Let's Visit Baghdad's House of Wisdom - History Tour in Assassin’s Creed Mirage 

This format is one of my favorites and its honestly a dream to be able to run around exploring historical environments like this. The level of detail is insane and deeply appeciated for the immersion and potential to share history! (If you buy the game, please use our link as it helps the channel ubi.li/KQcL)

This historical fidelity and care is the real value of Assassin’s Creed games (except for Valhalla, they threw history out of the window in that one). I remember when the Smithsonian literally used AC3 footage to show life during the Revolutionary period.

The virtual tourism aspect of Ubisoft games is insanely great. All the environments are made with so much love and detail.

The Islamic golden age is such an unexplored piece of history in media!

Ubisoft could make a killing out of virtual tourism of old times.

Baghdad must be such a magnificent place to live during the time when the Abbasid Caliphs were in full control of their country.

That's why I like AC! Assassin's Creed isn't a silly, fictional game! It is, first and foremost, an educational game! In terms of historical education, there is no game that beats AC. What I like most about AC, as incredible as it may seem, is not even the plot itself, but its historical settings. AC is not just a game! It's also history, culture, and education. As a connoisseur of Middle Eastern history, including Mesopotamian and Persian history, I'm totally excited to play AC Mirage. During the historical period in which the game takes place, Baghdad was not only the imposing capital of the Abbasid Caliphate, but it was also the civilizational epicenter of the entire Islamic world! After the reign of Caliph Harun al-Rashid (786-809), who was the main driving force behind the construction of the "Bayt al-Hikma" (the "House of Wisdom"), Baghdad became one of the largest cities of the world, rivaling in importance with Constantinople itself, which was then considered the "City of cities" (Η ΠΌΛΗ ΤΩΝ ΠΌΛΕΩΝ). After Harun al-Rashid's reign, Baghdad soon eclipsed and overshadowed the ancient Umayyad capital: Damascus! Due to its historical and cultural importance, the city was even called the "City of Peace" (Madīnat as-Salām). In my historical analysis, an AC game set in Iraq 🇮🇶 is extremely interesting. Due to its strategic importance and fertile area, Mesopotamia (Iraq) has always been home to great imperial capitals (as the video superbly highlighted), such as Nineveh (Ninua), the capital of the Assyrian Empire; Babylon (Bābil), which was once one of the largest cities of the world; Ur (Urim), which was one of the greatest Sumerian centers; Ctesiphon (Tēsiphon), the Sasanian (Persian) capital; and, lastly, Baghdad itself, which had been founded by Caliph Al-Mansūr as the capital of the Abbasid Caliphate. Since Damascus became closely associated with the previous dynasty, the Umayyads, Al-Mansur decided to build a new capital from scratch, i.e., a capital where he and his descendants would live. Due to its two rivers, the Euphrates (al-Furat) and the Tigris (Dijlah), Mesopotamia/Iraq had been the epicenter of several civilizations and imperial capitals. Virtually all of Mesopotamia's ancient capitals, be it Nineveh, Babylon, Ctesiphon, or even Baghdad itself, were located on the banks of either the Tigris or Euphrates. Iraq, therefore, is an amazing place for an AC to take place, as it offers us the opportunity to explore these hydraulic societies. Although the main plot takes place in Baghdad, Ubisoft may release some DLCs that portray other Mesopotamian cities. The Baghdad that the game portrays, I think it's important to point this out, is COMPLETELY different from modern-day Baghdad, the capital of Iraq. The Baghdad that the game portrayed, which was the imposing capital of the Abbasid dynasty, had been completely destroyed by the Mongols in 1258. After the Mongol destruction, no stone was left unturned from ancient Baghdad! Not even the imposing House of Wisdom (Bayt al-Hikma), which was the educational epicenter of Baghdad par excellence, had been spared. Ubisoft, therefore, had to reconstruct not today's Baghdad, but the Abbasid Baghdad of the 9th century, when the city was the quintessential civilizational epicenter of the Golden Age of Islam!

