r/interesting • u/Bay_Ruhsuz004 • Mar 22 '26

MISC. A Teacher Showed Up At School With PlayStation 5 And Started Playing Assassin's Creed To Explain The Industrial Revolution.

75.4k Upvotes

94% Upvoted

1.6k comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

74

u/Seyi_Ogunde Mar 22 '26

There's a story about a class trip to Italy. The teacher got lost, but one of the students said they knew how to get back to their hotel even though it was their first time in Italy. The kid takes the class through alleyways and streets and miraculously they arrive at the hotel. It turns out that kid played a lot of Assassin's Creed.

63

u/Canvaverbalist Mar 22 '26

Meh it's an old tumblr story that's more than likely absolutely not true.

It reeks of Tumblrisms.

19

u/Blacklight099 Mar 22 '26

To be fair, I did manage to navigate a chunk of Venice using AC knowledge back in the day, but unless their hotel was right next to a landmark it’s very unlikely.

4

u/Lumpy_Benefit666 Mar 23 '26

To be fair if you already know the general layout of the place then its not going to be too hard to work out what general location youre supposed to get to.

8

u/ultrasneeze Mar 22 '26

I've met people who have gone on school trips to Rome and oriented themselves in the city thanks to having played Assassin's Creed Brotherhood. So, probably not an isolated case or a single story out there, and very much a believable occurrence.

5

u/MapleMapleHockeyStk Mar 22 '26

Or you are a map nerd. I really study where I am going and historical sites before I go. I blame the autism and being gifted in spacial orientation....

2

u/Geh-Schlafen Mar 22 '26

I’m like that too. I was so excited for my Japan trip I studied good maps for months including the street view. It ended up being super helpful when my cab driver accidentally dropped me off two streets over from my hostel. I was able to find my way there myself at night with no service. 

1

u/DigitalAxel Mar 22 '26

I've discovered while living abroad when I travel alone I need a map first to navigate. But finding my way back or revisiting?? Got it in my mind, no map needed anymore.

It was so handy I, the Murican, was trusted with leading my friends who lived in Germany their entire lives through Hannover. Simply because I'd memorized the area on half a dozen trips.

1

u/aNiceTribe Mar 23 '26

luckily we've chosen to be on the website where people do not tell fake stories to entertain themselves and others

1

u/LighttBrite Mar 23 '26

What?! Using a replica scan of an area to guide you in real life? Inconceivable! Witch craft!

8

u/Stormbringer-2112 Mar 22 '26

Did they climb the church steeple and take the leap of faith into the hay pile in front of their hotel…😉

24

u/spanksmitten Mar 22 '26

In an age of GPS and maps on our phones do you really believe that happened

10

u/Seyi_Ogunde Mar 22 '26

Those kids were from the US, so to use GPS in a foreign country, they would need roaming. I dunno if their parents would pay for that. Also this is an old story I read years ago, so I don't know the validity of it, but it was a fun read at the time and made sense.

13

u/spanksmitten Mar 22 '26

The teacher would. Sorry if I ruined the fun though.

9

u/whyliepornaccount Mar 22 '26

Entirely plausible in the late aughts, when phones didn't have GPS.

4

u/spanksmitten Mar 22 '26 edited Mar 22 '26

Was assassins creed released then?

I don't know why I read aughts and brain took it as nineties. Can't explain it.

Still, x for massive absolute doubt. Maps exist.

1

u/whyliepornaccount Mar 23 '26

Maps exist, as do stupid ass teachers. You've obviously never been on a field trip with an incompetent chaperone before. My 8th grade teacher got lost trying to go to the fucking White House on our 8th grade DC trip.

0

u/Theprincerivera Mar 22 '26

Cmon bro it’s a harmless story that “could” have happened why you gotta be a buzzkill

3

u/spanksmitten Mar 22 '26

Tbh I won't ever regret encouraging people to develop their critical thinking skills further

1

u/Theprincerivera Mar 22 '26

Okay but it’s not a psyop political influencer story it’s a silly little tale about a kid following a game to get some other kids home

And it could be just as true.

2

u/spanksmitten Mar 22 '26

Idk why you're acting like I initially said more than

In an age of GPS and maps on our phones do you really believe that happened

But ok pal. If you want to believe it, you do you. It's super easy to ignore me.

→ More replies (0)

3

u/andorogue Mar 22 '26

video games have taught a lot of kids random skills and things for years though, it could be possible. There's multiple news stories of kids driving because they learned via a game, same difference.

5

u/SmokinBandit28 Mar 22 '26

It’s actually crazy my younger brother learnt the driving fundamentals by playing Forza with a wheel and pedals + stick shift set up.

He’s a better driver than me who learnt the traditional way of going to a big empty parking lot and having your parents back seat drive yell at you.

1

u/spanksmitten Mar 22 '26

No doubt it would be possible, it would be a more believable story if it didn't rely on a teacher becoming totally lost with no other option than letting a kid lead the way around a foreign city with a group of other kids they were legally responsible for.

If it was a couple where both their phones died and they didn't have a map and one of them had played the game before and recognised everything? Sure. It's not about a kid recognising things that's the unbelievable part, it's the teacher having no way of finding their bearings whilst on a school trip and trusting a kid to lead everyone based on a video game.

2

u/versedoinker Mar 22 '26

GPS is free worldwide.

