This looks like Disneyland but is actually the entrance to Topkapi Palace which was home to the Ottoman Sultans for 380 years. There are two obelisks in what used to be the hippodrome, built during Roman times for chariot racing. It was converted into a mosque in 1505, just 6 years before Assassin’s Creed Revelations is supposed to be set. Kucuk Ayasofya Mosque (or Little Hagia Sophia Mosque) was built in 527 as a church, the Church of Sergius and Bacchus, for the Byzantine Emperor Justinian I. We managed to find many of the locations portrayed in the game (compare the Assassin’s screenshots on the left with our photos on the right) : While I am not qualified to comment on the game play, I am impressed with the artwork and the game’s designers have done a fantastic job at meticulously recreating the streetscapes of Renaissance era Constantinople, from which period many of Istanbul’s most famous landmarks still survive. Oh, and quite a few acts of random murder!
It seems to involve a lot of aimless walking and running, scaling impossibly sheer walls, perching on lofty eyries and jumping from enormous heights to land safely in conveniently placed carts of straw. I can’t pretend to understand what it is all about. I have watched him play Assassin’s Creed.
He thought it would be fun to visit some of the actual locations where the game’s action is supposed to take place. It turns out that Istanbul (or rather, Constantinople, as it was then) is the setting for one of his favourite Play Station games, Assassin’s Creed Revelations. When I asked my son if he would like to stop over in Istanbul for a few days on our way back to Malaysia from England, he was very enthusiastic about the idea.
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