The Digital Imaginary: Recreating the “Renaissance” City in the Assassin’s Creed Game Series

• In Event: The Architectural Imaginary

Abstract

In 2009 and 2010, the video games Assassin’s Creed II and Assassin’s Creed: Brotherhood made headlines not only for their compelling gameplay but for their recreation of Renaissance cities, including Venice, Florence, and Rome. In both cases historians helped developer Ubisoft create environs with an air of authenticity. Yet as Marcello Simonetta—who contributed to the second game—notes, the games are as much the product of imagination as historical reality. He chose, for example, to give Rome a decidedly “Baroque” flavor, despite the game taking place around 1500. Like the architectural treatises and imaginary cities of the Renaissance, these games can offer more than mere diversion. By focusing on how audiences perceive these digital capricci this paper argues for the utility of imagined spaces as both a product and a mode of historical research, helping viewers experience past cities while alerting them to the subjective nature of all histories.

Author

• David Boffa, Beloit College