How Historical is Assassin's Creed, Really? - Detail Diatribe

[@GuessWho7197]

That comment about Odyssey getting the history wrong but the myths right really reminds of something my history professor once said. A classmate had asked him what popular film was the most historically accurate he'd ever seen. His reply was, "300 is the most accurate film to how the Spartans would have *retold* the battle of Thermopylae."

[@Malone_brown_]

tbf the film is from the perspective of a guy telling a story

[@VirtualShogun]

@@Malone_brown_ wait so was 300 just a like 80% a lie?

[@ralphize5153]

@@VirtualShogun kind of? It’s based on a real event but a lot of stuff is made up. There weren’t only 300 Spartans; there were also soldiers from other cities as well as slaves. Obviously the whole hunchback character is made up too and so is how the battle took place. What some people forget is that 300 isn’t based off the real event. It’s based off a comic book, which was about the battle

[@OneManCast]

In other words, 300 is a product of the telephone game. Makes sense.

[@OneManCast]

@@VirtualShogun Well, the cake was 100% a lie.

[@patrickperkins3]

The flavor text of the Cathedral in Havana in Black Flag actually includes a designer note from the in-universe Devs that says something like "now this Church absolutely does not exist at the time of Edward Kenway but it's so lovely we just had to include it" and this video really puts that into context as a great inside joke

[@Whiteythereaper]

It adds some great pointers to the real world intent, by treating each game from Liberation to Syndicate as Abstergo made games in beta, being playtested before the history is whitewashed & the assassins are made out to be more villainous & alot of the deep lore is cut. It basically just shows artistic intent in familiarising the areas to those who know surface level history and are looking for elements they recognise.

[@fabulouschild2005]

Always read that in Shaun's voice lol

[@-Gax-]

​@@fabulouschild2005 In AC2, Brotherhood, Revelations and 3 it is Shaun writing them so you're very close

[@thirdcoinedge]

@@WhiteythereaperIt is also very funny how Abstergo in Black Flag is basically just Ubisoft, casting themselves as the evil world-dominating corporation.

[@arnahunas4048]

This reminds me this one tumblr post where someone was sharing a story that their humanities teacher had told him. The teacher went to europe with a bunch of his students. They where going to see a chruch or in Rome and had gotten lost. One of the students told them to follow him and they arrived at the church in 20 minutes. When the humanities teacher asked the student if he had been to Italy before, he said no and that he just played Assassins Creed Brotherhood. Sorry if this comment is too long, I just thought this story was funny.

[@jax9771]

It’s exactly what I thought when I saw the tittle

[@MigDonalds4235]

I hope the student lead them on the streets and didn’t take a shortcut by parkouring the rooftops 😂😂😂

[@Nadie47]

@Don’t read my profile picture okay

[@raphaelhemery152]

I’ve seen much longer, this a mild sized comment, no need to worry. It’s so cool that he could do that from memory!

[@BHuang92]

Say what you want about video games but at least the kid got interested in a subject that would normally be boring if it was the other way!

[@carmacksanderson3937]

Can we also talk about how embracing a "Cold War" aesthetic for the Peloponnesian War could have been *perfect* for an assassin doing covert shit, especially over an extended period? But no, they had to make it look like a full-blown war

[@stormysoup1083]

They really screwed themselves by retconning previous lore so they couldn't have assassins before late Ptolemaic Egypt

[@Gloomdrake]

​@@stormysoup1083 f they reconned themselves into this mess, they can retcon themselves out of it

[@stormysoup1083]

@@Gloomdrake I hope they do retcon it again when the time comes to make another ancient AC game, I don't see the point in making AC games without assassins

[@jackburridge8790]

I'm a Classics major in my third year and all of Odyssey was just "No? That's not even remotely true? The hell?" to Ubi

[@MoonMoverGaming]

I want to disagree with Blue's assessment of the Peloponnesian War being a "cold war," though. It is true that there would have been no naval combat occurring during the time the game takes place (Sparta did not have a navy.....yet). But, there was large-scale fighting on land almost every spring and summer (especially in the region of Attica, which is a significant portion of "Odyssey's" playable area). There were breaks where a few years would go by without fighting, but most of the time there was plenty of fighting and territory changing hands pretty regularly.

[@Obi-Wan_Kenobi]

I appreciate the humility of the early churches in Jerusalem. It feels very much in line with what the core of Christianity (and religion in general) is about. It's not about flashiness or grander, it's about acknowledging your humble place before God. How good place of worship looks doesn't matter, what truly matters is your sincerity and intention.

[@OverlySarcasticProductions]

I was waiting for a Star Wars joke, but no, that's just an honest to goodness piece of wholesome observational analysis. Well played Kenobi. Well played.

[@Obi-Wan_Kenobi]

@@OverlySarcasticProductions My comment was a surprise to be sure but a welcome one, I hope!

[@OverlySarcasticProductions]

@@Obi-Wan_Kenobi I've been played

[@Obi-Wan_Kenobi]

​@@OverlySarcasticProductions Not to worry, at least now we are still flying half of a Star Wars reference!

[@fissionist2158]

@@Obi-Wan_Kenobi This is getting out of hand! Now there are two of them!

[@aleksandraivanov6258]

“We were being used in classrooms for some ungodly reason” I literally found your channel bc my classic lit teacher in high school showed us your video of Dante’s Inferno like 5 years ago 😭

[@Darksabre1500]

Same it was Dante in class for me too lol

[@whatthefridge1o1]

Once my history teacher played one of blues videos about Rome And I gasped so loud lmao, I had already seen the video at least twice

[@jinxcat90]

I discovered this series and was immediately thinking of ALL the history and literature teachers who would adore these guys.

[@simmy0019]

for me it was the Beowulf video shown in class by my English teacher haha

[@rkhasentered]

my history teacher showed one of their vids in class last year and i thought i was in the twilight zone for a hot sec

[@Big_E_Soul_Fragment]

May not be too historically accurate, but enough to get me and my 13 year old brain to get interested in history so thanks, Assassin's Creed

[@-Scrapper-]

Once a kid helped his class who were lost in Venice get out after finding out it's the same location as the game

[@mathiaslaron3372]

@Don’t read my profile picture smelly

[@controllerfreak78]

@@-Scrapper- I have heard multiple stories of people doing stuff like this, and I’ve never understood how kids remembered how to cross the city without jumping across rooftops

[@controllerfreak78]

@Don’t read my profile picture ok

[@thenegativoneify]

13!? Holy shit

[@JoshSanchez42]

I love the slowly fading in of “GOOD DOME” when they’re talking about the facade of St. Peter’s. It’s very much Blue and I agree.

[@TheGameFilmGuruMan]

Though interestingly they're wrong about old St Peter's being gone at that point. Paul III put up a wall between the new construction and the old with portions of the old structure gradually demolished as the new St Peters neared completion. There are even 16th century sketches of this by Francesco Grimaldi showing the dome under construction with old St Peter's in the foreground. They didn't even start taking the roof off til February 8th, 1606, with the walls beginning demolition in March. Basically, it turns out that it's more accurate than Blue thought.

[@JoshSanchez42]

@@TheGameFilmGuruMan well I’ll be. As I’m not much of a student of architecture nor it’s history this is really interesting to read. Now I trust Blue completely and I don’t doubt his research but I’m also aware that he’s not always correct. It’s always interesting to see when others have some insight that he may not. Makes me want to pick up a book once on a while. Thank you for your input, it’s always great to get more information, especially in fields I’m not informed on.

