The promised Discovery Tour for Assassin’s Creed Origins will arrive next week on February 20th, 2018. Details have been revealed by Maxime Durand, the historical expert for the Assassin’s Creed franchise (via Ubisoft).
The Discovery Tour is an educational mode for players who simply want to learn more about Ancient Egypt and disable the main gameplay, including the main storyline, side-quests, conflicts with enemies and other constraints. They will be free to roam the world and take their time or embark on over 75 available guided tours curated by historians and Egyptologists.
Durand revealed that the development for Discovery Tour started with the Animus Database, an in-game encyclopedia which was created for Assassin’s Creed 2 in 2009. The developers were also approached by many teachers and professors asking them to make a version of the game which can be used in classrooms to learn about history.
Players can begin their tours in Discovery Tour by entering into a tour just like how they would normally do for a mission in the main game. Next, players will have to follow a physical path on the ground and visit stations. These stations use a certain type of camera that will show you a building, details in the environment, and even a view of the mountains or deserts, along with information communicated to players through an audio guide. Both male and female narrators will be available in many languages.
Images of artifacts from museums or libraries around the world have been included, to connect what players see in the game with their authentic sources in real life. All the tour starting points will be clearly visible in both 3D-rendered world and map. Players can also use fast-travel to reach these tour starting points from the passport page, where players can keep track of how many tours they have completed.
The 24-hour cycles for NPCs will still be in the Discovery Tour so that players can observe the daily life and activities in Ancient Egypt. Animals and people will no longer attack players. Instead, soldiers will just give a friendly wave when they see players. About five or six historians/Egyptologists worked on the historical content, initially writing a whopping 5,000 words for each tour before trimming them down to about 2,000 words per tour. The team originally planned to include only 20 tours but then decided to divide them into 75 tours.
The developers added capsules within the Discovery Tour, called Behind The Scenes. These capsules explain the process of developing Assassin’s Creed Origins, as well as any historical discrepancies and inspirations for the game. There will be at least one Behind The Scenes station for every tour.
Last but not least, players will have 25 avatars to choose from. These include different versions of protagonist Bayek, Aya, Julius Caesar, Cleopatra, as well as other Greeks, Romans, Egyptians and even children. Everything will be unlocked from the beginning in the Discovery Tour. Achievement hunters will be happy to learn that there will be three new achievements to unlock in the Discovery Tour.
Discovery Tour by Assassin’s Creed: Ancient Egypt will be released on February 20th, 2018, for the PS4, Xbox One, and PC. It will be available as a free add-on for existing owners Assassin’s Creed Origins, or as a standalone download priced at $19.99. We gave Assassin’s Creed Origins a rating of 4.5 out of 5 in our review, which you can check out here.