Only played about 4 hours of the game so far but I love how they portrayed Baghdad and Islam as a whole in the game from what I’ve seen. Good to see Assassin’s creed focusing a bit more on real history as opposed to the mythological stuff the last few games preferred.

Talk about the ambience, the vibes, the culture, the people, the aesthetics, and the game itself... truly well done by Ubisoft on all fronts. A history tour to go along with is just the cherry on top of the cake. Great video!

so glad thes tours are back! i loved all of the other ones. hope to see more

Everyone should know that the reason for the emergence of the Golden Age is because of the war between the Abbasids and the Umayyads, where the last person from the Umayyad dynasty fled to Andalusia and established a state there. They wanted their fighting to continue, but the distance between them was far away, so they challenged each other about the king who builds the best state Civilized, the golden age began with two kings challenging each other, the Umayyad Caliph in Andalusia vs the Abbasid Caliph in Baghdad.

Dear Invicta team, Could you do a video on the history of bookmaking? One of the neat things I learned that Baghdad was advanced enough to have a novel industry, which is insane in an age before printing.

Bro!!! I always lose track of time when I was your videos, awesome content my dude 🤌

This is a great channel! Loved the opening specifically the forming of the cities

I love this game and its setting. I’ve been waiting for one set in the Islamic golden age for years, they have already covered other favourite periods of mine with the renaissance and late Ptolemaic Egypt, so this is a dream.

Invicta, this was an awesome virtual tour with great information about the ancient capitals linking Babylon to Baghdad!

A little correction, baghdad isnt located in a desert. People always assume that it is, but its actually not. It is very dry, but its land is fertile.

I love these types of videos. As well as your voice........ I actually kinda missed it 😂 Maybe a series on the great cities of the ancient world..... In every continent... So that people see and appreciate something other than battles and bloodshed......

Hey just a tip you can disable in the menu all the interface HUD elements and it would look even cleaner

this is very cool! thanks a lot!

You can blame the Mongols for destroying the House of Wisdom and pretty much the rest of the city

Love Assassin's Creed games and love your videos too. Thanks to your dad, his told me about your channel.

I'd totally be down for more AC Mirage content!!

I having a great time with this game. The city is vast and I'm finding it really easy to get myself in all sorts of trouble 🙂

Amazing video, and I love the game

Great reconstruction, indeed!

Perfect & relevant sponsorship ⭐

Very impressive👏

YAY please make this an entire series and do the entire city 😍

I have this game now. And it's an excellent game.

🎉yay the astrolabe is there! I was wondering if it was going to be there, and it was 😮

Hope we get a discovery tour.

Yeah, I totally agree, spending hours just exploring such a beautiful and well-built world is a pleasure in itself. The amount of work that goes into making something this gorgeous is staggering! Thank you for sharing your take on it all, and some history of the absolute cradle of so much of European and Western Asian civilization. Plus I really don't want to sound creepy, but it's so nice to hear it all from a guy with such a beautiful voice, too 😊

Assasin's Creed games, are a trully succesfull franchise, that throught the years have managed to do the impossible. I am sure that I will enjoy this game

Wow that was amazing. Wish my gaming laptop wasn’t being repaired now haha + exam, no time 😂

Interesting thank you invicta

yeeeeessss another amazing content filled video which makes for a good day

I can imagine the game for functions needed a central place for wisdome. or the bounded game pathes would scatter under more buildings inclusing NPC's.

What song is used in the minute 13:00 ?

Nice

Can you please do other great sites in AC games like the Duomo etc.

Baghdad wasn't desert City this is huge mistake. Baghdad was built purposely in mid of maze of streams. the rivers don't go straight they have different Mini branches. for that reason the city was a big farm where its Hot yet Green and certainly no fog. the city was famous for its gardens and streets that were wide for carts. The Abbasid first capital was Kuffa not Baghdad. reason for building Baghdad is to build new bureaucracy that can break the old established ones, not to build new page in history since they viewed history so different from our modern view. women of Baghdad weren't vailed but were hats with their Braids out. solders wore black not red while the people wore cloths full of flamboyant colors. this model is more built on the city of Yazd in Iran rather than Baghdad.

