AR walking tour brings the American Revolution to life in Boston and New York

Background

Echoes of Revolution is a free, city-scale augmented reality experience that places moments from the American Revolution back onto the streets where they happened. Created by Welsh creative technology studio Sugar Creative under official license from Ubisoft, it launched on 25 June 2026 in downtown Boston and lower Manhattan as one of the centrepiece technology projects marking the United States' 250th anniversary.

The experience

In each city, visitors use their own smartphones to explore ten location-based "memories" anchored to real historic sites. The memories can be played in any order and together run to roughly 90 minutes per city. The digital scenes draw on meticulously researched depictions of 18th-century Boston and New York from Assassin's Creed III and Assassin's Creed Rogue. In New York, the trail spans pivotal moments including the defence of the Hudson, the raising of a Liberty Pole at City Hall Park, and the British occupation, touching sites such as Bowling Green, Wall Street and Federal Hall.

Historical partners

The Boston edition was developed with the historical guidance of Revolutionary Spaces, Boston's leading Revolutionary-era history organisation and custodian of the Old South Meeting House and the Old State House. The New York edition draws on the curatorial expertise of the NYC Revolutionary Trail, developed by the Gotham Center for New York City History.

Technology

The experience is powered by Niantic Spatial's Visual Positioning System (VPS), which anchors digital content to the physical world with sub-10cm accuracy. The Boston deployment was built in collaboration with T-Mobile's T-Innovate team, contributing 5G-enabled mobile interaction. The scenes are rendered on-device and delivered through free native apps.

Funding

Development by the Welsh studio was supported through Creative Wales and Media Cymru, funded via UK Research and Innovation's Strength in Places Fund.

Availability

Echoes of Revolution is available to download free on iOS and Android from 25 June 2026.

Quotes

“Ubisoft is excited about using the worlds of Assassin's Creed III and Assassin's Creed Rogue to bring key moments of the American Revolution to life for visitors exploring the streets of Boston and New York City.”

“Projects of this ambition depend entirely on the quality of the people you work with. We've been fortunate to find in Gotham Center, Revolutionary Spaces and Ubisoft partners who care as much about getting it right as we do. It's a source of real pride that it's a Welsh studio helping to bring Boston's and New York's revolutionary stories back to life.”

“The ability to intelligently and effectively add content to the world is not simply a tool, it is the vital catalyst to transforming places into canvases for an infinite number of stories.”

“This experience brings the energy and history of New York to life in a bold new way, combining the creative storytelling of Assassin's Creed with the power of immersive technology.”

“Our Visual Positioning System is the ideal foundation for this kind of large-scale immersive storytelling, anchoring Assassin's Creed's world to the real locations that inspired it.”