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Polychronia-Negotiating the Popular Representation of a Commonpast in Assassin'screed

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Polychronia-Negotiating the Popular Representation of a Commonpast in Assassin'screed JGVW 8 (1) pp. 3- 20 Intellect Limited 2016 Journal of Gam ing & Virtual Worl ds Volume 8 Number 1 © 2016 Intelle ct Ltd Art icle. English language. doi: 10.1386/jgvw.8.1.3_1 JONATHANWESTIN Univ ersity of Goth en bur g RAGNARHEDLUND Uppsala University Polychronia-negotiating the popular representation of a commonpast in Assassin'sCreed ABSTRACT KEYWORDS Severalof the most successful large-scale digital simulations in recentyears aref ound representation in the immensely popular gamese ries Assassin's Creed, developedby Ubisoft.A vari­ Assassin's Creed eh; of monuments and placesfigure prominently throughout th e series, but at different archaeology levels of detail and accuracy.Whil e not presenting a thoroughlyimagined re presenta­ Rome tion of any time period or place, theserecreations empha size the epistemological impact cultural hetitage of particularvisua l modeswhen communicatingth e past, representingthe collective digital media idea of a placeor time, rather than archaeological or historicalfacts. The time and spaces presented in the game series give us an opporhmih;to study how represen­ :t tations of the past can be assembled to be recognizable to a wide audience. This, in hm1, gives us insight into the mechanics of cultural memory.In orderto analyse these .' mechanics, we analyse the representation of the city of Rome created for Assassin's Creed 2: Brother hood, the third rnain instalmentof the series.Not only has Rome been the subject of several cenhtriesof archaeologicalr econstructions,b ut becauseof .r the countless popular representations available, the city holds a strong position in the public consciousness. In Ubisoft's versiono f Rome, the archaeologicalrecor d and ..' I • Jonathan Westin I Ragnar Hedlund Polychronia - negotiating the popular .. 1 Byzantium 1200, www . popularimagination meet, are combinedand sometimescollide . We arguethat Rome things into communicative conventions drawn from established ideas of past byzantium1200 .com as we encounterit hereamounts to a conceptthat we call'polychronia', a placewhere cultures and people (Witrnore 2006: 268; Westin 2012). Furthermore, while Accessed 24 August being abstractions of reality, not reality, they present thems elves as such to 2015 severaltimelines exist simultaneouslyin an organizedmanner to appealto a common understanding.As a polychronia,the representationof Rome is made more recogniz­ the untrained reader, telling an incomplete story in a way that makes it seem 2. Rome Reborn: A digit al complete (Spicer 1988). As a growing number of virtual models of monuments model of ancient Rome, able to the recipientthan a representationsolely reflecting expert knowledge. http ://rome reborn . and whole cities are constructed and introduced to a large audience, these frischerconsulting.com . abstractions not only ensure their longevity through numb ers (Gill 2009) but Accessed 24 August 2015. are also increasingly becoming reference points that physical reality have to INTRODUCTION live up to, rather than the other way around (see Alsayyad 2008). Digital Roman Forum, http ://d lib .etc.ucla 'As Kant (1950) advised, it is not enough merely to show that something is Drawing from the science and technology studies'literature, frontmost the edu/projects/Forum an illusion . We also need to understand why the illusion is necessary' (Latour work of Callon and Latour (Latour and Woolgar 1979; Callon 1986; Latour Accessed 24 August and Woolgar 1979: 175). 2005), this study examines how a game studio negotiates a visualization of the 2015. Despite the proliferation of large-scale popular digital simulations of past. Often described as a sociology of associations, Actor-Network Theory 4. Musei Civici Reggi historic cities and landscapes this last decade, there have been relatively few (ANT) sets out to map out how actants are brought together into a network, Emilia , http://www . musei.re.it. Accessed historical studies on their role as mediators of knowledge and ideas (Chapman assembled and combined into a whole constantly challenged and confirmed 24 August 2015 2013a: 313). Though not in direct competition with scientific reconstructions through negotiations . In order to discuss the negotiable and formative aspects such as Byzantium 1200,1 Rome Reborn, 2 the Digital Roman Forum project3 and of cultural memory and reach a fuller understanding of how different actants Reggio Emilia,4 these popular reconsh ·uctions, primarily presented in interac­ are brought together by the studio, we make use of the ANT concepts of nego­ tive entertainment media, have in recent years nonetheless become influential tiation, enrolmentand translation.By employing