Assassin's Creed Odyssey taught me the importance of representation

A strange thing happened when I started playing Assassin's Creed Odyssey: I felt proud.

Many games have borrowed themes or Greek decorations, especially those related to ancient myths, but the culture is rarely accurately represented. Assassin's Creed Odyssey It's not a perfect game, nor is it entirely authentic in its representation of Greek culture, but Ubisoft's decision to present Greek actors is brilliant. It was something I did not know I needed and most players probably did not notice.

I call Alex Kalogiannis and I am Greek. You may have gathered all of this after hearing my name.

I am the son of immigrant parents, both from Greece. I am the type of Greco-American who has trouble speaking the language and can not really read the alphabet, but swears anyway when I tear off a toe. I have not been back in "the old country" for over 10 years, apart from a work trip, but I scream internally when someone orders a "gyroscope". JY-ro and not YEE-ro. Remember to hear someone pronounce the L in "tortilla" and you will get what I am talking about.

As with many Americans, my ethnicity is part of my identity and has illuminated the culture in which I grew up. I had not thought of my Mediterranean background when I read articles on the importance of performance in video games, but the performance was all I could think of after playing Odyssey.

Assassin's Creed Odyssey It is a game that takes place in ancient Greece and, like other games from the Assassin's Creed franchise, is a playground more than a cultural learning tool. I was excited about the game as a fan of the series, but I did not feel any significant connection with this game until I started playing.

This is not new to me; I never have high expectations for games with Hellenic attributes, such as the God of War series. These expectations have been tempered by films like Troy, where all the main characters tend to have Scottish accents or to speak English in Oxford, Greek extras filling the background.

I resigned myself to the fact that the historical reality of the Spartans will remain forever colored, so flattering as it is, by the film 300, a hyper stylized film based on an exaggerated graphic novel. Pop culture rarely knows what to do with Greek stories apart from making sure the audience knows that the characters are "alien" in a nebulous way.

Ubisoft Quebec / Ubisoft

And the thing was, I did not care, or at least I did not care a bit. Authenticity was not what I hoped or even hoped for. Is it important? Can you imagine Kratos being so great if he was not Terrence C. Carson or Christopher Judge, for example? I do not try to criticize these games or movies; I grew up playing or watching, and I was often a fan.

The trailers for Odyssey seemed to confirm that the game would contain the clichéd stylistic influences and choices that I had grown up with. Brad-Pitt, jump-stab of Troy was there just like the 300-spartan kick style. So many fictitious choices of other films are now being repeated because they have become a shortcut for Greek culture, even if they have nothing to do with our current history.

To my surprise, most of these irritations faded as soon as the voice of the game began to take center stage. And suddenly I got it.

That's what the actual representation feels like! And it's great!

What is Assassin's Creed Odyssey Successful?

I laugh at the first cries of malaka, the sworn word of Hellenic. It's our most loaded and versatile oath, so it's the one we use the most. It's also the one we teach everyone first, so his presence was expected. But as I played, it was the most nuanced aspects of vocal work that I recognized as authentic.

Some lisps drew my attention to the sweet consonants, and I was excited to pronounce names correctly, such as Barnabas looking like Varnavas. My character stimulated on their horse with ethe, which roughly translates to "go!

Dubbing became the most exciting part of the game for me and introduced a metagame into my head. I started to scrutinize every conversation with even the most random NPCs, trying to guess if they had understood the word in the subtitles. I even started to learn the dialects of each actor. I do not know them well enough to place them in a region, but I could at least recognize them as being distinct from each other.

I heard people who look like my uncle. People who look like family friends, cousins ​​and my community. And the feeling of familiarity has plunged me deeper into the game. I heard myself and, by the way, everyone who was playing this game also heard it.

My friends were starting to understand how happy I was with dubbing when they asked me how to play the game, so much so that I rarely talked about gameplay as such. "Now you see how I feel," I said a lot of them.

The importance of seeing yourself properly represented in games and in pop culture was something that I thought I understood, at least in an academic way, but it's easy to miss out on the meaning of someone saying something. "It means something to me" when you do not feel it yourself. My conversations with my friends about my reaction to Odyssey I made it clear that I was not a spectator when it came to representation in the media; I was part of it. I missed something too, but I never put everything in my head.

I finally figured out why the movies would so much my sewn voice and I could not help thinking of a particular cultural albatross around my neck.

Have you seen My big Greek wedding? Did you like?

I did not do it, although I'm not upset if you liked it. It was a film of a Greek writer with the best intentions in the world, who was trying to tell a story of growing Greek in the United States. It was supposed to be a funny and zany exaggeration of his experiences, and I remember the greek community of New York delighted for the same reasons Odyssey All of a sudden, it made me so excited: the performance. It was apparently made by the Greeks, about Greeks, but it was a joke. I did not feel like I saw myself or people like me on the screen, and I know a lot of people who felt the same way.

And the problem was that the joke is now what people think is true. Windex jokes. Bundt cake. My big Greek wedding is the Greek version of the Dundee Crocodile Australians treated.

When these stories appear in the general public, people outside your culture do not know which parts are authentic and which parts are fantastic, joking or exaggerated. We all want the best elements of our culture to be visible, but there is nothing wrong with being critical as well. The problem was that My big Greek wedding did not make fun of anything that seemed real; he created stereotypes and then mocked them.

It's not even that Odyssey is incredibly accurate – I do not know enough about the period to say it with certainty – it is that it pulls feeling authentic. The outward signs of Greek culture, if not all details, are treated with respect and with some respect.

My eyes are open

Playing Assassin's Creed Odyssey I've learned some valuable lessons even if they do not relate to the game. I've learned to listen better when someone says something is important to him, even though he's difficult to perceive his own position. After all, they tell me it's important because I can not see him.

Maybe something like a video game, something you play for fun, to make you realize unexpectedly that you could tell better than you thought from the beginning. That Is have something to do with you. I wish there is a better way to learn empathy without having to experience something similar, but experience is often the best teacher.

Assassin's Creed Odyssey I've changed my way of seeing the discussion about the performance and I want everyone to feel what I felt when I played the game.