Discovery Tours by Ubisoft

'Breathtaking' is not a word I would normally associate with educational software. Yet what Discovery Tours offers in terms of its educational potential and visual appeal sets it apart from almost every other piece of educational software I have encountered!

Discovery Tours is software that is based on the 'Assassin's Creed' series of games. Assassin's Creed games are set at various points in history and feature characters who undertake missions involving combat and stealth.

The Discovery Tours versions of these games have had the combat elements removed, making them suitable for educational use. Not only this, the developers have also added educational content, in the form of historical tours and artefacts to discover. It is still worth the teacher playing through the tours before guiding children through them to check for content that children might not be mature enough for.

There are three Discovery Tours available to purchase from the Ubisoft website. These are Ancient Greece, Viking Age (featuring Viking settlements and Anglo Saxon Britain) and Ancient Egypt (Egypt at the time of the Romans). All three versions allow the player to freely explore towns and villages. Each also features historical tours that guide the player through aspects of each time period. It is possible to buy the three tours as a package, sometimes at a good discount.

The Ancient Greece Discovery Tour feels the most accessible and fleshed out. This is because there are dozens of tours, organised into themes such as 'Arts and Culture', 'Famous Cities' and 'Politics'. It is impossible to overstate the level of detail in the locations presented; teachers can guide students around structures and locations, examining types of columns, wall paintings and statues. Climbing the Acropolis and exploring the Parthenon, exploring the ruins of Knossos and visiting the shrine of Olympia are three of many breath-taking experiences.

The Viking tours are more narrative-driven, placing the player in the position of various characters in Viking and Anglo Saxon Norway and Britain. These are just as educational, although for me, they lacked the same impact as the Greek setting. The Ancient Egypt tours function in a similar way to the Greek tours, although the waypoints are much closer to one another than the Greek tours.

A good tip is to play the games in 1st person mode. This is possible in the Greek and Viking games by pressing a button to trigger this view. In the Ancient Egypt game, the player has to hold a button down to maintain this view. The first person view is more immersive and feels less like a game, and more like a virtual field trip to ancient settings.

To run these games, teachers will need access to a gaming PC, or a modern games console. Both are significant investments, so impact on children's learning and the curriculum will need to be considered. A gaming PC does not have to be state of the art; a PC for between £500 and £1000 should be able to run Discovery Tours, as long as it has a graphics card equal or greater than about a GTX 2060 and enough ram and CPU power.

How could this software be used in the classroom? One use is allowing children to experience some of the settings they are required to learn about. The teacher can guid children on tours, or let them take the controls. Ideally, children would have a combination of free exploration and discovery, as well as required learning using the software. Other ways to use the software could involve the teacher or children posing specific questions and using Discovery Tours to find the answers.

I have posted free materials to support use of Discovery Tours on the resources page of this website. These materials include an example lesson plan and worksheets to hep teachers imagine how Discovery Tours could be used in the primary classroom.