[@TheGameFilmGuruMan]

@@JoshSanchez42 Interestingly enough, I only found the info after an old memory from an illustration in an encylcopedia triggered when Blue said that. I had to find out for sure if my memory was right-turns out it was, though I didn't find the illustration, sadly. Might need to dig through some Britanicas or somesuch. In any case, I love Blue's architectural rambling due to working toward licensure in architecture, and digging around for stuff like this only makes my enjoyment greater.

[@Obi-Wan_Kenobi]

The only assassins I am familiar with are a worm, a droid, a female changing bounty hunter, and a male Mandalorian bounty hunter, specifically in that order. So I look forward to be educated in this video and expand my scope of assassin knowledge.

[@yammoto148]

General Kenobi!!!

[@vertigo3792]

You are a bold one

[@rattvisa]

Well we also have the one that is 100 people, and the one that is not accualy an assassin, the one that is accually the assasin and the one that is an assassin but wants to be a caster and…. The child….

[@BolasMinion]

What about the woman with an antenna in her head?

[@Gloomdrake]

@@rattvisa does prequels Obi Wan know them?

[@AxleEnterprisesLLC]

Valhalla would have been improved significantly if they'd set the campaign a hundred years later and swapped out Sigurd for RL historic figure Erik Bloodaxe; a pagan who had to flee Norway when his Christian brother seized the throne with the help of an English army, and after bouncing around islands for a few years, ended up being appointed King of Northumbria; a region that was a mixture of Norse and English culture and desperately trying to stay independent. In the end, Erik was murdered and Northumbria fell to the English, but his sons retook Norway and temporarily halted the conversion of the nation. An AC-style plot would easily fit into that (and on a funny note, one of the Kings of England from this era WAS randomly murdered by a strange man with a hidden blade who attacked him and someone else in the street!); the English and the Templars are backing the conversion of Norway and your protagonist ends up having to travel between both regions to deal with them. It'd also remove the pro-colonialism element and replace it with something more complex about dealing with overlapping claims long after a colonial period ended (plus it'd make more sense than the game trying to have its cake and eat it too by having you settle England AND raid it at the same time), and you could easily find some way to have one or two missions be set a century back with another character (maybe one of Eivor's ancestors who she's trying to emulate) to satisfy people who want the pop culture image of viking conquest.

[@subtlewhatssubtle]

Re: the actual assassination, that opportunity for a serendipitous historical alignment was standing right there with a target painted on the HUD over it and they missed it like a swan diving noob aiming away from the hay bale.

[@commissarcactus1513]

Plus, you'd get to have a character named ERIK BLOODAXE

[@razorflossrazor2937]

Oh god this makes so much sense why didn't they do this?!?

[@asmokun]

I like the second idea of having an assassin on another time do all the war stuff, its honestly one of the best idea the franchise could have implemented in order to escape some of the historical oopsies with their world

[@mondaysinsanity8193]

I mean they pretty easily explained the raiding thing lmao eivor is still a Viking

[@Dragoon7485]

Something I was hoping you would touch on during the discussion of Notre Dame -- Ubisoft actually helped out after the fire a few years ago, because they had done so many interior scans of the building for the game that they had a super accurate virtual model and France wanted to use it to help with the reconstruction, so it's a case where the historical authenticity sort of feeds back into the real world.

[@TheGameFilmGuruMan]

Also it WOULD have one in the medieval era when Hunchback is set as it was built by 1230 (sorry Red, completely wrong on it being ahistorical in Hunchback). And, interestingly, there still would have been memory of the spire in 1793 as it was dismantled between 1786 and 1792. This means it's more historical than Blue thought...just like with the Vatican (they didn't just demolish then build the new one like he said earlier in the video).

[@morley364]

I think they mention this on the slide, but Polygon made a video about that! Basically, Ubisoft could kinda help in some areas, but not in others, because copyright law/game design affected how realistic the building was (for example, the statues on the exterior are not realistic at all and many are flat).

[@NaviRyan]

@@morley364they still did the scans though right. Like even just a photo would help with reconstruction.

[@ParaplegicKeanuReeves]

Well at least they're money went to something good that one time.....💀

[@Emily-tv1iz]

At this point I'm starting to just headcanon that the Animus tech is just completely breaking down. The first few games had mostly the correct setting with a few buildings that the assassin's great grandparents or great grandchildren would've seen. By AC Valhalla time it's just straight up like 10 different generations of assassins' memories mushed together into a hodgepodge of "England". Someone might need to go replace the motherboard bc I think it's melting.

[@kisassa]

The problem is, the "modern" (RPG-Trilogy) Animus dosn't pull the data out of the DNA of todays people animore it pulls it straigt from bones, mummyfied remains and anciend blood stains and renders that in real time. So everyting that schuld have been way after the death of the pc shouldn't exist because there is no data from posible children, grandchildren and so on and no Abstero employee editing it to make it sell better.

[@RainCloudVideos]

@@kisassa what a cop out

[@-Gax-]

That could actually work. Maybe the Animus is just more efficient with an actual subject instead of the DNA. Desmond was the difference.

[@creed8712]

@@RainCloudVideossure but so was saying the animus couldn’t run water physics

[@Vinemaple]

this is gorgeous

[@TheWatcher51393]

I've always been fond of the idea that, since Abstergo was building these virtual worlds out, at least in part, for mass consumption through media, that any historical discrepancy can be chalked up to Abstergo conforming their worlds to the popular idea what these places looked like, or what they're familiar as. In that way, Abstergo almost becomes a meta-commentary on the devs behind the franchise.

[@dylanmcnab2980]

That is actually the modern day plot of liberation the psp game.

[@jasonblalock4429]

Yeah, that's an aspect I really liked as well. The idea that the spaces you're exploring were deliberately created by Abstergo gave them a lot of leeway. Kind of reminds me of the whole "we were never making real dinosaurs" discussion in various Jurassic Park movies.

[@jameswest6232]

I've heard a lot of jokes/theories that Absertgo "Games" is 50% the devs making jabs at the industry/Ubisoft.

[@TheWatcher51393]

@@dylanmcnab2980 ah, I've never actually played that one. I missed the boat on the PSP.

[@jasonblalock4429]

@@TheWatcher51393 Liberation is also available standalone on PC, or it's bundled with most (all?) "Remastered" editions of AC3 on newer platforms. And yeah, while it has its flaws (mostly owing to its handheld roots) it has arguably the single best implementation of "the player IS the modern day story" in the series. As you go along, in the game, you get contacted by Assassins who tell you that the history you're seeing has been altered by Abstergo. There are several key moments where you get a deliberately edited and misleading cutscene, but there are clues you can follow to unlock the whole thing. This ultimately leads to two endings, one falsified and one true, depending on whether you saw all the true memory sequences. (Which, for the record, is pretty easy to do. This isn't the slog of the hidden messages in AC2 or anything like that. They WANT the player to solve those puzzles.)

[@TransSappho]

The first time I went to Rome, I visited the Castel Sant’Angelo and instinctively knew my way around it from playing AC Brotherhood. I feel like that’s really a testament to the dedication put into these games

[@jasonblalock4429]

51:40 One thing I did appreciate is that if you pull up the in-game database, the entry - written by an Abstergo employee developing a pirate-based Animus experience - openly SAYS the cathedral didn't exist yet, but people are paying to climb on landmarks so here it is. I suspect they had many discussions like that IRL when developing the game.

[@marctaco2624]

I noticed that too, and got a chuckle thinking that the dev-team historian got fed up and wrote that himself.

