Assassin's Creed video games are steeped in history, but how educational are they?

It's not quite time travel, but Ubisoft'srecreation of ancient Egypt inAssassin's Creed:Origins Discovery Tourcomes prettyclose.

You can almost feel the sand beneath your feetas you walk along the coast of the Nile Delta tothewalled city of Alexandria.A bright golden line guides you tothe city's entrance, where thenarrator's voice pipes in with an anecdote about how thecity's locationwas inspired by a verse from Homer's Odyssey:"There is, in front of Egypt, in the sea with many swells, an island called Pharos."

That led Alexander the Great to found this city at the western end of the Nile Delta, the narrator explains.

The environment reflects Assassin's Creed's fascination with history in previous titles, the video game franchise immersedplayers in Imperial China, the French Revolution and Renaissance Italy, to name a few.

Thatattention to detail caught the attention of teachers, which is why Ubisoft responded with Discovery Tour, aspecial,school-friendlyupdate to the Egypt version ofAssassin's Creed Originsthat strips away the mature content and violence and swaps in audio-guided tours and reference stations.

"We kept receiving testimonies from teachers that were saying ... 'I'd like to use it in the classroom, but it's not easy,'" said JeanGuesdon, the creative director behind Origins. "So they would record some videos at home, editing them to make sure the content was safe for school."

With Discovery Tour,teachers no longer have to find a workaround."They can use this tour, even bring their console into the classroom if they want to, without any danger,"Guesdonsaid.

It'sa clever move, saidone gamingexpert, but there are doubts about how effective anyvideo game especially a series saturated inbloody combat can be at teaching.

"It's good marketing, because it shows that video games can be educational," saidMiaConsalvo, a professor atConcordiaUniversity and the Canada Research Chair in Game Studies andDesign.

"There is still that sense among people that games are a problem," said Consalvo, referring to concerns about violence. For a game publisher, creating a teaching tool such as this has benefits"notjust from a sales perspective," but in helpinga broader audience view video games as "a part of culture."

Putting games to the test

Released in February, the special educational versionof Originsallows players to explore Cleopatra's Egypt freely or through an audio-guided tour, where they encounterpop-up lessons andmore than 700 reference pictures taken from museums and libraries.

It's the product of three and a half years of careful research, developmentand input from historians and Egyptologists.

Guesdon said that when he was younger, the closest thing to that level of immersion was a comic book.

"We [have] the opportunity to be fully immersed, in full control in a 3D world. And it really adds to the understanding of the time period," he said.

When Universit de Montralhistory didacticsprofessor Marc Andrthierheard about Ubisoft's latest venture, he asked developers if he could put it to the test.

thierconducted a study involving 330 highschool students across nine Montreal-area schools. He separated children into two groups one sat through a traditional lecture on ancient Egypt, and the other played the Discovery Tour.

Theresults: Students taught in the conventional waytested better for knowledge retention, with an average score of 53 per cent, while those who played the game scored 44 per cent.

"Many times, we are very amazed by new technologies and we think it`s the solution to everything, but it's not," thier said. "Many times, we put too much money and too much time [into] things that are very complex and add nothing to the teaching."

Ruo-NigWang, a student atCollegeJean-de-Brbeufin Montreal,was one of the children who participated.She said she prefers the human connection you get with a teacher.

"You can ask them questions, and they can re-explain things. They can give you more details," she said.

Wang said there's no substitution for that interaction, but acknowledged thata video gamecan transport players to a different world.She pointed to how Discovery Tour recreates the sights and sounds ofCleopatra's time, as it was meant to be.

"I like the idea of being able to walk everywhere virtually. Nowadays, the architecture is in ruins, or is no longer there. But in the game, you can reconstruct them, and visit them."

A supplementary tool

thier echoed that idea, and said he thinks the ideal use for games like Discovery Tour is to help students experience concepts that can't easily be explained in the pages of a textbook.

"It could be better with more complex things like the mummification," he said. "In the tour, it's very clear, we see every step. So it can help."

Even though students who sat through the lecture tested best,thier said the children who played the game still retained more knowledgethan he expected, suggesting that a gamedoes have potential as a teaching aid.

"It can be another tool for the teacher, one more [thing]in his tool box, but not the only thing," he said.

Guesdonsaid that's exactly how Ubisoft intended Discovery Tour.

"We're not here to tell you we will replace [the]teacher. This has never been the ambition," he said.

"We're really hopingthat all gamers around the world and non-gamers will find [Discovery Tour] interesting and see that the power of video games can be used to bring actually more than only entertainment."