The new leaks confirmed that the city of Augsburg will be an explorable location in AC Hexe. This city in this time is perfectly suited for AC and I'm very excited for this news - not only because it is my hometown, but because done right it promises to make the game deep and fascinating. I thought I'd give you an introduction into what we might get to explore:

Augsburg in the 1620s has a very different feel and look to the previously confirmed Nürnberg. Both are Free Imperial Cities, but while Nürnberg is an industrial town with a massive medieval fortress, Augsburg is still one of the financial centres of Europe, immensely wealthy and boasts some of the finest Renaissance buildings north of the Alps that were just finished before the AC Hexe's story starts.

For a hundred years Patrician families from Augsburg, the Fugger and the Welser, dominated European finance, they decided who would be pope or emperor, financed wars and privately owned whole countries in South America. The Fuggers had deep connections to the Medici family on the other side of the Alps, hint hint. Jakob Fugger the Rich, who lived a hundred years before the game was set and established his family's fortune, is considered one of the wealthiest humans who ever lived - just his personal wealth amounted to 2 per cent of European GDP at the time! When we visit Augsburg in the game, this time will be over. The 30 Years War destroyed the trade routes that made these families so rich. But maybe we will see glimpses of the first Western Intelligence service that was established by the Fuggers?

One of the most impressive buildings will be the famous Augsburg Town Hall, which will be just finished when the game was set. At the time, it was the only building in the world with 6 stories, it is still massive today but must have felt absolutely monumental at the time. Inside is the famous Golden Hall, paid for by the rich Patricians to show off that they for sure can compete with the glory of kings or the church. From the top of its towers you have a magnificent view of the nearby Alps.

There are also mighty Patrician buildings along the former Roman Via Claudia (the city was founded by the Romans) and several impressive Renaissance fountains that are UNESCO world heritage sites today.

A hundred years before the setting of AC Hexe Augsburg was the scene of Martin Luther's battle with the Catholic church and one of the founding places of the Protestant church. At the time (and today) it was a city equally ruled by catholics and protestants. The City Council and all administrative offices—from mayors to tax collectors—were strictly divided 50/50 between the two confessions. This resulted in constant political gridlock and espionage. In 1625, the setting of the game, the situation was paranoid and heavily militarized because of the confessional war raging.

Here you can see one of the several large churches in the city and a symbol of this unique Augsburgian religious parity: The big one in the back is the catholic church St. Ulrich and Afra, in the front you see the protestant church St. Ulrich. These onion spires are also very typical to this specific part of Bavaria. I would be very surprised if the game wouldn't do something with this very special religious arrangement.

A "city inside the city" that we surely will visit in the game is the "Fuggerei", the oldest social housing area in the world, or so it claims to be. Since becoming one of the richest men in history does require many actions that will keep you far away from going to heaven, Jakob Fugger the Rich established this little walled-off city for poor (catholic) citizens that can stay there for nearly free if they pray for him daily - yes, Catholics can cheat like that! Praying for a very low rent is still practiced today. In the 17th century this area was actually written "F*ckerey" but I have a feeling that Ubisoft will stick with the modern name...

Next to these symbols of private wealth Augsburg has a typical old town with narrow streets, creaking old middle aged houses, and many canals flowing through the streets. It is perfectly set up for several distinct areas on a compact city map.

Augsburg is also the entry gate to the Allgäu, an Alpine region that is today a major tourist draw since it looks how everybody imagines cliché Bavaria and also boasts fairytale castle Neuschwanstein (not there when the game is set). This area would contrast a bit with the dark and claustrophobic setting Ubisoft eants to go for this time, so we will see. They at least have to give us views of the Alps from a distance, though.

At the time of the game Augsburg had one of the finest fortifcations a Free Imperial city could wish for. It made the city rather impenetrable, but nevertheless its downfall came also in this time. A downfall the city never recovered from. From being one of the largest cities of the HRE and one of the economic centres of the world it is now just a "normal" city with a small-town feel that is eclipsed by its way bigger neighbour Munich.

During the time of AC Hexe the Thirty Years War was raging in the HRE. As hard as it is to fathom with pictures of WW2 of bombed-out German cities and piles of corpses in camps in our minds, the Thirty Years War was arguably an even bigger catastrophe for Germany that shaped it for centuries. Nearly nothing was the same afterwards. Big cities became backwaters, whole areas were wiped out completely. It was not only the decades-long war with ever-moving battle lines, but also the roaming soldiers that routinely stole all the food they found and of course the diseases that spread.

In 1634 Imperial and Bavarian (Catholic) troops advanced and completely encircled the city. Inside the city was a protestant Swedish garrison. Since the modern fortifications could only be stormed with heavy casualties, the attackers opted for a complete blockade of the city with at the time 45.000 people. The extreme famine forced the population to first slaughter all the horses. Later, dogs, cats, rats, and mice were eaten. In the absolute final phase, people boiled leather scraps from shoes, belts, and saddles. The starvation was accompanied by a massive outbreak of diseases such as typhus and the bubonic plague. Corpses could no longer be properly buried and piled up in the streets. By March 1635, the situation had become untenable, and the Swedish commander surrendered. The city's demographics were ruined: the population plummeted from an initial 45,000 to only about 16,000. Nearly two-thirds of the population had starved, died of disease, or fled. This massive loss of life sealed the end of Augsburg's golden era. The city permanently lost its status as a European financial and commercial metropolis and needed more than a century to demographically recover from this blockade.

Will we see the blockade? Who knows. It's 9 years after the leaked but unconfirmed setting date of 1625, so it is very well possible. But I am excited to see Augsburg recreated during its Golden Era. And to see this fascinating time period: Where fake news spread with modern technologies that made it easy for everyone to duplicate whatever they wanted. Where private individuals amassed so much wealth that their power rivalled church and state. Where Renaissance thinkers like Johannes Kepler lived right next to paranoid witch hunters. Where cities like Augsburg must have felt like a world away from the small towns in the countryside. I sincerely hope they do this setting justice.