these concepts, we acknowl­ platforms for the staging and communication of historical events, which helps edge that the making of any representation is as much a creative effort as an to collapse the boundaries between academic research and public understand­ und ertaking that is shaped by a host of actants, not least so earlier representa­ ing (see Rosenstone 2006; Chapman 2013b). One of the most prominent of tions and technological limitations . Our subject of analysis is the representa­ these is the immensely popular game series Assassin's Creed(hereafter referred tion of Rome in the late fifteenth century, made available to tenths of millions to as AC). This series by Ubisoft has over the last eight years seen just as many of recipients through the third main instalm ent of the AC series, Assassin's main instalments, with an additional four targeting handheld systems, each Creed2: Brotherhood(hereafter referred to as ACB). game recreating one or several historical events or spaces; from Aleppo, Tyre, In contrast to the other cities and milieus represented throughout the Limassol, Kyrenia, Jerusalem, Acre and Damascus in the twelfth century, by . ) series, Rome has not only been the subject of several centuries of archaeo­ Florence, Tuscany, Flori, Venice, Rome and Constantinople in the fifteenth logical reconstructions, but does also, because of the countless popular repre­ and sixteenth century to Havana, Kingston, Nassau, New Orleans, Boston, sentations available, hold a strong position in the public consciousness. It is, New York, Lisbon and finally Paris in the eighteenth century. as Byron puts it, a 'city of the soul', a city overcoming its topographic real­ These places, as they appear in AC, are neither strictly historical nor present ity through the interpretation by generations of visiting artists (Norlander a thoroughly imagined representation of any time period or place. Rather, they Eliasson and Fogelberg 2015: 9). exist in a curious landscape situated somewhere between the two, emphasiz­ The historical reconstruction of Rome presented to the player in ACB can ing the epistemo logical impact of particular visual modes when communicat­ be argued to exist in a borderland between different phenomena - the archae­ ing historical times, events and places. The reconstructions in AC represent ological record, common understanding and recognizability - thus making a shift both farther away and closer to those primary sources they are built up a space created through the interplay and negotiation between expert upon: farther away since they are the result of an interpretation and are as and public knowledge . Hence, Rome in ACB is a representation of the collec­ such perceived by many scholars to lose the inherent validity of the material tive idea of the city rather than strictly archaeological facts, emphasizing the remains they are based upon (see Roussou 2008; Cameron 2007); and closer concepts and monuments related to Rome as a heritage site. As heritage is since a reconstruction can bring the primary sources to life and put them in a a series of attitudes and relationships to select objects and practices that are context where further theories can be explored (see Klynne 1998; Favro 2006: created in the present, not a static and non-negotiable representation of an 327; Frischer and Stinson 2002: 77). As scenes for story-driven narrative, the objective past (Harrison 2013: 14), a visual representation of heritage is neither settings of AC aim to communicate the activity surrounding an artefact or bound by the rules that a scientific measuring has to adhere to nor to even place, rather than simply establishing a definite visual simulacrum of material a strictly denotative visual grammar (Westin 2012: 24). In line with this, the remains. As such they rise to meet a key challenge in representing the past, to representation of Rome in ACB describes the milieus using a large set of tools bring to life not only materiality but also intangible traditions and social history to communicate a wider spectrum of information through images lent from (Silberman 2008: 81; Malpas 2008). Space and time are put in a context of narra - a collective understanding of the subject not limited to a single time period. tion, movement , sound and decay. However, as Chapman writes, assembling a As a variety of monuments and places figure promin ently throughout videogame-based history is a process where'meaning is produced even whilst the game, but at different levels of detail and accuracy, the time and spaces a duty of care is given to the referential nature of the evidence' (Chapman presented by Ubisoft give us an opportunity to study a representation of the 2013a: 315). This opens up for exciting possibilities, but also certain dangers as past assembled to be recognizable to a wide audience. This assemblage is a these representations
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