One of the signature gameplay elements in the Assassin’s Creed series is its Leap of Faith moments, where players vault from a high-up location into a haystack. No matter the height, you always survive. For a franchise that often boasts about its authenticity, this always seemed a little odd to me.
Now, researchers at the University of Leicester’s physics department have conducted a study–called “Falling into Straw“–that sought to determine the heights and haystack sizes required to actually survive such a leap.
“While loose straw does undoubtedly provide cushioning from falls, the amount of straw used to cushion a character’s fall is always the same, no matter the height of the jump,” the paper points out (via Eurogamer).
“Common sense dictates that the amount of cushioning, in this case, the height of a pile of straw, should be related to the height of the fall being cushioned. This is due to the increased kinetic energy of the jumper, which needs to be dispersed slowly.”
The paper found that the average 1.5-meter haystack height in the original Assassin’s Creed was too small to realistically allow main character Altair to walk away from without serious bodily injury.
“Even using the most optimistic survivable impact accelerations, incurring severe injuries in the process, the leap off the cathedral in Acre [in the original Assassin’s Creed] requires a greater amount of cushioning than is depicted,” the paper stated.
The article concluded that the maximum height from which a person could actually fall into a haystack safely is around 12.5 meters or 41 feet (around 3.8 stories). The maximum survivable fall height, the paper found, was around 50 meters or 164 feet (around 15 stories), though dropping from this height would cause “serious injury.”
The lesson here? Video games are great, but do not try this at home.
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