Andy Serkis shows you around Paris in Assassin’s Creed Unity’s Project Widow

By Will Fulton Published November 17, 2014

Ubisoft has launched a virtual tour of modern day Paris with narration by Andy Serkis (voice and mocap actor of Gollum fame) as a promotion for Assassin’s Creed Unity. Called Project Widow, the tour takes you around major Parisian landmarks like The Bastille and Notre Dame in a Google Maps-like immersive interface.

By looking around you can uncover bits of trivia and game videos, up to a total of 119 “recovered memories.” There is also a metagame of spreading revolution that seems to be based on the number of people exploring and sharing the site via social media, though there is no indication yet what will happen when a critical mass is achieved.

Recommended Videos

Assassin’s Creed Unity kicks off your adventures in revolutionary France on November 11 for PC, PlayStation 4, and Xbox One.

Topics

Action Games

Former Digital Trends Contributor

Will Fulton is a New York-based writer and theater-maker. In 2011 he co-founded mythic theater company AntiMatter Collective…

Gaming

Ubisoft responds to Assassin’s Creed Shadows online backlash

The two heroes of Assassin's Creed Shadows stand side by side.

Ubisoft is addressing backlash it's received from players about one of Assassin's Creed Shadows' main characters with a lengthy statement concerning how it handles history.

The studio released the statement on X (formerly Twitter) and on its website, saying that it's received criticism from a lot of areas, including Japanese players who leveled accusations at the developer for skewing history with Yasuke, a legendary African samurai who's one of the game's two main playable characters, the other being the Japanese shinobi Naoe. In response, Ubisoft stated that its Assassin's Creed games are primarily historical fiction made with the help of historians, other experts, and in-depth research.

Gaming

All Assassin’s Creed games in order, by release date and chronologically

The main character of Assassin's Creed: Mirage perches on a ledge and looks out over the city of Baghdad.

After a humble beginning in 2007, Assassin's Creed has become not only one of Ubisoft's most successful franchises but one of the biggest in gaming as a whole. Originally meant to be a new Prince of Persia game, the series was instead allowed to be a new IP that focused on a secret order of assassins in a centuries-long conflict with the Knights Templar.

What made the series so appealing was the setup. Through the use of a fictional machine called the Animus, people could relive the memories of their ancestors to learn secrets from the past to help in the present. That opened up endless possibilities for places and time periods the series could go. With over a dozen games in the series and counting, we've been all across history at this point.

Gaming

Ubisoft confirms Assassin’s Creed remakes are in the works

Basim perched on a ledge overlooking Baghdad

In a company interview with CEO Yves Guillemot posted on the Ubisoft website Thursday, the executive reveals that there are remakes of Assassin's Creed games in the works, although he doesn't specify which ones.

"Players can be excited about some remakes, which will allow us to revisit some of the games we've created in the past and modernize them," he says, implying that it could pertain to games made before Odyssey. "There are worlds in some of our older Assassin's Creed games that are still extremely rich."