The last three Assassin’s Creed games have all gotten post-launch updates that featured a historically rich Discovery Tour mode. It’s unclear if Assassin’s Creed Mirage will also get such a feature, but Ubisoft announced that it will get an expansive codex that goes into the culture and history of ninth century Baghdad.
Assassin’s Creed Mirage’s History of Baghdad feature will include dozens of entries
This History of Baghdad feature, as stated in Ubisoft’s post on the topic, is meant to add historical context to Mirage’s “simulation of the past.” In addition to tutorials, it has a database full of lore meant to give players a curated collection of the related history, art, and culture.
Ubisoft explained that the database will be integrated into the main game like the database was in the earlier entries. Those who complete the database will get some special (but unnamed) in-game reward. There will be 66 historical sites in Baghdad and players will unlock special articles that touch on at least one of five topics: Economy; Belief and Daily Life; Government; Art and Science; and Court Life.
Ubisoft consulted with many different sources to create this compendium of knowledge, including historian Dr. Raphaël Weyland; founder of the University of Edinburgh’s Digital Lab for Islamic Visual Culture and Collections Dr. Glaire D. Anderson; Dr. Vanessa Van Renterghem, specialist of medieval Baghdad; and Dr. Ali Olomi, a scholar of Islamic history. Ubisoft also worked a few institutions like The David Collection, a museum in Copenhagen, Denmark with a comprehensive collection of Islamic art; the Institut du monde arabe in Paris, France, which has a museum and library devoted to Arabic culture; The Khalili Collections, which was assembled by Professor Sir Nasser D. Khalili and contains around 35,000 works of art; and the Shangri La Museum of Islamic Art, Culture and Design, a center of the Doris Duke Foundation in Honolulu, Hawaii that explores Islamic art and culture.
“We might not always know it, but there is a little of Baghdad in the animal tales we read to our children and the perfumes our lovers wear,” said Weyland. “This comes from the role of the city as a global hub attracting artists, scholars and traders from all over the world. By weaving together various traditions, they created research methods and artistic styles that are still important today. This cosmopolitan aspect, as well as the influence that Baghdad has on us, are at the heart of the story and the world-building of Assassin’s Creed Mirage.”
Weyland also said that it doesn’t stray away from controversial topics like slavery, eunuchs, and harems and noted that the codex has a fair bit of humor spliced in, too. One such entry is all about donkeys and is aptly titled, “the Dome of the Ass.” Weyland also chose the topics alongside world-design director Maxime Durand, which all rose out of weekly workshops discussing the caliphal period.
Ubisoft provided screenshots of the codex in the game, which has images of certain related artifacts and explanatory text. This approach seems a little different from the aforementioned Discovery Tour modes, as this codex seems to not be as interactive.