[@JA-lr5ix]

Gameplay always has to come first- if the game isn’t fun to play no one gives a damn about the historical accuracy. I applaud the devs for doing it right!

[@marctaco2624]

@@JA-lr5ix Indeed, BF and Ro had the best naval and land combat in the series.

[@alepenagorbe9135]

This is that Jurassic World line: "You didn't ask for realism, you asked for more teeth".

[@jrxx8326]

That final frame of Ezio looking over the water as the sun sets on Venice honestly made me tear up a little. To see something like the Assassins Creed franchise, something that meant so much to so many people, to Me and to Blue especially, fall so far from grace is profoundly heartbreaking.

[@calebbarratt6568]

I feel like this could easily be renamed,"Ubisoft's slide into aesthetics over substance"

[@lyokhamishukov3513]

An interesting possibility with these "historical inaccuracies" with some of the building designs could possibly be explained by the nature of the Assassin's Creed games themselves. The Animus, the device the main characters use to relive the history of their ancestors has been shown to behave strangely on occasion. Swear words and sometimes full phrases are spoken in the ancestors languages rather than English, cracks in reality, and the Animus technicians have no idea why. The Animus also creates a "Bleeding Effect" where the past lives bleed into the current one. It's possible that this also works in reverse, though in a much smaller way. Its possible that the reason these buildings look like they've been fast forwarded is because the people in the Animus remember the buildings as they are now, and that's effecting how they look inside the Animus.

[@zachg.4251]

That's a very Watsonian explanation for those design choices

[@anna-flora999]

Also possibly because memory is often very, very unreliable. Sure, it didn't ACTUALLY look like that, but your ancestor might have REMEMBERED it like that. Or a later ancestor visited the place as well and the memories overlapped

[@nicholascordero6600]

@@anna-flora999 like why Ezio sees his younger sister as a 15 year old he needs to protect, while she obviously grows during the series

[@EvilParagon4]

Along the lines of what that other guy said. A great thing about the Animus is that it doesn't simulate reality, it simulates what the ancestor remembers. Two very important details. It's why when reliving the memories of freerunners, the world is now suddenly full of climbable surfaces. Small details that lead to entire new perceptions of the world. It's why Connor can see tree routes through forests but Ezio can't, because Ezio can't treerun so his perception is immune to it. It's why cities can be 200m across despite being several kilometres across in the real world, because the ancestor just doesn't remember all that middle stuff, like driving a car, only remembering the start and end. They'll remember landmarks, but not every tiny detail. It's why maps can be completely nonsensical and unrealistic, such as the Caribbean appearing as this warped mess with islands in wrong places and Cuba looking stunted. It's not because it actually looks like that in AC's world, it's because Edward just doesn't have good memory tracking between each area. The map essentially becomes identical to those maps made millennia ago where people would write down a city, travel to the next one in two days, and go "this is two days far away", which is quite amazing to turn a game limitation into a limitation of how the Animus can render memories! As a result, we can now say that these historical inaccuracies are _actually_ just memory inaccuracies. Did Ezio see a giant in-construction dome on top of the Basilica? Maybe not when that happened, but maybe he did decades later and his memory has just fused the two events. Did Altair actually see a giant Gothic cathedral in Acre? Maybe not and he saw it somewhere else, or maybe he just came to associate it with the Europeans. Memory isn't perfect in Assassin's Creed, so these creative freedoms can be written off so easily. But then.... Origins ruins everything. The Animus now no longer pulls location data from memories, and instead, simulates everything itself. This new era of Assassin's Creed has just taught us that the Animus can simulate pretty much everything. We can't trust anything seen in any of the new RPG games, because we can have such events as Bayek visiting places he has literally never been in canon, and that's treated as something perfectly fine and not something to desynchronise over. The Animus now simulates everything. Which means, all faults of the landscape, can now be blamed on the Animus, and thus, it's a lot harder to pull any narrative weight from what does get shown, it just seems like an oversight from Abstergo, and thus, Ubisoft. Like, if they didn't make this change, and they pyramids were being built in Origins, we could assume Bayek had a massive focus on slavery and saw what was possibly just repairs as a massive systemic issue looking like the whole creation of pyramids. That would be interesting. But instead, the Animus has chosen to move the pyramids forward 2,000 years and now the lore has to cope with that.

[@notthemusewere]

In some of the games -- thinking III in particular -- the techs explain that coinage is being rationalized so the modern-day "re-liver" can understand it. By the pirate one they are openly admitting the experience has been edited to make it "more fun" for the audience they are aiming for. And in "Liberation," the Templars are absolutely editing the experience to make themselves look better and hackers are working behind the scenes trying to "restore" the memories to their original history.

[@adysenmckay3428]

I’ve been watching OSP for like three or four years now and they remain the ONLY KZbin channel I get excited for every time I see that they’ve uploaded. And I consistently go back to rewatch their stuff all of the time. Thank you guys for being such a constant and informative and generally just enjoyable piece of my life for so long. Love your work. :)

[@loke_the_champ]

What about Historia Civilis?

[@cxfxcdude]

If you enjoy Warhammer at all, I CANNOT recommend Oculus Imperia higher. The man is excellent and talented

[@brianaschmidt910]

If you enjoy learning and not just about literature and other various histories, I cannot recommend zefrank1 or casual geographic nearly enough but they do animals

[@adysenmckay3428]

@@brianaschmidt910 thanks I’ll check those out :)

[@adysenmckay3428]

@@cxfxcdude thanks for the recommendation I’ll watch some of his stuff

[@Kradolpher]

Big fan of how Blue decided to write "Big cathedral" in the AC IV slide because "La Catedral de la Virgen María de la Concepción Inmaculada de La Habana" was too long

[@Sky-pg8jm]

The one thing I wish AC had was some in game explanation for anachronisms like "Oh the animus occasionally renders more modern buildings to better adjust the user to the simulation by giving them their expectations"

[@endlessdidi]

That would make a lot of sense, like the concept that the perception of the user affects the rendering. They keep the bug of ‘it doesn’t render language 100% that’s why you get Italian words in your mostly English sentences etc etc’ it would’ve been a fun meta commentary on why certain aesthetics were in the game.

[@Sky-pg8jm]

@@endlessdidi Yeah! It even plays into the modern day plot that develops in the later games where you're developing and later playing an Abstergo made product. Of course the giant multimedia company isn't going to paint a fully accurate world and is going to appeal to audience expectations (aka exactly what ubisoft is doing). You could even add notes about the real history elsewhere.

[@LaZodiac]

They do actually do this at times in the lore databases in game!

[@Sky-pg8jm]

@@LaZodiac Ah, that might be where I got the idea from then 😅

[@emmish64]

At a couple points they mention abstergo employees putting certain buildings in just because it would look better with them, so yeah they kind of do?

[@indianna1549]

I love the Detail Diatribes, they might be my favourite series on the channel. You learn so dang much from people who are passionate and their passion makes it very engaging.

[@Hrafn_]

I played the hell out of the Ezio trilogy when I was a teenager. I'm aware it's not 100% accurate but either way I ended up becoming a qualified archivist lmao. It was just fun to climb around historical landmarks and gawk at everything. Picked it up on switch recently and I'm once again having the time of my life over a decade later!

[@Pro_Butcher_Amateur_Human]

How is the Switch port? It's in my wishlist, I was planning to get it in a few days when I get paid. The ports of 3 and 4 were pretty solid. Does the Ezio collection have the DLC included? Never got to play Brotherhood's DLC.

