Can We Fix it? Yes! Video Games Can!

It's not mentioned enough, but there are benefits to videogames and the gaming community. You may recognize the name of the open world samurai themed game Ghosts of Tsushima for both the positive and negative press it received including, but not limited to, being nominated as game of the year for both the Game Awards 2020 and 21st Game Developers Choice Awards in 2021. What you may not know is that Tsushima is a real Japanese island with real shrines. You may also not know that one of the shrines that appears in the game was damaged in a typhoon, and in November 2020 a crowdfunding page was started to help cover the repairs of the Watatsumi Shrine. 

While you can't follow a red fox to get there, you could book a trip to the Nagasaki Prefecture to visit said shrine and see why fans were adamant about trying to help with events on the island even if they were not directly represented in the game. For the record, Watatsumi Shrine is not included in the game, but there are resources out there that can help visitors identify sites that are present in the game. The nice thing is that a priest at the shrine thanked the gaming community in a note on the crowdfunding page, and the shrine plans to engrave the names of the supporters on a stone monument. This is not the only time video games were involved in a restoration.

To clarify this was more about the video game company contributing and less about the game. You may remember back in 2019 when Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris, France, caught fire during a restoration effort. As of right now it still has not been restored; however, work has started. The decision was made to make a replica and not add on a modern version of the spire that was destroyed. There were rumors at the time that Ubisoft could have lent the plans they generated when creating Assassin's Creed Unity, although slightly inaccurate, so that players can climb, dive, and grapple across the cathedral. Ultimately, that is not what occurred, but Ubisoft did make a sizable donation of more than $500K to help with restoration. And of course for the history buffs, Ubisoft's Assassin's Creed line is generally historically accurate, capturing little known details down to the scandalous relationships that Lucretia Borgia had in her day. In that respect, games can help guide interest into history, culture, and language for those who would otherwise not be exposed and/or not have any interest.