Originally published at: https://boingboing.net/2020/05/27/ancient-rome-in-five-minute-an.html
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While awesome, this is a cinematic made using Assassin’s Creed Origins, which takes place in Egypt. Much of what is shown is Alexandria, including the Pharos lighthouse.
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IKR? That’s how we know we’re living in a simulation, because most of our stats are too.
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I wasn’t aware it was from AC but I was just about to comment that surely this isn’t Rome but rather a Roman town, specifically a smallish coastal one, which Rome isn’t. The pharos at the very beginning was a dead giveaway.
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I think the horses are too big. They look mediaeval-sized. Nice idea though.
There are several places shown. I did not see Rome itself, but I think I recognise Corinth as well as Alexandria.
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Ubisoft sell a version of the game with all the actual gameplay stripped out, and educational voiceovers added in, called “Discovery Tour” (And there’s one touring Ancient Greece from their latest game too).
As far as I can tell, they put a reasonable amount of effort into recreating what it might have looked like.
(the games are ok too if you like that sort of thing, but very big)
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Not all of it, the Greek tradition of painting statues was practiced and Romans were, in phases, very keen on ransacking Greek sculpture (and copying it), but they also created sculpture with textured marble, polished “skin”, rougher hair or inlaid and combined other stone for contrast.
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This makes me feel like I was completely misled by Julie Taymor.
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One senses that the folks that created this have not actually read any of the primary sources describing Rome. Where are the five story tenements? Where are the crowds?
And why is it that the only person I saw doing anything servile (scrubbing a floor) was also the only person of colour? (Wearing a bikini top??)
This is pretty and it’s fun but it seems woefully misleading about what Rome would have actually looked like.
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Or, you could just watch Plebs. One of the funniest of recent UK sitcoms.
Unfortunately, the YT trailer is all internal scenes. There were enough external scenes to get a good flavour. (Of course, there’s always Ben Hur.) 
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Or
Please yourself
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Oh - yes - that one too!
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Very pretty 3D game animation. But as an accurate depiction of the look of classical Rome or antiquity Egypt, well, they are about as accurate as using Plan 9 as a depiction of NASA realities. Just sayin.
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No idea about AC’s take on Egypt, and the Rome of AC Brotherhood is only approximate (and 16th Century!), but the rendering of Notre Dame de Paris from AC Unity is precise enough that it’s being used in the renovation of the real building.
This ain’t the 16th century Rome of the video game, maybe its super accurate…
Not really sure what “date” it is; like I said it has very little bearing on reality. Just for starters, Romans did not plant palm trees along public thoroughfares, which is not even the most ludicrous thing in it… I think my fave was the attached port nestled among the mountains-- Ostia is in fact something like 35 km from Rome, and Rome’s famous 7 hills are mostly rather gentle; certainly not mountains. The “Tiber” is depicted as basically a creek. About the only thing they got faintly correct were the awnings on the (very, very wrong) Colosseum.
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I just meant it’s conceivable that a game depiction could be accurate.
You’re absolutely right, though: there’s no way this depicts Rome. It’s somewhere entirely different, even multiple places, as mentioned upthread.
Newly discovered just outside of Verona, what could be this year’s biggest discovery - an almost entirely intact Roman mosaic villa floor!
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Or you could look at the backlot sets that Plebs used.
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Of course, it is an impressive set of sets, but Plebs is more fun.
I guess it may not be available to US viewers (??) but I urge anyone who has not seen it, to find a way to do so.
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