On his first trip to Rome Tom Witkowski ’15 experienced more than a few déjà vu moments, thanks to a video game.
Witkowski had been a regular player of Assassin’s Creed II, an immersive game of historical fiction which served as his virtual tour guide to Ancient Rome.
“All the things I was familiar with in the game carry an impact when you see them firsthand and get the full scope of what is going on,” he says. “It goes both ways—from the game to the real world and vice versa. The game allows for an interaction that being a tourist doesn’t always allow.”
He speaks of Rome with a deep connection that has lasted more than 10 years, dating back to four years of Latin at Walnut Hills High School in Cincinnati. His trip to Rome followed his high school graduation.
Witkowski says the game is surprisingly accurate.
“It was wild—I’d played the game, climbed around, and done all the missions. Then you walk inside the Pantheon for real and it’s exactly the same. It was like walking back into the game.”
That revelation doesn’t surprise Abbott. He agrees that the video game experience can help in the learning process by establishing deeper connections for some.
“There is something different in the experiential dimension,” Abbott says. “Actually traveling is so fundamentally different than traveling in a game that it’s a both/and thing; it affects the head and the heart.
“Doing both created a richer experience for him.”—Richard Paige