FACULTY OF LETTERS OF THE UNIVERSITY OF LISBON

A Real-and-Imagined Constantinople
in Assassin’s Creed: Revelations

Sıla Arıcı

Real Cities. Imagined Cities.

Masters in
English and American Studies

Professor Adelaide Meira Serras

LISBON
February 2017
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A REAL-AND-IMAGINED CONSTANTINOPLE
IN ASSASSIN’S CREED: REVELATIONS

Abstract: The aim of this essay is to explore the game space in Assassin’s Creed: Revelations
(2011). The game takes place in 1511 in three cities: Constantinople, Cappadocia and Masyaf.
This essay will only address Constantinople through an analysis of Henri Lefebvre’s and
Edward W. Soja’s triad of spatiality. The game’s one of the most important elements is the
virtual reality device Animus, and its function will be questioned within Michel Foucault’s
concept of heterotopia. In addition to the analysis of the game, several works regarding video
games and game spaces will be cited within the context.

Not historical fiction that sacrifices history for story and not a video game that sacrifices
history for gameplay, but a video game that presents original research rivaling any great
work of history, transforming readers, learners, and viewers into players interacting with
history. The video game offers far greater potential for the creation and presentation of
history than any other entertainment or interactive media. Although computer and video
games may seem to be far removed from the historical narrative, both examine and form
points of view about how cultures, economies, polities, and societies function. (Spring,
2007: 207)

Using historic material in video games for constructing narratives and creating game

designs have been a growing trend for the past couple of decades. Ground breaking video games

such as Age of Empires series (1997 – present), Total War series (2000 – present), Call of Duty

series (2003 – present) and Assassin’s Creed series (2007 – present) are all productions that

cover historical periods and events within their own authentic narratives. And unlike films or

series, these history-based video games provide an interactive interface through which the

player ventures into a virtual, historical space. Spring refers to historically-based games as

scholarly computer and video games that are the products of extensive research and detailed

design processes. Scholarly games, as media of both interactivity and narrativity, reconstruct

real-world events and spaces in virtual worlds.

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Reconstruction of a real-world space within an imaginary historic narrative provides a

glimpse of life of a specific time period, and creating such a game space “does not make the

impossible possible, but instead makes it possible to experience that which in real life is

improbable.” (Götz, 2007, 136) Assassin’s Creed series is a great example fulfilling this

purpose of making it possible to experience what it would be like to live in different periods of

history. Throughout the Assassin’s Creed series, “the player controls different followers of the

mysterious assassin’s creed (hence the title) in varying locations and periods in history, ranging

from the Third Crusades and Renaissance Italy to Revolutionary America and Industrial

England” (Leenders, 2016: 27) and the stories of each game rely on the previous ones. In that

sense, the narrative of Assassin’s Creed series is an example of embedded narratives as “it tells

two stories, one more or less chronological and the other radically out of sequence.” (Jenkins,

2007: 58) Each of the main nine games' real-world chronological setting begins between the

years 2012 – 2014 and the games are centred around the use of a device called Animus, that

enables its user to revisit the genetic memories of her/his ancestors. This is the chronological

aspect of embedded narrative covering each game of Assassin’s Creed series. Vice versa, each

of the games handles a different time setting that is out of sequence: e.g. Assassin's Creed II

(2009) in 15th century Italy, Assassin’s Creed: Revelations (2011) in 16th century

Constantinople and Assassin's Creed III (2012) in 18th century Colonial America.

In game’s story, the virtual reality machine Animus was invented by Abstergo

Industries, the modern-day face of Templars, to locate the Pieces of Eden, that were initially

created by Isu, the first civilization on earth. The Isu were homo sapiens divinus with a high

intelligence and six senses, and they were the ones who created human race to use them as

slaves. Pieces of Eden were powerful artifacts that allowed Isu to control humanity. The

Templars too used Pieces of Eden throughout the history to rule humans using force and control.

In modern times, Abstergo Industries aims at possessing all the Pieces of Eden to establish a
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new world order. To do so, they invented Animus to gain information on Assassin Order and

Pieces of Eden.

