Discover Assassin’s Creed Unity’s Full-Scale Paris Map with Ubisoft+

Assassin's Creed Unity celebrates its 10^th anniversary this month, and its open-world map - a 1:1 re-creation of central Paris as it was in the 18^th century - is still one of the most detailed and graphically impressive simulations of a city in Assassin's Creed's 17-year history. If you're curious to see how big Notre Dame is up close, visit the Louvre before it was converted from a palace to a museum, or even climb the Eiffel Tower (which didn't exist in the 18^th century, but we'll get to that), Assassin's Creed Unity is a captivating way to experience Paris without actually being there - and you can dive into it right now with a Ubisoft+ Classics or Premium subscription on PC, Xbox, or PlayStation.

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Set during the French Revolution, Assassin's Creed Unity tells the story of Arno Dorian, an orphan of the millennia-long secret war between Assassins and Templars. Raised by an adoptive Templar Grand Master but recruited by the Assassins after being framed for his murder, Arno works to unravel a web of deceit, and eventually uncovers a conspiracy behind the revolution itself. He's also the Assassin half of an Assassin-Templar love story that answers the question of what would happen if the Assassins and Templars - two feuding secret societies with boundless resources and eons of forbidden knowledge - tried working together for a change.

Being the standard-bearer for a re-imagining of Assassin's Creed for the then-new PS4 and Xbox One, Arno did a lot of things differently than his Assassin forebears. For example, he was the first Assassin players could create builds around, using a variety of unlockable weapons, gear, and skills to buff, tweak, and optimize his abilities for stealth, ranged attacks, or melee combat. He also had the fastest and most elaborate parkour skills of any Assassin up to that point, with a huge variety of fluid, graceful animations and the ability to effortlessly execute controlled descents from death-defying heights.

The controlled descent of the "parkour down" is important, because it offered a convenient way to get down from some of the biggest structures the series had ever attempted, without the need to look for a place to execute a Leap of Faith (although that was still an option, if you could find a haycart on Paris' crowded urban streets). Where previous Assassin's Creeds built famous landmarks at roughly 4/5 of their actual size (due largely to memory constraints), Unity was the first to make them 1:1 with their real-life counterparts - letting the developers better capture the Bastille's imposing aura, Versailles' sprawling magnificence, and Notre Dame's dizzying heights.

In fact, while Arno may be the story's lead Assassin, Paris is arguably its main character. The game was originally conceived as a love letter to the city and its storied history, which you'll be able to explore more fully through "Helix Rifts" - glitches in the Animus simulation that let you pursue side missions set during the Middle Ages, the 19^th-century Belle Epoque, and World War II (that's where the Eiffel Tower comes in). There's also plenty of intrigue to discover in Arno's own era; poke around the city's backstreets and duck inside its many explorable buildings, and Unity's many side activities will quickly have you retrieving guillotined heads for Madame Tussaud, solving a murder around the cannon clock at the Palais-Royal, and following the ancient tracks of renowned mystics like Nicolas Flamel and Nostradamus.

Assassin's Creed Unity was also the first game in the series that didn't gate off portions of its open world until players had reached specific points in the story. While some districts have tougher enemies than others, you're free to explore all of Paris at your own pace from the moment the game sets you loose in the city. You can also freely travel between Paris and Versailles, as well as to the city of Franciade (aka Saint-Denis) if you have the Dead Kings expansion, included with Ubisoft+ Premium (and accessible after Sequence 4).

All that freedom can be a little daunting at first, especially because unfogging each section of the map will fill it with icons for quests, lootable chests, merchants, and other points of interest. Don't let that overwhelm you! It's easy to filter the map markers to only display what you're interested in, letting you focus on missions or hunt for collectibles depending on your mood.

Better yet, ignore the map and just start wandering. Paris is a vibrant city filled with interesting things to explore and do - and you can start discovering it all for yourself today with a Ubisoft+ Premium or Classics subscription on PC; with Ubisoft+ Premium on Xbox One and Xbox Series X|S; or with Ubisoft+ Classics (included with PlayStation Plus Extra or Premium, or available as a standalone subscription) on PS4 and PS5.

Assassin's Creed Unity is also available for purchase on PC (via the Ubisoft Store, Epic Games Store, and Steam), Xbox One, Xbox Series X|S (via backwards compatibility), PS4, and PS5 (via backwards compatibility). For more on Assassin's Creed, check out how to play the Assassin's Creed games in order and the evolution of Assassin's Creed's parkour.