Exploring the amazing cartographic connections behind video games
GUIDE KASSANDRA steps off a reconstructed trireme warship onto a wharf at the Port of Piraeus in Athens, Greece. The wooden vessel with bronze ram at the bow is powered by 170 oarsmen. Such ships were commonplace in the fourth to seventh centuries BC at the port, which has served Athens since ancient times.
Kassandra, decked out as a fifth-century mercenary, doesn’t break character to reveal her last name. She walks along a series of straight, cobblestone streets, passing wooden carts filled with bundled sacks, a blacksmith tending his anvil and ladies making rope amidst the sounds of lapping waves, the distant ringing of buoy bells and gulls squawking. As she reaches the city’s marble district, artisans re-enact shaping slabs of white marble into statues of celebrated warriors. “They truly are masters of their craft,” says Kassandra.
“Thank you, Kassandra,” quips Benjamin Hall, as a crowd watching Kassandra’s tour on a big screen behind him in a meeting room at the Wyndham Grand Athens hotel breaks into laughter. Like Jim Carrey’s Truman Burbank in the 1998 film The Truman Show, Kassandra has no clue she’s the main character in a simulated reality. Today Hall, the Canadian-based world director of the video game Kassandra stars in, Assassin’s Creed Odyssey, is playing puppeteer with an Xbox One controller.
“The Piraeus was built using the Hippodamian style of urban design, the grid layout that’s very common today in North America,” says Hall. He’s the mastermind behind this historical fiction game’s recreation of ancient Greece circa 431 BC during the Peloponnesian War, and is showcasing the extraordinary efforts his Ubisoft Quebec team went to in designing the world, its cities, its architectural styles and its map — which at a glance appears identical to a real chart of Greece — for a group of journalists.
هذه القصة مأخوذة من طبعة July/August 2019 من Canadian Geographic.
ابدأ النسخة التجريبية المجانية من Magzter GOLD لمدة 7 أيام للوصول إلى آلاف القصص المتميزة المنسقة وأكثر من 9,000 مجلة وصحيفة.
بالفعل مشترك ? تسجيل الدخول
هذه القصة مأخوذة من طبعة July/August 2019 من Canadian Geographic.
ابدأ النسخة التجريبية المجانية من Magzter GOLD لمدة 7 أيام للوصول إلى آلاف القصص المتميزة المنسقة وأكثر من 9,000 مجلة وصحيفة.
بالفعل مشترك? تسجيل الدخول
ANIMAL XING
THIS PAST SUMMER AN AMBITIOUS WILDLIFE UNDER/OVERPASS SYSTEM BROKE GROUND IN B.C. ON A DEADLY STRETCH OF HIGHWAY JUST WEST OF THE ALBERTA BORDER. HERE’S HOW IT HAPPENED.
Unearthing a giant
Almost 30 years ago, paleontologist Elizabeth “Betsy” Nicholls made a discovery of colossal proportions
WE DID THIS
AS THE IMPACTS OF GLOBAL WARMING BECOME INCREASINGLY EVIDENT, THE CONNECTIONS TO BIODIVERSITY LOSS ARE HARD TO IGNORE. CAN THIS FALL’S TWO KEY INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCES POINT US TO A NATURE-POSITIVE FUTURE?
The COOLEST COUNTRY
“The coolest country” celebrates the wonders of winter with an all-Canadian theme. The 20-page travel planner includes a bucket list from travel writer Robin Esrock, steamy spa ideas, ice fishing destinations, festival fun, northern itineraries and more!
KEEPER of the SEA
FROM BEING LABELLED DEVIL’S APRON BY FRUSTRATED FISHERMEN TO BEING LAUDED AS A SUSTAINABLE FOOD SOLUTION: HOW KELP’S POTENTIAL IS BEING REALIZED, JUST AS SCIENTISTS LEARN IT’S DECLINING
WILD THINGS
WILD CANADIAN GEOGRAPHIC PRESENTS THE WINNERS OF ITS ANNUAL CANADIAN WILDLIFE PHOTOGRAPHY OF THE YEAR COMPETITION
AN EMPTY LANDSCAPE
AFTER MORE THAN A MILLION YEARS ON EARTH, CARIBOU ARE UNDER THREAT OF GLOBAL EXTINCTION. THE PRECIPITOUS DECLINE OF THE ONCE MIGHTY HERDS IS A TRAGEDY THAT IS HARD TO WATCH — AND EVEN HARDER TO REVERSE.
NORTHERN EXPOSURE
BON INTO A CARIBOU-HUNTING CREE FAMILY IN NORTHERN MANITOBA, ACCLAIMED PLAYWRIGHT AND NOVELIST. TOMSON HIGHWAYS PAYS TRIBUTE TO THE MAGICAL WORLD OF HIS CHILDHOOD IN PERMANENT ASTONISHMENT
INTO THE ARCTIC
CANADIAN PAINTER AND FILMMAKER CORY TRÉPANIER EXPLORES THE SUBLIME AND RAPIDLY CHANGING CANADIAN ARCTIC
Under the ice
Until the last decade, we knew little about what lay beneath the Arctic ice. Now scientists and explorers are shedding light on this vanishing world.