The series narrates the longstanding conflict between Assassins who seek peace through

free-will, rationalism and epistemology, and Templars who seek order and discipline through

power and control. In the first game Assassin’s Creed (2007), Abstergo Industries kidnaps a

bartender named Desmond Miles, a descendant of several assassins, and makes him use the

Animus and trace back to the memories of his assassin ancestor Altaïr Ibn-La'Ahad. Later in

Assassin’s Creed II (2009) Desmond starts to use Animus 2.0, an updated version of Animus

developed by assassins for the purpose of discovering the locations of Pieces of Eden before

Abstergo can do so. He continues to use Animus 2.0 in Assassin’s Creed: Revelations to revisit

his other assassin ancestor Ezio Auditore da Firenze’s memories in Constantinople in 1511, the

newly conquered Ottoman capital and Ezio’s mission there is to find the keys of a hidden library

in Masyaf where Altaïr Ibn-La'Ahad had hidden a Piece of Eden in the first game. To do so,

Ezio has to assassinate Templars, solve mysteries and find hidden artefacts in Constantinople.

Assassin’s Creed series “provide rich historical details about cultures, economies, and

societies, from the most basic game elements, such as clothing and weapons to complex

economic, political, and social systems.” (Spring, 2007: 212)

Viewing the street shows street culture at the respective time, how people interacted in
public space, and commerce that occurred in public spaces. A trip to an inn or tavern
illustrates furniture, utensils, decor as well as what people ate, how they were
entertained and how they conducted monetary transactions. (Spring, 2007: 212)

Assassin’s Creed: Revelations portrays early 16th century Constantinople as a crossroad

of the world, a point of contact that represents “encounters between cultures and ethnicities,

conflicts between political goals or economic interests, mixtures between creeds and

mentalities, equilibria between opposing tendencies and, most of all, a constant process of
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brokerage and mediation between actual or potential rival forces.” (Eldem, 1999: 138) The city

at that time was crowded with people from all over the world due to its historical and religious

importance as well as its attractive geopolitical position for trade and commerce. “Within the

scholarly game, the objects, the interfaces, the settings, and the mechanics can portray

extremely detailed historical information” (Spring, 2007: 215) and the game transcribes the

cultural and economic diversity of a real-world city into a re-created game space. Apart from

providing rich historical information about the society at that time, Assassin’s Creed:

Revelations illustrates the architectural character of Constantinople with highly realistic

graphics and hence, this scholarly game “tends to imitate or parody real space.” (Götz, 2007:

135)

Given the fact that it is a recreation of a real-world city in a game space “joined by

decidedly more imaginary constructs” (Moralde, 2013: para 1), enriched with historical

coherence and visually realistic elements, Assassin’s Creed: Revelations is a “hybrid mix

between real and imagined spaces” (Stockburger, 2006: 81) and this notion reverberates Henri

Lefebvre’s theory of space as a social product and Edward Soja’s concept of Thirdspace.

Constructed from Henri Lefebvre’s spatial triad and Michel Foucault’s concept of

Heterotopia, Soja defines Thirdspace as “an-Other way of understanding and acting to change

the spatiality of human life, a distinct mode of critical spatial awareness that is appropriate to

the new scope and significance being brought about in the rebalanced trialectices of spatiality–

historicality–sociality.” (Soja, 1996: 10) To understand Soja’s Thirdspace, three elements of

Lefebvre’s spatial triad should be covered first:

1. Spatial Practice that corresponds to the concept perceived space. It refers to “the

ways in which spaces are used.” (Milgrom, 2008: 269) It is the perceivable and sensible

aspect of space. It is the collective urban reality that society develops and reproduces

(Ronneberger, 2008: 137).

