Assassin's Creed Unity may be used to rebuild Notre-Dame cathedral

Yesterday, a large portion of the famous Notre-Dame de Paris was destroyed by an unprecedented fire on the roof of the cathedral. It took firefighters nearly two days to extinguish all the flames — including residual ones — and French President Emmanuel Macron announced the launch of a national fundraising campaign to restore Notre-Dame. This restoration will cost hundreds of millions, possibly more, but numerous individuals have vowed to pay for the work that needs to be done.

In order to recreate the destroyed areas, architects will examine images of the cathedral before the fire, in order to make it as close to the original as possible. While the majority of this involves looking at photographs and videos, Assassin's Creed Unity will also be examined. Assassin's Creed Unity is an open-world game which takes place in historic Paris. The cathedral was one of the most iconic structures in the title and appeared to be an exact copy.

Assassin's Creed Unity artist Caroline Miousse spoke to The Verge about the creation of the cathedral in the game at launch. She said the following.

In the case of the Notre-Dame, easily the biggest structure in the game, it meant recreating a version of the cathedral that didn't actually exist at the time. Level artist Miousse spent literally years fussing over the details of the building. She pored over photos to get the architecture just right, and worked with texture artists to make sure that each brick was as it should be.

Hopefully Notre-Dame will be rebuilt sooner rather than later. The French government has said that it will make sure it's built in the next five years. However, only time will tell if this is possible. A lot of other sacred objects like priceless artifacts and historic paintings may also have been destroyed yesterday. We'll know the full extent of the damage in the coming days, but it's great to see multiple disciplines coming together to help rebuild the historic structure.