*Assassin's Creed: Syndicate* Enters the Classroom! A PS5 Is Actually Being Used to Teach the Industrial Revolution

Wow, this is seriously wild! A PS5 in the classroom—not for tournaments, not for slacking off, but for a history lesson! And the star of the show is Assassin’s Creed: Syndicate. Now that’s what I call maximum impact!

Recently, some netizens noticed that a school overseas brought a PS5 into the classroom and used Assassin’s Creed: Syndicate to help explain the Industrial Revolution. What makes this idea so clever is that the game wasn’t used as a gimmick, but as a “visualized textbook.” In the classroom video, the teacher selected scenes resembling large-scale factories, where you can see plenty of NPCs shoveling coal into furnaces. The roaring machinery and smoke-filled workshop atmosphere instantly pull students right into that era.

Here’s the key point: the Assassin’s Creed series has always loved placing its stories in different historical periods, and its plots are often tied to real historical events and figures. That makes it naturally well suited for this kind of supplementary teaching. Assassin’s Creed: Syndicate in particular, released in 2015 and primarily developed by Ubisoft Quebec, is set in London, England in 1868. That date is crucial. As mentioned in the article, by around 1868 Britain had basically completed the Industrial Revolution, and as early as around 1850 it had already secured its place as the “workshop of the world.” See? The time, the place, the atmosphere—it all lines up perfectly.

That’s also one of the reasons so many players have long praised Assassin’s Creed: Syndicate: it really nails the historical feel. A single game may not help you memorize every key fact, but it can throw the very feeling of “what the Industrial Revolution was like” right in your face. In textbooks, it’s words. In the game, it’s streets, factories, coal smoke, and workers moving about. That kind of impact really can’t be replaced by a few illustrations.

But! This also needs to be made clear: a game is ultimately not a history textbook in itself. It works well as a guide, helping students build a sense of the setting and the era, and only when paired with the teacher’s explanation does the full effect come together. If students only play without any instruction, it can easily slide from “immersive learning” into “immersive sightseeing.” So what really makes this case stand out isn’t just that a PS5 was used in class, but that the teacher knew exactly how to use it.

Now let’s talk about the broader trend. Games entering the classroom have been discussed more and more in recent years. The reason is simple: the way young people take in information has changed. Pure lecturing isn’t always the most effective approach anymore. If students can interact, see things, and immerse themselves in the experience, they’re often more likely to remember it. Works like Assassin’s Creed, with such strong historical world-building, really do have the potential to keep being used as supplementary examples in history and cultural studies classes in the future.

The gaming community will most likely be happy to see this kind of thing too. After all, it’s basically an “educational mode” that the developers never officially made, but that teachers figured out how to create on their own. Although this news is specifically about Assassin’s Creed: Syndicate, it once again proves one thing: games are not just entertainment products. When they’re crafted with enough depth and authenticity, they can also become a window into understanding history.

If you were already interested in Assassin’s Creed: Syndicate, this news almost feels like an unconventional recommendation. It’s not the newest title, but its strength lies in how vivid its historical setting is, with post–Industrial Revolution London being instantly recognizable. For players who want to experience “playing while seeing history unfold,” this game still has its own distinct charm. All I can say is, this time the PS5 wasn’t here to stir things up—it was here to teach class. And honestly, it sounds like a pretty interesting one.