisoft uses accompanying podcasts, documentaries, and books to give the idea that the game is, in fact, completely historically accurate. “Historical accuracy apparently sells better. That’s why the archaeologist prefers to work with independent, smaller game producers, who “also focus less on the prominent history of the West. Such collaboration, according to Politopoulos, provides an opportunity for archaeologists to finally experience “underexposed parts of history” by students, historians, and players.
Counterfeit looting art
As Politopoulos talks about art on Mount Athens’ Acropolis, a student asks the playing Gerritsen if she could steal some art “from the Parthenon”. Gerritsen sneaks out of the temple with some Greek coins. “It’s pretty easy to loot from the Parthenon undisturbed anyway,” Politopoulos jokes. He is referring to the statues once taken by the British, which, to the dismay of many Greeks, still stand in the British Museum in London.
But the recreation of such historic statues and buildings by game-makers makes “a time machine.” “We archaeologists are usually not good at creating such images. For example, no archaeologist had created such a faithful historical model of the Notre Dame in Paris as Ubisoft did for an Assassin’s Creed game about the French Revolution. So when the cathedral partially burned down in 2019, the game-maker was called in by the restorers to rebuild the church.”
A conversation with Socrates
“The historical experience that a game makes possible, the empathy, the interaction with the environment, the discovery and walking around in the recreated world is not possible in a book, film or series,” Gerritsen then states in conclusion. Sure, she argues, a producer must deal with “the fun the gamer wants. Like the famous Persians in Odyssey, who have been relocated some hundred years forward in time to still introduce the gamer to the powerful Greek opponents.”
But in the end, its main character Kassandra is still able to have somewhat realistic conversations with historical figures, which you would otherwise never have experienced that way. You do have to be careful about the choices the main character can make in the conversations, warns an observant student in the room. After all, when the main character gets into a conversation with Socrates, the Greek philosopher turns out to be one hundred percent realistic: “Socrates makes you reason endlessly in circles. You’ll never get out of a conversation with that man.” Whereupon, indeed, everyone in the room goes crazy over Socrates’ endless, inevitably tiresome questions.
