Towers used to be all the rage among the open-worldly, particularly when coupled with region-based design.

But tower-climbing’s Ubiquity has inevitably bred contempt.

I’ve mocked towers, radio masts and the like myself in many reviews of Ubiworlds from the 2010s.

Several assassins in white robes throwing themselves from a castle’s upper levels in Assassin’s Creed

you better “synchronise” because this isn’t actually a historical simulation.

It’s a simulation of a historical simulation.

Climbing towers in Assassin’s Creed is one of the major ways you synchronise.

An assassin a white hood scaling a ladder up a building wall in the original Assassin’s Creed

Synchronise, and the view launches outward, mimicking the disturbed eagle’s flight around the tower.

So in a sense, when you climb to the synchronisation point you are Altair synchronising with al-tair.

You are performing the poetics of Altair’s name, reconciling the assassin with his archetype.

A white-hooded assassin mingling with the crowds in Assassin’s Creed

You are doing all this, again, as Desmond synchronising with Altair.

Those haystacks are, of course, the hidden heroes of the AssCreed tower loop.

To be fair, one early scenedoesfeature a leap of faith ending in disaster.

An assassin in a white hood looking out from a ledge over a city crowd in Assassin’s Creed

I dont think the forthcomingAssassins Creed Shadowsor any other contemporary Ubiworld has much appetite for such shenanigans.