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2. Representation of Space or conceived space refers to representations of space

conceptualized by urban planners, scientists and engineers. It is “formed through

knowledge, signs, and codes.” (Ronneberger, 2008: 137)

3. Representational Space or lived space, that denotes the lived experience of space and

“the symbolic values produced by the inhabitants” (Milgrom, 2008: 269)

Soja uses the term trialectics to reconstruct Lefebvre’s spatial triad and he coincides

perceived space with Firstspace, that is “fixed mainly on the concrete materiality of spatial

forms” (Soja, 1996: 10); and accordingly, conceived space with Secondspace, which is

“conceived in ideas about space, in thoughtful re-presentations of human spatiality in mental or

cognitive forms.” (Soja, 1996: 10) The first is considered “real”, whereas the second is

“imagined”. The lived space, according to Soja, is “a simple combination or mixture of the

‘real’ and the ‘imagined’” (10) and that corresponds to the Thirdspace, “a product of ‘thirding’

of spatial imagination.” (11)

Moving to a more concrete, but at the same time abstract space, we can consider video

games as socially produced spatial entities that correspond to each element that Lefebvre and

Soja argue about. Firstly, video games are actual objects run on actual machines, played by

actual players in an actual space. They are the perceived, concrete materials of space. Secondly,

they simulate and represent spaces (e.g. cities, planets, streets, mental hospitals) via codes and

signs. And lastly, the gameplay itself is the thirdspace or the lived space: it is neither a concrete

form nor does it only exist cognitively as signs or codes. But instead, it “consists in the

experiences and practices that are produced through the intersection and overlapping of first

and second space.” (Nicholls & Ryan, 2008: 172)

Applying the triad of spatiality to Assassin’s Creed: Revelations is possible via

understanding the representations of Constantinople in the gameplay. The game has an open-

world format that allows its players to roam freely in a re-created historical city and the game
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space helps creating a narrative expression that enables the player to witness the past. The most

important characteristic of Assassin’s Creed: Revelations is the realistic simulation of

Constantinople in 1511. As Alexandre Amancio, the creative director of Assassin’s Creed series

states in an interview, historical accuracy of the game in terms of the layout and the architecture

of 16th century Constantinople is a source of pride for the producers. Main historical structures

and landscapes of the city, what we call today tourist attractions, are represented almost exactly

as they still are. Hence, firstspace is constructed with historically and architecturally accurate

representations of material spatial forms, the concrete buildings that can actually be mapped

and seen in Constantinople such as Hagia Sophia, Galata Tower, Grand Bazaar and Topkapı

Palace.

Another aspect of Constantinople in Assassin’s Creed: Revelations is the division of the

space. The city is divided into four main districts: Galata District, Imperial District, Bayezid

District and Constantine District. Each district has its own characteristics. For example; Galata

District is a cosmopolitan area where we encounter people from different ethnicities who speak

different languages. Imperial District is where Topkapı Palace and Grand Bazaar are located

and thus, it is the centre of administration and trade. Bayezid and Constantine districts are

mostly residential areas where we encounter several mosques and small shops. The division of

the space on the game map is an example of representations of space and accordingly the

secondspace, that is the conceptualized model of planning and mapping of Constantinople.

The spatial practice is the experimental deciphering of space (Lefebvre, 1991: 38) and

this constitutes the gameplay itself. It is the live action that the player experiences in

Constantinople and constructs a narrative within the game. Given the firstspace and

secondspace, the player performs as an architect of a thirdspace through her/his own experience

and understanding of this real-and-imagined city.

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(…) thirding as a way of understanding that there are other realms of unimaginable
space that challenge and enhance our limited knowledge of life. The most important
trait that they have in common is their vision of a spatial imagination that has all the
potential to radically change the physical and conceptual world. (Ramirez, 2015: 18)

According to Ramirez, Lefebvre’s lived space, Soja’s Thirdspace and Foucault’s

heteretopia have a common trait that challenge our traditional perception of space and they

reach out to ‘an-Other’ kind of space that is in between reality and imagination. Concordantly,

the story of Assassin’s Creed: Revelations can be described as a journey to a real-and-imagined

space that was made possible through the device Animus and that brings us to Foucault’s

concept of heterotopia. Heterotopias are simultaneously physical and mental spaces of

otherness such as a space of a phone call or a reflection on a mirror, similarly Animus is the

device that enables Desmond travel mentally to the past while he is still in a specific physical

space. It reads Desmond’s genetic memory and projects it onto an external screen in three

dimensions. Herein when applied to Assassin’s Creed: Revelations, the very essence of

heterotopias raises a question: Can Animus be regarded as a heterotopic space?

