Assassin's Creed Mirage: Basim's Baghdad, 861

In 861 CE Basim is a young street thief living in Anbar with his childhood friend Nehal. Wanting to prove himself to the Hidden Ones, he sneaks into the Caliph's palace to steal a chest sought by both the Hidden Ones and the Order of the Ancients. It goes wrong, and he has to flee. The real Anbar was briefly the Abbasid capital before Baghdad was founded in 762; today it is a deserted field of mounds about 5 kilometres northwest of Fallujah.

Location precision: Only mounds of ruins remain; the pin marks the ancient town, not any building from the game.

Escaping Anbar with Roshan's help, Basim is taken to the Hidden Ones' mountain fortress at Alamut. Over the following months he trains under her and is eventually initiated into the order. The real Alamut is a ruined fortress in Qazvin province, Iran, said to have been built around 840 AD where a soaring eagle was seen perching on a high rock.

Visitor guidance: A ruin on a rock above the valley; check current travel advice before planning a trip to Iran.

Back in Baghdad, Basim learns that five Order members have infiltrated the Caliphate's highest levels of power. The game splits the city into four districts, starting with the Round City. The circular capital was begun on 2 August 762, about a kilometre in radius, with four gates named for Kufa, Damascus, Khorasan and Basra. None of its structures has survived, and what we know comes from written sources.

Location precision: The Round City is lost and its exact outline is uncertain; the pin marks the Baghdad area where it is placed.

Another of the game's four districts is Abassiyah, home to its House of Wisdom, where scholars such as the Banu Musa brothers, a trio of scholars and inventors, appear. The real House of Wisdom was part of the great movement that translated works from Greek, Chinese, Sanskrit, Persian and Syriac into Arabic. It was destroyed by Hulagu's army during the Siege of Baghdad in 1258, and its exact site is not known.

Location precision: The real House of Wisdom's location is unknown, so this stop has no pin.

In the Valley of Memory expansion, Basim and his friend Dervis travel to al-Ula to find his estranged father. He finds his father, Is'haq, only to learn that he has dementia and still believes himself to be in Samarra. The real al-Ula is an ancient oasis on the incense trade route linking India and the Persian Gulf to the Levant, and Hegra, Saudi Arabia's first UNESCO site, lies 22 km to the north.

Location precision: The game's valley is a fictional reworking; the pin marks the oasis town of al-Ula.

Visitor guidance: The old town and Hegra are the main sights; check current opening and access.