Baghdad in the Middle Ages: Ubisoft releases Discovery Tour for "Mirage" as an app

Debora Pape

4.9.2025

Translation: machine translated

Ubisoft releases the education mode for "Assassin's Creed Mirage". It contains background information on medieval Baghdad. The difference to previous Discovery Tours: this time it is only available as an app. But it is free for everyone.

You can accuse the «Assassin's Creed» games of many things, but when it comes to creating a historical setting in a huge open world they deliver. Every time.

In order to create a historically authentic atmosphere, extensive research is required that goes far beyond what you see in the game as you walk past. This includes, for example, the depiction of craftsmen in backyards and other everyday situations, decorative objects, cultural and ritual characteristics, and so on and so forth.

It would be a shame to leave this immense amount of research and close collaboration with experts from the historical sciences as a mere side-show in the game. Since 2017 in «Assassin's Creed Origins», Ubisoft has therefore made its games available as a backdrop for historical educational tours for some time after release. The so-called Discovery Tour was also released in August for «Assassin's Creed Mirage» from 2023. For the first time, you don't even need to own the game to take a vivid tour through the city of Baghdad in the 9th century: It's a standalone app that you can get for free for Android and Apple.

What does the app «Medieval Baghdad» offer?

«Assassin's Creed Mirage» « is set at the height of the cultural and scientific» flourishing of the city in Iraq. The educational adventure, as Ubisoft calls it, is categorised as educational content in the Android store and is available in several languages.
The app offers two modes: a playful, narrative journey in exploration mode, which should take around two hours, and the codex, where you can look up background knowledge about life in the city as well as art and culture.

In exploration mode, you can investigate historical locations and collect information as part of missions. To do this, you select highlighted areas on the city map and then look around in a three-dimensional panorama. There are short video sequences and a soundscape, but the panoramas are still lifes, so there are no people moving around. You get some information through a pickpocketing mini-game that works in the same way as in the main game.

In the codex, you can read even more information and can even use augmented reality in some cases. This allows you to project virtual objects onto the image of your smartphone camera. This allows you to take a closer look at the objects on your phone.

App instead of mode

This is the first app from the supplier Ubisoft Limited in the app stores. The previous three historical voyages of discovery were only available for PC and consoles. They are available as a standalone mode integrated into the respective main game or as a standalone game for around 20 euros or francs. The app is now free for everyone.

There is also no corresponding mode in «Assassin's Creed Mirage» and no longer a standalone game. All Discovery Tour content can only be found in the «Medieval Baghdad» app. Ubisoft states that all Discovery Tours are also suitable as teaching tools for educational institutions. You can find an overview of all Discovery Tours here.

The older educational tours take you to different locations in the freely explorable game world, where you can learn something or simply watch NPCs go about their business. There is no violence or fighting in this mode.

Historical authenticity is not always possible

Despite all the research, the relationship between «Assassin's Creed» and scientific findings is not unclouded. Sometimes Ubisoft intentionally or unintentionally bends the historical background too much. Long before the release of the current game «Assassin's Creed Shadows», which is set in feudal Japan, the studio had to put up with a lot of criticism for incorrect depictions and content. My colleague Domagoj explains the controversy in his article.

Ubisoft finally apologised and explained in a statement what the intentions of the games are. Despite all efforts to create an «immersive and respectful depiction of», the «Assassin's Creed» games were never intended to be an objective portrayal of historical events or people. Instead, the games are intended to stimulate the players' curiosity and make them want to find out more about the historical background for themselves. Despite being largely authentic, the games are fictional stories inspired by historical events and people.

Of course, this requires - sometimes painful - decisions and compromises. While some aspects are shown as accurately as possible, others are only surmised and others are obviously purely fictional.

Debora Pape

Editor

Debora.Pape@galaxus.de

Feels just as comfortable in front of a gaming PC as she does in a hammock in the garden. Likes the Roman Empire, container ships and science fiction books. Focuses mostly on unearthing news stories about IT and smart products.