A Scientific Paper on How the Fall-Breaking Haystacks in Assassin’s Creed Are Bulls***

The high percentage of nerd overlap between scientists and gamers has produced yet another gem of very important scientific research: a paper that shows why Assassin’s Creed‘s all-powerful, life-saving haystacks are even less realistic than everything else about Assassin’s Creed.

When you’re parkouring—we can make that a verb, right?—all around amazing historical settings in the Assassin’s Creed series and getting way up onto rooftops, sometimes you just want to take the elevator back down. That usually amounts to diving into a pile of hay from an improbably tall height, but a few University of Leicester students have determined that all the “faith” in the world isn’t going to help you survive the landing—though some extra hay might.

Their paper, aptly titled “Falling Into Straw,” calculates that the maximum safe height for a leap into one of the games’ piles of straw would be a maximum of 12 or 13 meters based the approximate 1.5 meter height of the haystacks. Any higher than that, and the only thing you’ll be assassinating is your bank account with hospital bills as your primary weapon—if you come out alive at all. At 50 feet, the fall becomes completely unsurvivable, and you’ve probably built up enough momentum to leave an assassin-shaped hole right through the floor of that wooden cart.

I hope that thing is insured.

The paper concluded that the highest leap in the first Assassin’s Creed was completely out of the realm of possibility: “Even using the most optimistic survivable impact accelerations, incurring severe injuries in the process, the leap off the cathedral in Acre requires a greater amount of cushioning than is depicted.” So there you have it, Assassins. Faith is great and all, but maybe measure the haystacks in the surrounding area and consult some physicists before making any rash decisions.

(via UPROXX)

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Dan Van Winkle

Dan Van Winkle (he) is an editor and manager who has been working in digital media since 2013, first at now-defunct Geekosystem (RIP), and then at The Mary Sue starting in 2014, specializing in gaming, science, and technology. Outside of his professional experience, he has been active in video game modding and development as a hobby for many years. He lives in North Carolina with Lisa Brown (his wife) and Liz Lemon (their dog), both of whom are the best, and you will regret challenging him at Smash Bros.

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