[@fionagibson7529]

Fun fact: until the start of this video I would have bet literally my entire life savings on Red and Blue being actual siblings irl because of how their dynamic works

[@markdatton1348]

Blue: "...into one beautifully distilled, 48 slide power point-" Red and also everyone else: "FOURTY-EIGHT!?!?!?"

[@MrDalek2150]

What do you mean 48? I'm pretty sure I did a 60 slide one for a project in 9th grade.

[@TamagoSenshi]

Only 48, impressive restraint from Blue

[@Simetrico]

In the case of AC IV and the Havana cathedral, the game actually mentions in the text files that you get in the modern setting that the abstergo entertainment team put it deliberately for "marketing" purposes.

[@Halberddent]

Funny story, I read the epic of Gilgamesh in part because I watched Fate Zero. And so I learned that he probably wouldn't have been white and blonde, probably wouldn't have worn plate armor, and maybe didn't have a spaceship. But having read the original did help me appreciate anime hotboy Gilgamesh more. It also made me really annoyed that they never put Enkidu in the show. Damn.

[@Gloomdrake]

Spaceship?

[@Halberddent]

@@Gloomdrake Yep. He fights Lancelot with it. Lancelot is flying a fighter jet at the time, but by hanging onto the outside of it like he's riding a bull.

[@SereneAncalime]

Wait your telling me he didnt have his magic alien technology ship. But but but history channel tells me everyone in the ancient world had supremely advanced technology and alien space ships.

[@Gloomdrake]

@@Halberddentwell then

[@jameswest6232]

They sorta did put Enkidu in the Fate/GO Babylon entry, but I always liked Gil's chains being a reference to his best friend

[@shira_yone]

I really miss the 'urban fantasy' aspect of the early games (pre-Origins), there's nothing urban about these new games and I honestly couldn't care less about big empty wilderness/desert. I love getting familiar with a city, learning it's layout and freerun through it's rooftops, knowing the fastest route to get around, it was an engaging experience. Paris was a delight to parkour around.

[@miguellopes7627]

A friend of mine really likes the wilderness in AC3, I however feel like it doesn't make you feel like an actual assassin, like in the ac2 trailer seeing Ezio chase the game without being really seen by the guy and barely touching the ground, also I love the sound of running over roof tiles, ac3's roofs were mostly wood but I was so happy when they brought them back in Havana

[@filleis6374]

As a swedish person who learned about viking history in school and who knew a bit about the earlier assasins creeds i was somewhat intrigued by the potential of a large AAA game portraying the culture. As you can expect i was very dissapointed when i watched the trailer and the whole "Warrior-ization" of the vikings with the tattoos and such (especially the wrist blade in the trailer thing like wtf).

[@endlessdidi]

Tbf the wrist blade is part of the Assassins Creed aesthetic. They tried Odyssey with out it and got criticised so they absolutely weren’t leaving it out of Valhalla.

[@EyeOfMagnus4E201]

American of Swedish descent here and yeah, with AC you expect some degree of historical authenticity, and Valhalla was a total disappointment with the whole “movie Viking” experience, and the gameplay itself also was such that after holding my nose and playing for a while to at least see if the gameplay was okay, I uninstalled the game and did a new game+ with Odyssey instead, as other than with a better weapon upgrade system, Valhalla was actually inferior to Odyssey in gameplay.

[@marctaco2624]

@@EyeOfMagnus4E201 both were bloated and focused more on out leveling problems rather than using creative solutions to sneak around them. When I think AC, I think parkour, stealth and fast moving combat.

[@stevenhedge2850]

@@endlessdidi they were stuck to do that, cause assassin's creed II speficaly stated that another assassin, who killed Xerses is the first recoreded use of the Hidden Blade

[@TitanDarwin]

One thing unmentioned is that Valhalla also really buys into the whole "pagans good, Christians bad" thing that's often been propagated by modern fascist-aligned neo-pagan groups - the English Christians are either portrayed as hypocrites, utter zealots or effeminate weaklings in dire need of some good ol' viking guidance. The Christians Eivor allies with usually fall into the latter category in some way, being completely uncritical of how the protagonist's whole conduct is very much in conflict with their religion and culture. There's also this one moment where a character who's up to this point been shown to be VERY pious just commits suicide to avoid being tortured by Eivor, which is... WHAT? There's arguably NO religion that comes away from this game looking good, neither Christianity nor Nordic paganism nor (the completely anachronistic) Celtic paganism.

[@galenwilds3273]

It would have been neat if AC: Valhalla started with you as one of the guards for the monastery, hearing second- and third-hand accounts of this scary unbeatable horde that's been attacking. Then they attack, you get captured, and you eventually join them, letting you see the outsider's pop-culture view and the insider's 'um, actually...' view Could also play into the templars vs assasins storyline with you being a templar and changing sides as well, giving another facet to the lies you've been fed about this other civilization

[@samuelcoltsghost7025]

Almost like how the Valhalla trailer gives that same vibe. It talks from an "English" pov about how they're barbaric but then it shows scenes of the Vikings being all nice and friendly. But sadly, the game went the route it did

[@simoneidson21]

@@samuelcoltsghost7025 Valhalla is about cooperation, it is actually exactly the same as the trailer. It doesn't have any stereotypes beyond the tats and the fur. Other than that it's accurate and not at all unconsciously using fascist imagery. It's specifically anti-fascist. There are many vikings who are not white, many female vikings.

[@Foxhound94]

@@simoneidson21 it's stupid that we can't use those symbols in historical context within media, soon as anyone tries they're canceled or labeled a nazi. It's bullshit.

[@samuelcoltsghost7025]

@@simoneidson21 The cooperation is non-existent. No mechanic for it in game and only exists as a plot device to make you explore and go to areas. If they actually incorporated the cooperation somehow, like if you went to a certain territory to curry favor with them effected events in another territory then you could say the game is about co-op. Or even if there was more story with the leaders and people of other territories past what we got it would be better. But no, the game is simply bland. And why'd you bring up the fascist stuff? I didn't mention anything close to that.

[@user-sl1wt1dv4y]

Detail Diatribes are just osp podcast without the label

[@starsgears9200]

And without Indigo keeping them on a leash

[@rattvisa]

It is the podcast without the QnA

[@valuebrandmelkor5973]

It's Well There's Your Problem but with media

[@Ty-Dy]

I'm a high school teacher and I love using a ton of your videos to introduce social studies topics and creative writing tropes my classes. They're funny and awesome at helping my kids engage with the history, so many students think history is boring and you both continuously prove it's not.

[@adnanilyas6368]

Just came here to say that a friend of mine in college played my copy of AC III for a class because they used actual maps of Boston and NYC from the general time period in the game. She now has a phd in American history.

[@endlessdidi]

That’s actually super cool

[@JimBob4233]

20:30 Another similar thing was when Spielberg's advisors on Jurassic Park made a computer model of raptors and went 'well, that's very bird-like'

[@lilysong1321]

If there’s gonna be video game diatribes I really REALLY want to see Red and Blue talk about Dragon Age… because the distinct cultures and religious aspects of those games is FASCINATING to me.

[@marctaco2624]

Only played Inquisition, but I agree.

[@lilysong1321]

@@marctaco2624 it remains to this day my favorite series. DA2 is my favorite but that’s the one I started with. The replay ability is what keeps me coming back and it is the only series of games I’ve ever finished multiple times.

[@marctaco2624]

@@lilysong1321 I didn't even know there were other games until after I met Solas and Varric, who talked like there was an entire series behind them.

