Ubisoft
Notre Dame is opening its doors again, thanks in part to Assassin’s Creed
While the cathedral’s assets from the games didn’t help with the reconstruction of Notre Dame, Ubisoft still donated a large amount to aid the effort.
After five years of it being caught in a terrible fire, on December 7, the Notre Dame Cathedral, one of the most representative buildings of Paris is going to reopen its doors to the public. Today, November 29, French Prime Minister Emmanuel Macron, visited the reconstruction that has been carried out since the serious fire in April 2019 of this 850-year-old building, a reconstruction in which Assassin’s Creed Unity, or more specifically Ubisoft, has taken an active part.
Assassin’s Creed Unity was launched in 2014 under a sea of criticism due to its state, notably unfinished and full of bugs and other technical errors. However, what was also evident was that Ubisoft’s recreation of the French capital on an architectural and visual level was magnificent, also being the first game in the series developed exclusively for the last generation of consoles (PlayStation 4 and Xbox One). Specifically, the Notre Dame Cathedral was one of the highest points of this work, with a completely overwhelming level of detail.
This is how Ubisoft helped rebuild the Notre Dame Cathedral
Far from what was said since then, this recreation was not useful for the reconstruction of the Cathedral, although it allowed all players in the world to experience a virtual tour by giving away the game during the week following the fire. “We hope, with this small gesture, to be able to provide everyone with the opportunity to appreciate our virtual tribute to this monumental piece of architecture,” said a spokesperson for the French publisher at the time.
However, the assets that were used to recreate Notre Dame in-game were never used in the reconstruction of the Cathedral, as Ubisoft would later acknowledge. According to them, what they had carried out was nothing more than a virtual recreation designed specifically for exploration thanksthrough the skills of Arlo, the protagonist of the game, not an architectural study. To capture the imposing Cathedral, the studio spent months capturing up to a billion images thanks to a patented laser scanner, with the help of historian Andrew Tallon.
But as we said before, Ubisoft actively collaborated in the process, donating 500,000 euros to do their bit to get to next week, when this work will be finished.
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