Video games often reflect on cultural and historical events, and in the case of the Assassin's Creed franchise, they've almost seen it all.
Developers Ubisoft have covered many eras in the game's 16-year history: the French Revolution, Imperial China, The Renaissance and Third Crusade — just to name a few.
Despite the studio's experience, recreating a city that no longer exists is a monumental task. But these dedicated game creators have just finished their latest historical quest: The Islamic Golden Age.
Assassin's Creed Mirage, the next major instalment in the series, is releasing this week.
Mirage expands on the character Basim Ibn Ishaq, a Norse god reincarnated.
We first met Basim three years ago in Assassin's Creed Valhalla.
Now, we see the origins of the character and follow his journey from apprentice to master assassin in 9th-century Baghdad.
The original Middle Eastern city of Baghdad was destroyed at the hands of the Mongol Empire in 1258, leaving very little behind.
"Historians themselves, they don't know a lot about what the city looked like," Sarah Beaulieu, narrative director at Ubisoft Bordeaux, told 9news.com.au.
Surviving texts and maps assisted the Ubisoft team in resurrecting the lost city - the playground for the new video game.
"We had to grab sources here and there and have the help of historians, both at Ubisoft and externally, to make sure that we were doing something that made sense and was as, you know, authentic as possible," she said.
Beaulieu says it was a personal and emotional experience for Ubisoft team members from the Middle East.
"We don't have any buildings left that we could build from… The House of Wisdom is a very good example, because we made a building out of it, but we don't know where it was in the city," she said.
"We don't even know if it was a real place or if it was a district, for example; it's not clear in the sources that we had."
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Beaulieu says the team felt like they had a sense of responsibility to make the best possible recreation of the city, which has never been done before.
"I feel very proud of the fact that we can actually make people understand what Baghdad was at that time," she said.