[@lilysong1321]

@@marctaco2624 YUP the choices you make in those games effects what happens in Inquisition as well. Hawks was a female rogue cause that’s the PC for the previous game and that’s what I played.

[@marctaco2624]

@@lilysong1321 Ok, that is cool.

[@raixira]

"... So if someone looks at something and is like, 'I don't think there was ever a single black person in Rome,' it's like 'Okay. You're stupid.' " This is the kind of quality content I'm here for.

[@sarahtaylor4264]

Did school stop teaching the part where they conquered Egypt and North Africa? Rome was an empire stretching across most of the known world at its largest. Of course people of every skin color existed within its borders. What color(s) were more common might have depended on where in the empire you lived. Metatron's channel did an interesting deep dive on the subject.

[@whyarealltaken]

The second example confused me though. Did she say no queen was ever a small women (small as in midget or just short?) and a whore or small or a whore. What was she referring to? Although I could see you more reasonably questioning seeing alot of African people in more northern European lands. Their were at least a few because there are paintings of Africans but they didn't know about their culture. E.g. Saint Maurice. Has a African guy painted in brilliant golden and silver armor.

[@mohamedbelkacem9889]

I am from norththe africa, our black tribe lived deep in the heart of the sahara desert where rome didnt conquer, most of us are mediterranean (either tanned or pale), thr black romans would come from egypt but through their connections to nubia, not from egypt itself.

[@raspberrycrowns9494]

Also it's an over a thousand year old empire spanning across 3 continents, if you think in that time and space a black person has never set foot in Rome then you're genuinely close minded

[@tbotalpha8133]

I would like to recommend the blog "A Collection of Unmitigated Pedantry" by Bret Deveraux. Specifically their essay on "The Queen's Latin" - a long examination and debunking of how popular culture tends to whitewash Romans into a bunch of homogenous, pale-skinned people speaking English in British accents. Instead of the far more diverse reality of Rome, both from the city's founding, and throughout its entire history as a major political power.

[@SomasAcademy]

I'm in the same boat as Blue; Assassin's Creed was incredibly pivotal to me, this franchise dominated my thoughts through my entire teenaged life, and looking into game background and coming up with ideas for future games got me into history (I made the mainly history-focused KZbin channel I'm leaving this comment with, majored in history, and if nothing goes wrong I should be beginning my MA in history next semester). Watching these games go from something incredibly special, that really felt grounded in history, where I'd defend the little inaccuracies much harder than I would with most franchises because they got so much right overall, to... what they are now, has been emotionally devastating. I can't hold out hope for them to bring back what was special after the complete historical butchery we saw with Valhalla (and don't know if I even want them to now that I know how shady Ubisoft is, because that would tempt me to give them more of my money), but god I wish something could recapture the magic of the earlier games.

[@stevenhedge2850]

valhalla has just gotten me very sad;espeically when I see DLC where...you play as odin? Hey, remeber when the franchise was about seeing and interatcing with historical buildings, and historical people; instead of just doing whatever they are doing with Vahalla. At this point, stop calling it Assassin's Creed.

[@ArcaneAvian19]

Not to mention the tragedy of the gameplay, just becoming a super generic action rpg. The Social (and normal) Stealth in Valhalla is terrible, and it just feels like every recognizable aspect of Assassin's Creed has been stripped away, on all levels.

[@blackvial]

@@stevenhedge2850 well spoiler alert the reason that you're playing as Odin Is because you are a Sage and you're reliving the Isu Odin's memories filtered through Eivor's cultural understanding.

[@SomasAcademy]

@@ArcaneAvian19 Absolutely, Valhalla's Parkour is also so stripped down that it doesn't even warrant all of the massive, anachronistic buildings they threw in as viewpoints.

[@ArcaneAvian19]

@@SomasAcademy No kidding. I cannot fathom why the parkour and stealth have fallen so far from where they were in Unity and Syndicate. They're basically the main gameplay foundations for the series.

[@adambielen8996]

I liked that in Revelations you could get an armor set that was for the Sipahis and it was still accurate that the Janissaries would try to kill you as the two organizations had a lot of beef with each other.

[@timothymclean]

At last, Blue gets his turn to rant about his peculiar interests for upwards of an hour.

[@hootsifer-darling]

Upwards of 2!

[@kevinnoonan5534]

And I’m 95% certain Red jumped his bones for it immediately after this was filmed

[@timothymclean]

@@kevinnoonan5534 Dude, phrasing.

[@j2dragon109]

@@kevinnoonan5534 Red is ace, and Blue is married to Cyan.

[@Dumah36]

I keep quoting Twoface from The Dark Knight. “You either die a hero or you live long enough to see yourself become the villain.” Very few series, games, comics or whatever can keep up that killer pace forever. But ppl still go with it because it becomes the familiar at a point. The term power creep comes to mind. "Always needs to be BIGGER, BETTER, etc!" Like with Marvel. The country is in danger, then the world then universe then reality! Then what after that? That was why I liked Antman. It was a big step back. Like this is pretty local. But companies cant help themselves. Why step back for a breather when you can make more money? I keep reminding myself that these are companies first and they hire story tellers.

[@marcusaurelius7320]

Bruuuh , just go over all the ac games and how historically accurate they are please , love these

[@UnobtrusivImaginator]

Thiiiissss. Pleeeeaase. I would love to see a series. Or even a series where Blue delves into the historicity of games and Red delves into the mythology. Wouldn't even have to be just AC.

[@folkloric3059]

Playing AC Valhalla, I was just thinking all of the ways they could've made it good, and then get disappointed on how they didn't. Like, take viking hair for example. It probably would have looked very different from mainland Europe hair, mainly because the Norse bathed weekly and took great aesthetic care (we've found combs and other stuff belonging to poor and rich, male and female) of their hair. So a recreation of what norse hair styles might've looked like would've been really cool. Instead they just said, "Mohawks! Undercuts! Bald!" And take raiding. Instead of making it so you just plundered for loot, they could've made it so that you conducted raids to assassinate a target. Cause enough chaos to get in close. Not every assassination would've been a raid, but every raid would've been an assassination. Instead they just said, "Fire! Murder! Loot!" And I was waiting for just one, JUST ONE, conversation Eivor had with an Anglo-Saxon (any Anglo-Saxon, to be frank), who would've said, "Hey, stealing our precious heirlooms from our sacred temples and killing people who are defending their home might not be a very moral thing to do." But nope. Eivor and their clan are never shown for being in the wrong for helping to invade England, in fact, more often then not they're shown as justified in doing so, with portrayals of the cold and barbaric Anglo-Saxons who are racist to the norse and ban them from they're cities and wage war with them and so on and so forth. Eivor as a character doesn't even have a fucking character arc! I mean, they at least could've reused Edward Kenways, in which Eivor learns that killing and viking (the verb) and pirating and stealing isn't that nice. It would've been lazy, but at least it would've been something. Our historically inaccurate pop culture view of vikings has moved away from horned helmets and into tattoos and undercuts and hyper-masculinity.

[@WretchedRedoran]

You know, I actually miss the old pop-culture horned helmet vikings. They had a sort of fantastical air to them.

[@folkloric3059]

@@WretchedRedoran You know what? Same. Because at least everyone knew it was fake. And they remind me of How to Train Your Dragon

[@Ditidos]

@@WretchedRedoran What is strange is that I still have that as my pop culture understanding of vikings is. I mean, I know the horn are fake, but like, tatoos, mohawks, hypermasculinity? Those aren't things that I correlate to vikings, but the helmets with or without horns, the rounded shields and the big boats with those dragonesque heads are. When did the pop culture version of vikings change?

