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“For the first two years, I gave presentations to various Ubisoft teams about the environment, climate, weather, animals, plants, trees, and mountains of Egypt at the time of Cleopatra, and the differences between the major areas,” she said in an interview with Post Arcade. “I also presented about the political situation and the everyday life of the Greeks in Greek cities like Alexandria as well as the Egyptian population, covering culture, general history and historical figures, food, games, clothing, cities versus countryside, architecture, colours on the buildings, and arts.”

But her work didn’t stop there. The game is partially set within cities that no longer exist and for which there are no concrete visual references. This forced Ferron to look elsewhere to figure out what a city like ancient Alexandria might have looked like.

“I researched different theses for the theories about the fact that the ruins of the Library of Ephesus were inspired by the one in Alexandria, that Petra in Jordania had inspiration from that city as well, and that the Romans depicted Alexandria on their painted walls,” she said. “I studied the ruins of Pergamon as well to help them figure out a traditional Hellenistic city plan.”

She also had to help them understand the difference between what’s old and what’s really old. For instance, Ferron explained that while the pyramids and the Sphinx were certainly in better shape during the time of Cleopatra and Julius Caesar, they were still some 2,500 years old and very weathered, which meant that they would have been sun bleached and sand-worn, and that any colouration the Sphinx might have retained at that point would have been well faded by time.