In “Of Other Spaces” Foucault briefly analyses the history of space from ‘a space of

emplacement’ in Middle Ages to an open space of ‘extension’ instead of ‘localization’ in 17th

century and finally to ‘sites’ in modern times as a new form of localization. (Foucault, 1984: 1-

2) He states that “space takes for us the form of relations among sites.” (2) This particular

statement reflects the set of relations among spaces that both Lefebvre and Soja bring up in the

triad of perceived, conceived and lived spaces. Heterotopias are spaces of otherness that “have

the curious property of in relation with all the other sites, but in such a way as to suspect,

neutralize, or invent the set of relations that they happen to designate, mirror, or reflect.”

(Foucault, 1984: 3) He draws a parallel between utopias and heterotopias: heterotopias are

localisable utopias “that do exist and that are formed in the very founding of society.” (3) and

defines heterotopia as “a kind of effectively enacted utopia in which the real sites, all the other
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real sites that can be found within the culture, are simultaneously represented, contested, and

inverted.” (3) The dichotomy of a heterotopia as a both real and unreal space is symbolized

with the mirror metaphor:

(…) heterotopia in so far as the mirror does exist in reality, where it exerts a sort of
counteraction on the position that I occupy. From the standpoint of the mirror I discover
my absence from the place where I am since I see myself over there. Starting from this
gaze that is, as it were, directed toward me, from the ground of this virtual space that is
on the other side of the glass, I come back toward myself (…) (Foucault, 1984: 4)

In this regard, Animus works as a mirror in a sense that it is “absolutely real, connected

with all the space that surrounds it” and “absolutely unreal, since in order to be perceived it has

to pass through this virtual point which is over there.” (4) In the game context, Animus is an

actual object in a real space used by a real person and like mirror, it “affirms the observer’s

position in real space.” (Manning, 2008: 5) Vice versa it allows its user to project

herself/himself in a virtual space like a mirror which “projects a virtual space behind its

surface.” (Manning, 2008: 5)

Foucault assorts “a sort of systematic description” (Foucault, 1984: 4) of heterotopias

and defines six principles or traits that heterotopias may exhibit. The question raised earlier will

be scrutinized through these principles within the game narrative.

Its first principle is that there is probably not a single culture in the world that fails to
constitute heterotopias. That is a constant of every human group. But the heterotopias
obviously take quite varied forms, and perhaps no one absolutely universal form of
heterotopia would be found. We can however class them in two main categories.
(Foucault, 1984: 4)

Heterotopias have different functions and forms in different cultures. However there are

two main categories that are common to every culture. The first category is the crisis heterotopia

and it is related with changes in human condition. Crisis heterotopias are “privileged or sacred
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or forbidden places” (4) reserved for individuals who are in a stage or state of a crisis, in other

words a temporal metamorphosis, such as adolescents, pregnant women or the elderly. (Soja,

1996: 159) Animus constitutes for a crisis heterotopia in the regard that it is a forbidden and

secret space that makes it possible for Desmond Miles to shapeshift mentally into different

assassins in different periods of time.

The second category is the deviation heterotopia “in which individuals whose behaviour

is deviant in relation to the required mean or norm are placed.” (Foucault, 1984: 5) When people

enter a heterotopia, they deviate from their society’s norms. And in Assassin’s Creed:

Revelations, Animus allows Desmond, and of course the player, to act and construct narratives

that clash not only the cultural norms of the society, but also laws of nature. The game, as is

evident from its name, revolves around assassinations and the player can jump from rooftops

and towers, bribe authorities and kill people, hence assassination is a type of deviant behaviour

that is consistent with game play but not with Desmond’s and the player’s everyday life.