[@folkloric3059]

@@Ditidos Hard to determine. My guess is that people started realizing that horned helmets were silly, and they wanted cool and tough vikings, not stupid ones. So they made the vikings Neo-n@zis, which is a huge fucking downgrade...

[@pifilixxiv3192]

Honestly, I miss the horned and more "burly goofy" vikings with like in how to train your dragon or Vikkie. The vallhalls ones just kinda feel boorish

[@zachlewis9751]

Just hearing the first couple minutes before you even start with Red talking about Blue in high school makes me think the whole back story of Blue getting into history and studying old civilizations and the architecture was because of assassins creed, but then his love of history and architecture is the reason he stopped playing assassins creed because the games are so off.

[@sebastienvondoom8615]

Fun fact: The Chrysler Building was actually removed from Spider-Man Miles Morales due to some building rights changing hands, it's there in the original game, but not there in MM, hopefully it'll be returned in the sequel

[@True2Caesar]

no cap, this has become my favorite of your series as of late, same as the podcasts. its nice to have something i can focus on while i game, as im a person who focuses better when i can split it 50/50

[@bonniecdraws]

This was SUCH a good video you two! I like how you were talking about the social responsibility on edu-tainment and I agree with everything you have been saying 100%. I remember when AC and the Ubisoft team had the Discovery Tour and the VR experience for Notre Dame (did a paper about those two things for my Museum Studies thesis on utilizing technology in recreations). It was a good step in the right direction. Seeing about what happened with Valhalla, it is just sad now that Ubisoft did this.

[@Britt-Wms]

We (disclaimer: not historians) were taught that something is authentic when 'it is what it claims to be'. If we use that then there is a lot more room to play around in.

[@ReverendReverb]

I’m surprised you didn’t mention that the Galata Tower in AC: Revelations is WAY bigger than the one in real life. Seeing the IRL one is like meeting your online date in person for the first time and realizing they are like a whole foot shorter than what they advertised

[@exudeku]

My answer: 20% accurate, 30% just fiction, 50% AC4 is still the best game

[@shadow0fx]

That is 100% accurate, my friend

[@maxhowlett9661]

AC4 is the best pirate game ever. For the Assassins Creed franchise however, I'll still take any of the Ezio trilogy over it.

[@Gloomdrake]

@@maxhowlett9661 there aren't enough pirate games for that to be a high bar, though

[@marctaco2624]

@@Gloomdrake Sadly true, the only other game I can think of is rogue, which is technically colonial. Still a good game.

[@maxhowlett9661]

@@Gloomdrake why try make a new one when AC4 has already done it better? Any pirate game that comes out will be held to it and will likely pale in comparison. Just need to slap a jack sparrow skin in and trim out the templar/assassin stuff and you've essentially got the perfect Pirates of the Caribbean game.

[@eden8301]

I just want to thank you guys for taking the time and effort to caption your videos, even the longer ones like this. I really appreciate it, and I always keep them on so I can read along :)

[@nedmaster1000]

Man Blue this is speeking to my soul. AC was my franchise then Odyssey just broke me. My love of history was thanks to these games

[@cea6770]

But Odyssey is plenty historical? There are mythological aspects sure but Socrates, Aristophanes, Alcibiades, Perikles, etc. are about as accurately portrayed as the secondary chacters of all the previous games. The Peloponesian war isn't characterized that well but neither were any of the other historical backgrounds of previous games. I can understand not liking the gameplay but the historical nature seemed pretty consistently 'surface level accurate but missing nuances' for all of them (excluding the mess that is Valhalla).

[@gobzdzilla]

@@cea6770 some of us don't see keywords and basic representations as plenty historical.

[@cea6770]

@gobzadzilla Neither do I. I'm saying it isn't any more accurate or less so than previous AC games, which had only surface level accuracies of 'that person/event exists' and 'buildings are in the right place'. Valhalla is just completely wrong in so many ways, but Odyssey is probably more accurate than say Syndicate or Origins.

[@marctaco2624]

@@cea6770 BF's Flying Gang is startlingly accurate.

[@Koyomix86]

@@cea6770 it’s not just about history, I think the history in that game is pretty good but it just doesn’t feel right. It felt like a open world rpg not a proper AC game. I had fun with odyssey but i would rather have a game more like the old ones or origins.

[@huskyrigatoni]

being a HUGE fan of the Ezio trilogy, i was super nervous to hear y’all’s takes on 2 and Brotherhood specifically. but the art historian in me absolutely ended up loving it. 😄 made me feel like i was in Methodology all over again. thank you so much for the effort, research, and passion y’all put into these videos. 🥰

[@TheDonkeyJote]

Ironically, they actually are making an Assassin's Creed game set in Japan. Red was dead right. Japan is the next big one after Vikings (with a stopover in Baghdad first). I *really* hope they return to at least trying for Authenticity in the future. I still enjoyed most of Valhalla (couldn't stand the straight up mythological sections; even Odyssey, which I also had a lot of problems with, handled that stuff a LOT better in the base game), but I'd be lying if I said that the anachronisms and the lack of period authentic armor didn't bother me. I really enjoy Origins, even if the characterization of Cleopatra is a bit cringy. But I thought they did an amazing job of recreating that world (the World in Odyssey is great too, it's just the events that are silly).

[@sarcasticsage984]

Assassin creed red is not the next one, the next one is mirage and I dont have hopes for red as it is going to be another rpg AC

[@TheDonkeyJote]

@@sarcasticsage984 that's what I'm saying. Japan is the next "big one". The "stopover in Baghdad" I mention is Mirage, which isn't really a normal full release. It'll be like Revelations. Shorter and cheaper.

[@TheDonkeyJote]

@chandllerburse737 and they would be wrong. Red isn't the next game in the series, but it is the next "big" one in terms of being the full length, big open world like the previous entries. Mirage is a smaller, shorter game, and even costs less to buy

[@legateelizabeth]

I played Ghost of Tsushima, I already had my Assassin's Creed in Japan.

[@xionmemoria]

The Assassin's Creed modeling of Notre Dame has been shockingly helpful in the ongoing restoration. I never played any of the games, but I appreciate their attention to archeological detail as well as their creativity limits.

[@mackenziebeeney3764]

AC Valhalla would probably look ridiculous if we did what they did in a more recent setting. Imagine Vienna set in the 1300s, has the Taj Mahal as a Christian church, being sieged by the Ottoman army and being ruled by the Hohenstaufen Dynasty. None of that makes sense in the least. And neither does Valhalla.

[@simoneidson21]

Except, the reason we don't do that is because we have actual documentation of that period. We don't have that for the Vikings

[@tbotalpha8133]

@@simoneidson21 If you don't have enough information to create a complete and compelling vision of a historical period, then maybe don't set your story in that time period. Or if you do set your story there and then, don't try and present your work as "historically accurate".

[@kevinstephenson3531]

@@simoneidson21 you can just like not do a game set then.

[@practicepositiveprogress5396]

My favorite thing about your channel is how deeply passionate y'all are about your subject matter, and education, and all of it.

[@pwnorbepwned]

This video became SO much more relevant in the midst of all the “controversy” around Yasuke in AC Shadows.

[@kirstenc4279]

I love how you guys talk about history and creativity and the creation process and the experience of enjoying media. These detail diatribes are amazing.

[@SoralaxPlays]

I have always rushed straight to google to answer this very question after every AC game, so I'm so happy that you two have compiled this video, hahaha

[@abbakarenina]

i love detail diatribes so much! hearing people talk about their interests passionately is such a mood booster, and i get to learn about more media/history i didn’t know before, win win!

