‘How liberating it is to leave the past behind’: Perceiving authenticity in the vocal performances of Assassin’s Creed: Origins

Video game worlds and play often allow us to engage with fictionalized versions of ‘real life’ history. Historically relevant games with complex narratives like those in the Assassin’s Creed franchise invite players to imagine not only what ancient history was like overall, but crucially, what it might have sounded like. For the franchise’s 2017 title, Assassin’s Creed: Origins , the designers endeavoured to develop the target accents and language used by the characters we encounter in the game authentically, and researched as much as they could about the linguistic backdrop of the game’s Ancient Egyptian setting. In this article, I address the challenging complexities involved in determining what kind of authenticity can even be built into a historical narrative like AC Origins through the use of vocal performance. I build on the work of , to similarly problematize the use of the term ‘authenticity’ as it applies to vocal performances within video game worlds, and address how deeply subjective and contextually dependent the design and reception of those vocals can become.