The second principle of this description of heterotopias is that a society, as its history
unfolds, can make an existing heterotopia function in a very different fashion; for each
heterotopia has a precise and determined function within a society and the same
heterotopia can, according to the synchrony of the culture in which it occurs, have one
function or another. (Foucault, 1984: 5)

Heterotopias change in function and meaning over time and that corresponds to Animus’

flexibility “according to the synchrony of the culture” that it is used for. As explained before,

it was used by Abstergo Industries for ‘evil’ purposes to control humanity whereas in Assassin’s

Creed: Revelations it is used for saving humanity from the tyranny of this company, the

modern-time Templars. Interestingly, Animus in Latin has a variety of meanings such as rational

soul, consciousness and mental powers, and the etymological explanation of the word is also

interrelated with the notions of reality and unreality; reflection of self and high spirits; the

otherness in one’s Self. Hence Animus not only enables to revisit the past and fight with the
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enemies, but it also enables Desmond to rediscover himself as he tries out his newly acquired

skills in the real world when desynchronized from Animus.

Third principle. The heterotopia is capable of juxtaposing in a single real place several
spaces, several sites that are in themselves incompatible. (Foucault, 1984: 6)

Foucault states that a theatre stage is “a whole series of places that are foreign to one

another” (6) and it contains several spaces in itself. Animus functions as heterotopias in a

similar way. It has multiple dimensions: it exists as a single device but it projects and juxtaposes

several other spaces. The openness and extensiveness of its function is contained within a small

space but it opens up to other worlds. In Assassin’s Creed: Revelations, it allows the user to

travel to three completely different spaces (Constantinople, Cappadocia and Masyaf) and in

other games, the list goes on to Rome, Havana, Paris, London and many more.

Fourth principle. Heterotopias are most often linked to slices in time—which is to say
that they open onto what might be termed, for the sake of symmetry, heterochronies.
The heterotopia begins to function at full capacity when men arrive at a sort of absolute
break with their traditional time. (Foucault, 1984: 6)

Foucault gives libraries and museums as examples for heterochrony. Heterotopias

separate people from the actual time and they are not necessarily in a linear chronicle, neither

there is one universal heterochronic form. Animus is a virtual reality device but it wouldn’t be

wrong to say that it is a time machine as it makes it possible to travel in time. It is a crossroad

of spaces and times. When Desmond is connected to Animus, he completely breaks from the

traditional time and goes back to centuries ago.

Fifth principle. Heterotopias always presuppose a system of opening and closing that
both isolates them and makes them penetrable. In general, the heterotopic site is not
freely accessible like a public place. (Foucault, 1984: 7)
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Like prisons and barracks as stated by Foucault, Animus is not a freely accessible space

and can only be accessed by certain people within certain rules. Furthermore, Animus maintains

a system of opening and closing that both isolates and connects Desmond from and to its

surroundings.

Sixth principle. The last trait of heterotopias is that they have a function in relation to
all the space that remains. This function unfolds between two extreme poles. Either their
role is to create a space of illusion that exposes every real space, all the sites inside of
which human life is partitioned, as still more illusory (…) Or else, on the contrary, their
role is to create a space that is other, another real space, as perfect, as meticulous, as
well arranged (…) (Foucault, 1984: 8)

Heterotopias are spaces of otherness and their function revolves around the distinction

between reality and illusion. Animus creates a simulation in time and space by exposing real

spaces of the past and reveals an envisioned, virtual Constantinople in 1511 that is “a place

without a place, that exists by itself” (9) in Desmond’s genetic memory. Hereby, Animus can

be regarded as a heterotopia in two dimensions that are integrated into each other. Inside the

game world, it allows Desmond to reflect himself into his ancestor’s memories and serves as a

bridge between reality and illusion for him. Given the fact that the player controls Desmond, it

functions as a heterotopia for the player to venture into space of otherness in a simulated reality

of an actual localisable city.

The game space in Assassin’s Creed: Revelations challenges our ways of thinking

spatiality (Soja, 1996: 163) and Constantinople, presented as a real-and-imagined city,

represents the first two characteristics in the triad of spatiality with visually realistic and

historically coherent material spatial forms and signs; and the imagined narrative of gameplay

constructs a thirdspace as an exploration of first and second spaces. The game reaches out to a

space of otherness between reality and imagination. It is true that history-based video games

effect our way of imagining and understanding history. Nevertheless, visually realistic games
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that are invested in a well-researched representation of history such as Assassin’s Creed:

Revelations do more than just reflecting or mimicking historical facts or spaces. They open up

the paths of discussion about existential spatiality, presence and absence in virtual and real

worlds, being inside and outside of history.

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