[@cathsaigh2197]

I do often wonder why Ubisoft was so scared of ninjas and samurai. I've always thought that would have been the next logical place to go after the Ezio saga but nooo. I never played past Black Flag, but doing AC Vikings seems like a bad idea aside from the other stuff you've mentioned for one simple reason: not enough tall buildings or otherwise urban enough.

[@kevinstephenson3531]

Ninja and samurai’s history are different then you think. It was ninja and samurai fighting against other ninja and samurai.

[@cathsaigh2197]

@@kevinstephenson3531 I wasn't trying to imply that all samurai would be Templars and all ninja Assassins or anything like that.

[@kevinstephenson3531]

@@cathsaigh2197 that’s good I’m just so used to seeing that inaccuracy that it gets annoying.

[@cathsaigh2197]

@@kevinstephenson3531 Though I wouldn't put it past Ubisoft writing it like that if they had done AC Japan.

[@b3yourself91]

Mostly those tropes have been over done already

[@publiusii4246]

I love your guyses friendship. The way you both laugh. Uproariously at the okay bye warms my cold dead heart

[@Broomer52]

I love the internal explanation for inaccuracies in their story within the very First Game. Just saying that it’s wrong because people recorded it wrong “anyone can write a book”

[@drillygo6984]

This video is underrated and covers so many topics that deserve a video their own. This video really should have millions of views

[@tuckernutter]

I can't help but believe that destiny might actually exist for bringing these two together as friends.

[@victoriablack355]

My favorite thing about the cathedral in Havana is that in the animus database you can see a conversation between the developers at abstergo saying we can’t put this in it’s too early and the other one says don’t worry about it it’s cool.

[@sneedmando186]

The 1st game meant a lot to me, something real, something not typical medieval knights or samurai, and a character I kind of identified with. It was so cool to just explore the cities, or sit on a tower and look at the view

[@bradtuttle2674]

It's really unfortunate to hear that about Valhalla, I own it but haven't gotten around to playing it yet, I'm currently playing Ghost of Tsushima. At least with Origins and Odyssey I could feel as though the actual places may have looked fairly close to the game world but I won't be able to feel that sense of using a time machine with Valhalla. Origins is one of my top favorite games ever but I also had an issue with how they portrayed Cleopatra but it was a different issue from yours. The first sex, drugs and rock and roll meeting with Cleo definitely wasn't flattering but in the next scene when she leaves the party with you she suddenly switched gears and became very serious and got down to business. I got the impression that her party girl persona was just an act to make any spies think she was frivolous and of no real threat. Perhaps the act worked so well that it's why she was remembered that way through history. The issue I had was that Cleo was one of the best rulers Egypt had had for generations who, unlike many of her predecessors, actually seemed to care about her nation and they had her betray you to work alongside a cult that had terrorized and ravaged Egypt. I loved the concept of working for Cleopatra to rid Egypt of this harmful cult and having her hop the fence was both disappointing and kind of a slap in the face to the actual woman.

[@ARatherDapperTapir]

Spoiler, but I guess it's kinda on me. Haven't gone all the way through origins yet.

[@bradtuttle2674]

@@ARatherDapperTapir Sorry about that, but I guess it has been since 2018. 😅 Ultimately I loved Origins, it was so beautiful and had such a great atmosphere. Seldom have I wanted to actually visit a game world so badly. I hope you get a lot of enjoyment out of it too.

[@thefishysalmon8749]

I love the tiny puppets they convey so much emotion with no movement

[@ozymandas4746]

I'm late as hell but just wanted to say Detail Diatribe is my favorite series you guys put out. I'm not really a history nerd, I'm a fiction nerd, though I do like drawing from historical myth, and your videos help me realize not just the context of some of these stories, based off of when they were written, but the weight they could hold if I'm not careful. I have a small group I share my stories with and it's a lot of fun, and we do vc's just rambling about whatever we want or are passionate about. Thank you so much for your series and your presence here on youtube.

[@cazicazi1940]

It's so refreshing to hear a well thought out dissection of what made the original assassins creed games so good! I don't want to be mean about anyone's attempts at giving analysis but a decently popular video of a similar type to this one went on to really complain about forced stealth missions within the series and all I could think was "Why on earth are you playing assassins creed if you hate stealth?"

[@issamorg3089]

Watching the Ghost of Tsushima bit after the whole "AC Shadows One Legged Tori Gate" figurine debacle has a very specific feeling I really can't put my finger on

[@Spoodabandit]

1:11:31 who's here 2 years later laughing at the fact that there's a Ac Japan game coming soon😂

[@zatderpscout6017]

Blue has been oddly quiet about Assassin’s Creed Shadows

[@ryfors]

This was great, I love listening to this while doing more menial tasks as opposed to the shorter videos who are so intense that I can't leave the screen. Variety is great

[@roderichmarschner2983]

When you were talking about the recreation of building long destroyed and the use of 3d rendering and games to 'go back and 'visit' these places long gone, it reminded me of a program my Uncle ran briefly for his community college courses wherein he rebuilt a couple sections of city (just a few streets) in Unity and set it up to be walked through in VR.

[@gold.poo22]

Absolutely love this DD. Blue is on top of his sh*t and Red is dropping knowledge left and right. OSP simply never disappoints

[@gold.poo22]

Also I’m gonna reply to myself cuz my thoughts were not complete in my first comment. I laugh at the fact that you guys joke about this being the longest DD as if it’s a bad thing. I L.O.V.E. your longer videos, in fact I prefer a longer format to y’all’s videos cuz I love hearing you guys talk!

[@Ma1q444]

This was so annoying and boring to watch

[@diddyknux]

I love these videos. Longform breakdowns of works from people invested in them are always fun to me. And I like how these keep getting longer and longer. Can't wait for Red to come back with a 2 hour monster on.. I dunno... Using Gargoyles as a platform to discuss different shades of villains, or something.

[@MarioGMan25]

I guess it should be noted that the "might makes right" thing gets eventually deconstructed, though it's a tad late into the game, but there's also the fact that a *lot* of the game is that, along with the regular pillaging and invading, is about building alliances with people and working with them so they can help you as well. There's even a penultimate boss fight that you can't win, and you have to physically unequip your hatchet in order to actually get away from them. It's perhaps a little bit scattershot and not a *lot* of that lesson because being strong as fuck is cool, but the fact that Eivor is also a poet adds a sort of depth to them. A sensitivity. Which is why if you've been kind throughout the game, you get some better endings for quests and even the ability to skip certain fights. I understand what you mean though, a lot of this stuff was revealed late in the game, and you haven't gotten to those points in the story.

[@Ludohistory]

Narratively, they try to deconstruct it, but I think they fail because the point of all those alliances are to do more violence against the people who are unambiguously evil (as in the Portchester siege), and the way that you create those alliances is by murdering hundreds of random guards. Which is not great, and the DLC content, by refusing to set itself after the main game (even when there's like a decade between the end of the main game and the dlc *cough* Paris), undercuts that attempted narrative. As to being a poet-warrior: That's definitely a deconstruction of warrior-masculinity from a *modern* perspective, but it's not from a *Norse* perspective. The Warrior elite in Norse society were supposed to be poets, especially if they are a saga hero. Egill Skallagrimsson, Grettir Asmundarson, Orva-Oddr, Gunnlaugr Ormstunga, Ragnarr Lodbrok, and Haraldr Hardrada are a few of the very many poets in the Icelandic sagas who do an enormous amount of violence and write poetry about how much violence they've done.

