Players will have the chance to explore Assassin’s Creed Origins’ virtual Egypt free of combat and story constraints in a new “Discovery Tour” gamemode, developer-publisher Ubisoft announced today.
Discovery Tour turns Origins’ map, as the company puts it, into a “combat-free living museum, with guided tours that let players delve into its history firsthand.” Given the lengths Ubisoft went to creating a large-scale as-accurate-as-possible map of the country, hiring historians and Egyptologists as consultants, this is a chance for the developer to showcase its map and the functioning virtual world it’s created, rather than it simply existing as a backdrop for action.
This is a great move, as it turns what is normally ‘just’ a game into a tool that can be used for education and learning, or something more casual as just walking around in a beautiful environment without having to worry about being attacked or killed or whatever.
I am *NOT* a gamer, I find the games themselves boring to watch someone else play, and I am terrible playing the games – I always get killed fast.
But if the game has the details the article says I think I would find it interesting to do tours of sights to be seen.
Being able to explore different places and points in history in a way that’s awesome is one of the main reasons I really really hope VR succeeds in a major way.
From the uptake so far, it might very well fail …again (because it’s not the first time that VR is supposed to revolutionise things; maybe it’s just way too early, with current attempts mostly good at giving people headaches, and only Matrix/eXistenZ/Caprica-like tech will become big)
It would be excellent if they could also add that to the older titles.
Especialy Assassin’s Creed 2 for the italian Renaissance and Unity for the parisian Revolution.
I have wandered in the towns of these games for the pleasure of contemplation and historical recreation more than for the gaming itself.
These games make a job so much better than any serious historical software at recreating the architecture and a matching ambiance.