Assassin’s Creed Unity’s Project Widow offers a virtual tour of Paris

Ubisoft have launched Project Widow, an Assassin’s Creed Unity-themed exploration of Paris.

The easiest way to describe it is to say “It’s like Assassin’s Creed Google Street View.” You get a 360 degree rotatable view of a photograph of modern-day Paris, and you can click on little symbols to get Assassin’s Creed Unity related goodies. The press release tells me it’s narrated by Andy Serkis, too, playing an assassin describing the Revolution as he experienced it.

All of which sounds kind of interesting, but what I’ve seen is… less interesting. I haven’t actually found any Andy Serkis narration yet, for instance, and the clickable icons in Paris are largely unrelated to whatever you’re actually clicking on. There’s one on a shop window, and if you click it you get a screenshot that we saw a few weeks ago, which is completely unrelated to shop windows. There’s another on a road, and that gives you a plug for Assassin’s Creed Unity merchandise. That one on a streetlight shows you the co-op trailer, and the one next to it gives a brief description of the Bastille. This one requires you to convince three friends to sign up before it’ll show you a new screenshot. Etc.

All of which makes me go “Hmm.” It feels like a bit of a missed opportunity, truthfully, although in fairness the meat of it is presumably Serkis’ narration and that’s something I haven’t heard. My first impressions, though, are that it’s a Google Street View of Paris with only one route you can travel, and with a lot of unrelated things you can click on to get screens, videos, and text. Which is a bit sad.

You can check it out here; maybe you’ll have a better experience than I did. Assassin’s Creed Unity itself is due out on 14 November.