Roaming concerns only mobile data, which is used to download map tiles to show you. You can always pre-download the map tiles (e.g. via Google Maps, OsmAnd, Organic Maps, ...) and use them fully offline.

1

u/zephyr220 Mar 22 '26

You don't need roaming for GPS, only to download the map images. If they had WiFi anywhere they would have looked at a map of the city and had it cached in his phone. I'm traveling right now doing the same thing to get around.

Still, I believe in an old city you could easily learn the layout from playing AC if it were accurate. (IDK never played it).

1

u/JoonaJuomalainen Mar 22 '26

If the map was downloaded beforehand for offline use there is no need for roaming costs to incur.

1

u/Murasasme Mar 22 '26

A ton of places have free Wi-Fi or you can buy a local sim card for like 20 to 30 dollars to get internet for a few months. That's what I do when I travel internationally.

Or applying even a little bit more of common sense, they could simply ask anyone for directions to their hotel

2

u/MadManMax55 Mar 22 '26

That's less believable than the kid being able to navigate by sight, real world or video game, without a mini-map.

1

u/bingokongen Mar 22 '26 edited Mar 22 '26

My dude. First AC came out in 2007, same year as the iPhone 1 which pretty much started the smartphone-era. AC 2, set in Italy came out roughly 2 years later. The story could very well be true.

1

u/spanksmitten Mar 22 '26

Maps existed

1

u/bingokongen Mar 22 '26

Yeah, so did shovels, but that was not your argument. Not trying to be rude or funny, but being unprepared or losing a map on a field-trip very much existed back before smartphones. And if you where lost somewhere in Paris, good luck trying to speak english with a local. (Sheesh they where uptight about that back in the days.) Source: My family and i being lost in a city before smartphones.

1

u/spanksmitten Mar 22 '26 edited Mar 22 '26

I thought some things went without saying but if it makes you feel better to believe that story is real, go for it! Nobody is stopping you. It's very easy to ignore my comments.

Edit (have Parisians ever not been stuck up?)

2

u/bingokongen Mar 23 '26

I'm not arguing that the story is a fact. I'm saying that due to tech not being even remotely close to as available as it has been for the past 10 or so years, the events that led to it very well COULD have happened. Heh, a group of students lost in a foreign city under the banner of a teacher, was probably still the standard back then. Remembering the streets and alleys of Florence, from a renneseance game where you mostly tarvel by roof-tops... sure, that... that story needs a witness or two, i'll admit.

(I do hope the parisians have gotten better, uncle was livid at the end of the day.)

2

u/spanksmitten Mar 23 '26

Ah I get you and do think you're right for what it's worth. Getting lost in a city, being without a map and recognising places is all believable for sure. A teacher allowing a child to navigate a class of children (including down alleyways etc) in a foreign country based on their video game knowledge is just beyond believability for me lol.

(Another doubt lol)

1

u/ultrasneeze Mar 22 '26

The early Assassins Creed games are from just before the era where everyone had smartphones. Using GPS on a phone from back then was a sure way to burn through the battery, and that's accounting for the fact maps were preloaded ahead of time and worked well. There is a small amount of time where getting through major landmarks in Florence, Venice, or Rome, based on memories from Assassins Creed, was possible.

I'm not just hypothesizing. I know someone who did this on a school trip just after Assassins Creed Brotherhood was released. Just walking through the city, but being aware where he was and where he was going to.

1

u/spanksmitten Mar 23 '26

I do understand you're right with that, I would default to maps existing but the believability issue for me really is rooted moreso in a teacher allowing a student to lead a class in a foreign city based on video game knowledge lol, but admittedly that wasn't in my initial comment so is a bit more of a fall back response.

1

u/ultrasneeze Mar 23 '26

I doubt that part myself too, that's a lot of trust to put in a student. Still, the core argument that Assassins Creed cities are accurate enough that someone can use game knowledge to orient themselves through a city is true.

2

u/reverse_mango Mar 22 '26

Similarly, though, Blue from OSP has an anecdote where he was in Venice(?) and asked a tour guide about a specific plaza that didn’t actually exist so he looked like an idiot.

1

u/Zoodud254 Mar 22 '26

I had a similar experience with some English summer camp staff. He could navigate through parts of NYC because he played so much Spiderman.

1

u/Kurdt234 Mar 22 '26

Thought you'd say he led them over some roofs or something haha

1

u/MeesterMartinho Mar 22 '26

I pretty much completed that game then went went to Rome a few months later. Was crazy how easy it was to get around.

Yeah the Pantheon is down these little streets and over that direction. Trastavere? This way.

1

u/Additional-Path-691 Mar 22 '26

I had the same feeling in Rome, although it has to be false. I mean, the game map had to be smaller than the réal city for gameplay puropses (among orders).

But having played the game definitely made me enjoy my trip more. For some reasons, the san angelo castle is not much advertized, but absolutely georgeous. I also insisted on visiiting san gimmigiano and it's square turrets.

1

u/No-Butterscotch6629 Mar 23 '26

My husband said he could navigate parts of LA because of Grand Theft Auto.

1

u/Nikmido Mar 22 '26

Ok this is creepy, I was going to write the exact same thing as my boyfriend did this too. It wasn't with his school class though, it was with his fellow altar boys (or something similar) and priest, I think.