[@MarioGMan25]

@@Ludohistory The way you phased that last bit is very funny and Yes I agree with your statements.

[@simoneidson21]

@@Ludohistory Yes, the Vikings weren't perfect pacifists who never hurt anybody. The Saxons fucking murdered a ton of innocent people, The Vikings are no different than any other medieval or ancient culture

[@midnightnerd4310]

Assassin's creed is something very dear to my heart, I never played most of the games but my brother has. I would love seeing the atmosphere of the games and us talking about history while playing the games. He is currently playing Valhalla however. One of my favorite memories, is him playing Assassin's Creed Oddessy and me telling him Greek Myths from your guys channel. Thanks for the amazing work you guys put in these videos! 💜

[@ivythepotato2417]

I'd like a to take a quick second to thank whoever did the subtitles for this. I can't hear that well and it really helps me understand what they're saying.

[@gweebara]

I feel you hit the nail on the head. Assassin's Creed 2 and Brotherhood were the height of the series everything after that was just cashing in on the name of the franchise

[@marctaco2624]

BF and Rogue were excellent as well, even though you aren't an assassin for more than a few minutes in each.

[@Cosmonaut775]

wow these keep getting longer and longer. I LOVE IT! I could listen to this for hours

[@scoutobrien3406]

interesting to hear about Chicago in Watchdogs. I'm from Seattle and Infamous 2nd Son promised a photo realistic city for the first time, and a lot of individual places were indeed spot on. They smashed neighborhoods together in weird ways seemingly at random but I wasn't too bothered by that. I was that day years old when I realized we lived on an a series of islands though.

[@jeremy1860]

Out of the two of us, my younger brother was always the more devoted AC fan, but I always found it fun to watch him play those games 😊

[@SwordTune]

Wish we got a game set in mid-1200s England and France that led up to the events of the Second Baron's War. I've been trying to write a novella-length story about it, and every moment I'm realising how big of a miss it was not to have a game set in that time. There's so much history there with the Cathars, Simon de Montfort, and the Baron's War itself that lines up with the kind of story Assassin's Creed likes to tell.

[@a-human-interface4991]

The problem with Assassin's Creed Valhalla is that it reeks of corporate meddling. You can see basically from Assassin's Creed unity onward how it moves from its core concept towards more of a cash cow that corporate is just trying to milk the death.

[@arcanedoughnut2016]

We really did take Unity for granted

[@jalioswilinghart]

This was a disgustingly good video. Toughing on arhitecture, video game design, philosofy about media presentation, opposistion to faschist narrativives of history, obscure meanings and words like "ucronia", the amazing entertianment and educational value if things are done right... You moved me to my core the entire time. I'll never forgive you for this.

[@strongsmith1897]

I love how you can tell just how wonderful of friends they are from how Red and Blue talk to each other.

[@venetikos4241]

as a historian who focuses most on italian history, and also the guy whose only AC games are the ezio trilogy, I can at least say I was impressed how accurate it could be

[@popeofnope1944]

I'll be honest I haven't played any of the AC games in a long time, this makes me want to go back and just re explore the worlds, great vid folks!!

[@uria3679]

Who hopes that Red talks about the Anarchist Trope (so she has to watch Arcane), the Sheltered Character Trope (so she has to watch Arcane), the Sassy Character Trope (so she has to watch Arcane), the Crime Lord Trope (so she has to watch Arcane), the Guilt Of Killing Trope (so she has to watch Arcane), the Survivor Trope (so she has to watch Arcane), or the Emotional Fight Scene (so she has to watch Arcane)

[@theinspiredgamer1949]

Yes

[@kiritotheabridgedgod4178]

You forgot about the Magi-Tech Trope, so she has to watch Arcane, and the Useless Bureaucratic High Council Trope, so she has to watch Arcane.

[@tirzahroseroot]

Best Prank ever!

[@tirzahroseroot]

I want her to do a trope talk on autism.

[@timothymclean]

What do you mean by "anarchist trope"? Do you mean "bomb-throwing anarchist," or some trope only tangentially related to that trope and not at all related to actual anarchists?

[@jaghatai_bulut]

I LOVE it when osp drops a longer-than-an hour video. Its like, i know very well what i will be watching before i go to sleep tonight!

[@toglmonster7261]

“48 slide power point “( eyes glow blue) that nearly killed me lol 😂

[@brandonmallon8335]

I hope you see this Blue, cause I wanted to share a very similar story as you shared regarding AC2. I knew nothing about the Renaissance before playing the game, but afterward I fell in love with the period and with history in general. I wound up going to college for a BA degree in history and earned that degree by doing a thesis paper on the Borgia family. All of that was thanks to AC. While I enjoyed Valhalla a lot more than you did, I’m happy to agree to disagree and enjoy our shared love of AC2 and history in general. Thank you for reading my soap story, I hope you appreciate it.👍

[@GoblinsAreAGirlsBestFriend]

I'm so grateful for your channel! I'm a historian who is also a celtic neo-pagan (and not Might Is Right-y, thank you) and I was so mad initially that Valhalla wasn't coming to Steam... but now that I know it's not what I had hoped I can make peace with them never bringing it to Steam and probably never playing it.

[@averyn34]

Also a game with a slightly more decent take towards early viking age history is Expeditions: Vikings. You play as a Thegn whos rule is being threatened by another local lord and in order to find a way to be able to confront that lord before the Althing was called travels to England to try and find an alternative, but what that alternative is, is completely up to you the player. You can go and play mercenary for squabbling Kings to form alliances, you can be a merchant focusing on gaining wealth over power, you can raid, loot, plunder and try to build an army to conquer the land for yourself. And I definitely dont think it shows any particular favoritism to Saxons, Norse, Christian nor Pagan. There are good and bad in both groups and how you choose to conduct yourself is up to you the player. I highly recommend it, I would argue that it is most certainly far more authentic to the period than Valhalla is in its best moments.

[@Rose-yx6jq]

Well all I can say before actually starting this video is that I read somewhere, I think it was Tumblr, that some guy he went on a trip to Rome with his class. And their tour guide got lost and the this other guy was like "hey don't worry guys I know what where to go" it took like back roads and the like and got all the way to the museum they were going to. And the teacher was like "oh my gosh have you been to Rome before" and the kid was like "no I just played assassin's Creed: Brotherhood." But yeah so that's one point in the favor of it being historically accurate. Edit: I remembered which game it was. Also took out the profanities. Decided they weren't necessary. Also generalized inaccuracies of my original comment. I said they got separated from the third floor guide when the door guide was the one about lost. Which is probably a very bad tour guide.

[@JaelinBezel]

I like your profile pic

[@mangagor]

I always enjoy Detail diatribes, and in this case i do enjoy when I finally get to actually play the old AC games (not just watching them beinbg played by friends or online) several creators also by coincidence go back and give them a second analysis. Really adds to the experience of playing through these games, so thank you so much.

[@shearing5594]

one thing about the ~14:00 is that it'S SO TRUE one thing that always grinds my gears is people pretending like all norsemen and vikings were stark white "aryans" fun fact: they weren't

[@simoneidson21]

And Valhalla shows that. There are a fuck ton of random Vikingr who are not white "aryans" Neo-Fascists got super fucking mad that Eivor could be female and there are a ton of strong female characters

[@ziggymccartney9286]

I’ve just grown to love what you guys do. I’ve always loved culture history and idealism but I view it thru a slightly sharper yet casual way. Hope my comments help :3