Assassin's Creed Origins Getting a Stand-Alone Education Mode

Ubisoft has gotten a lot of flak as of late, and most of it is pretty well-deserved. Origins, the latest in the Assassin’s Creed series, was delayed by a year in order to give it some much-needed development time, but even with that extra year and some swank new features, the game couldn’t escape bugs up the butt and some problematic design choices, specifically the addition of loot boxes.

But man, sometimes they do something really cool, and it deserves some good ol’-fashioned praise. For example, they’ve announced over the Ubisoft blog that they’re going to be releasing a new mode for Assassin’s Creed Origin, one where you’ll put down your weapon and pick up a notebook, as they give you a guided tour of the actual history behind the world that they’ve created.

It’ll be free for people who already own the game, but you can grab a stand-alone copy for about $20 on the PC, which would probably be perfect for teachers. There are 75 tours in total, ranging between five to twenty-five minutes long (again, the perfect length to keep from boring students) that will go over subjects ranging from the geography of Egypt, the pyramids, the Greek influence over Alexandria, everyday life for the Egyptian people, and the growing influence of Rome.

If there’s one thing the series has always gotten right, it’s the history: you can usually give or take the sci-fi elements, the modern storyline, and some of the more repetitive aspects of the gameplay. But it’s always had a great talent for finding cool and unique points in history and turning them into breathtaking canvases, and a mode that just focuses on that specifically? I might pick this up for myself just to enjoy it.

It’ll release sometime next week, so I won’t have a long wait if I decide to do that.