Love your vids bro

can you read book and get skill from reading like in mount and blade?

I literally just started the game 😅

Yes lets

Ah, I see Chris finally got to play some AC for historical purposes. 😂

OH MY ALLAH!!! IT'S SOOOOO BEAUTIFULL!!!

Wow

Engagement for the engagement god

thats crazy such a mighty city was devastated 300 years later by the mongols.

Can we meet Imam Abu Hanifah in this game? I mean just like we can meet Socrates in AC Odyssey

❤

A sad day indeed when Baghdad was destroyed, second only to the library of Alexandria. Through these games and videos we will remember them 👍

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la sfera armillare, santucci sphere ... conosco conosco, frequento ... che si fa di bello a casa degli dei? secondo me gli dei vanno cambiati.

From what ive heard their games are now probably better for teaching history than playing the game..

They were also thinking of using Unity for rebuilding Notre Dame

Thank you for giving me some good content to watch while I smoke some weed bro. Love ya! Edit: Actually, this is some GREAT content.

the first to move whole cities where probably the akkadians or even the sumerians bro they do that since the first cities, seleucos only followed the trend, showing the whole pop that he was indeed the new Sargon.

Explore Golgumbaz

The only thing that interests me in most ac games is the historical maps

Maratha empire history please make video

W

Uruk is beautiful

We want a video about the relationship between Baghdad and the Byzantine, and what did the people of Baghdad thought about ancient Rome and Greece

For better or worse this game feels like Revelations 2

As an Arab seeing this filled my heart with joy 😊 but gave me great sadness 😢

Man getting this game for free must not have really been worth it 😂

I don't think the streets of Baghdad look that nice actually... compared to Istanbul, Firenze , Roma or Venezia. It is not that I am partial to these cities but they just aesthetically look nicer.

Invicta, please do a video on the Library of Alexandria (even if there is no game footage).

10:11 The Slaves got castrated. So no one down the line could start to make a living. They couldn’t have children. That’s also why the Arab slave trade lasted so long. The slaves didn’t have children, so when a slave died a new slave had to be bought. And 3/4 of those men died from the castration so a lot of people had to be captured to get new slaves for the market.

Now do "Dome of the Ass"

I like burning all this down in chivalry 2, good times

sponsored by assasins' creed? no way man

If this game ever costs 0$, I would be tempted to buy it.

We need an assassins creed in ancient Rome

When I deployed to Iraq, all I wanted to do was go to Baghdad. But it never happened.

So, when will the Mongol Refugee and Tourism Crisis Expansion coming..?

Your introduction made me shudder

This is not good visualisation to Baghdad... you visualise it as dry land surrounded by desert and this is not right... the desert is west of Iraq and it is too far from baghdad... it is actually green area surronded by huge number of massive farms because Tigris river passing in the middle of Baghdad and Euphrates river on the west of the city about 20km away from it... so how it contains desert..!!!!!!

The way you described "the followers of Muhammad (PBUH)" and the Umayyads as just taking everything over and "setting up an Arab ruling class like the Romans" really lets us know how much Historical information you have and where you learned it from. You should really check out Roy Casagranda's stuff. He has quite a few lectures on the History of that era and beyond from the perspective of non-Orientalist (read racist) authors.

6:55 The city of Baghdad already existed and was built by Acheamanids. Even the nam "Baghdad" is persian.

I can’t stand all the sand and dust, even if it’s realistic. Is it just me?

I hope you mentioned the massive role of Iranians in the "Islamic Golden Age".

Then the Mongol armies appeared and burn everything to the ground.

No automatons, flying carpets in the thousands and so many wonders of the eyes by machines and performers, instead they showed a city less than a Roman town.

Nobody cares about the history. We come here for gaming bro. I'll love. You do great work.... but you do t need someone ellaning stuff I already knew about a past civilization 😊

Why do you talk so fast, you are almost stumbling over your words. It's stressing

who cares ?

The golden age of Islam 🕌☪️❤