Ubisoft to release another historical education mode for Assassin's Creed Mirage

Ubisoft revealed Assassin's Creed Mirage will have a new feature that provides insight into the real-world history of the game's key setting. Known as the "History of Baghdad," the feature "will deliver expertly curated information on the history, art, and culture of Baghdad and the Abbasid Caliphate [period]."

The series has prided itself on its historical accuracy (to a point), and continues the Discovery Tour Mode previously found in Assassin's Creed Odyssey and Assassin's Creed Origins. Unlike that mode, though, "History" is built into the main Mirage experience, rather than existing as its own distinct mode. 

In-game, players will travel to historical sites throughout Baghdad, which will provide information on its real-world economy, government, and belief system. Images were provided for the entries from institutions such as Copenhagen's David Museum and the Shangri-La Museum of Islamic Art, Culture, and Design.

Raphaël Weyland, a historian working with Ubisoft Montreal, explained the feature came from a desire to "help players better understand the world of ninth-century Baghdad, a world that is seldom represented in popular culture. [...] We just had to make sure that what we wanted to describe existed in the world of Assassin's Creed Mirage."

Glaire D. Anderson, who founded a digital lab on Islamic culture for the University of Edinburgh, was a historian brought on to help Weyland and Ubisoft Montreal with the "History" feature. As Ubisoft explains it, she and her team provided information the developer's historian team lacked. 

Speaking to the "wide range" of topics featured in the mode, she called the range of topics "important in my own work as a historian, and I hope players will discover something new or surprising there."