Below are case studies with testimonials for our work with GLAM institutions and games, including with Ubisoft on Assassin's Creed Mirage and the 'History of Baghdad' Codex feature, and Discovery Tour Medieval Baghdad.
If you're a cultural institution or a studio working on a project where accuracy, authenticity, and cultural sensitivity matters, request a call with Dr. Glaire Anderson. The discovery call is a focused 30-minute conversation. She'll ask about your project and tell you directly whether and how DLIVCC can help.
Expert Support for Games & Entertainment
We are singularly well-placed to advise on any public-facing projects inspired by historical Islamic societies, globally. By providing an efficient route to specialist academic knowledge, we help clients avoid risk, inaccuracies and stereotypes, enhance their ability to create authentic, diverse worlds in the age of AI, and stand out from competitors in a competitive global sector.
GLAM Case Study
Correcting the record on a nineteenth-century painting
A national gallery was preparing a new public interpretation for a nineteenth-century European painting of an interior representing the Islamic lands. The gallery wanted the display text checked by a specialist before it reached the public.
Anderson advised replacing the ethnic label in the title with a precise geographic attribution, supported by the evidence in the painting itself. The gallery revised the title.
The display text had a second problem. Its object names and transliterations came from a colonial-era source, and the central objects were mislabelled. Anderson corrected the identifications against current scholarship, replaced the archaic spellings with Modern Standard Arabic, and settled the terminology.
The result was a label that was accurate, specific, and defensible to a knowledgeable audience, with the Orientalist framing removed and no loss of richness.
This is what "Leaving Arabistan" looks like in practice, applied to a single object.
"Glaire Anderson’s expertise in Islamic art has been invaluable to me for my curatorial research on Arthur Melville, a Scottish artist who visited North Africa in the late nineteenth century. She was swift and efficient in checking the display label for historical accuracy and assisted me in using the correct terminology, suitable for a modern audience"
"I contacted Dr Anderson when developing a display about Islamic science for a major exhibition. Being new to the topic, I sought her guidance on what I had devised, whether my interpretations were sound, my object selections appropriate, and what I had overlooked. Dr Anderson provided expert and accessible feedback, which I appreciated due to my unfamiliarity with the subject. Her assistance helped me to identify a key pairing of objects, which I am now negotiating to borrow for the show."
“Not only is Glaire a pleasure to sit down and talk with, she is a font of information about Islamic art and approaches her work with care. Glaire will give direct and honest feedback about various aspects of your project, along with actionable improvements (when requested and where needed). Glaire gave me insightful feedback on several public-facing texts for a forthcoming exhibition, helping me ensure that they were historically accurate and culturally sensitive. She also outlined resources I could consult for additional information. Since Islamic art is not my area of expertise, I was deeply grateful for her attention to detail and broad knowledge base.” (Heather Alexis Smith, Assistant Curator, Pulitzer Arts Foundation, St. Louis)
"Thank you! It felt like a really fruitful and useful conversation both in the context of the exhibition, and for ongoing relationships and thinking about our work as an organisation. Your contributions were fantastic in terms of taking us from research to broader thinking about the issues raised.”
Games Case Study
Follow the links below to learn more about our consultancy and collaboration on Assassin’s Creed Mirage (Ubisoft, 2023) and its educational Codex feature, the ‘History of Baghdad’.
The 'History of Baghdad' Codex feature is now freely available in Ubisoft’s Discovery Tour Medieval Baghdad (2025) mobile and web apps for ages 12+.
"After a couple of weeks we felt the workshops were a great solution on both ends. They made us prepare well the requests we needed to ask, and it felt like you had enough time also to answer them thoroughly. Beyond the amount of hours spent in the workshops, your team invested so much every week to research and prepare. It made a tremendous difference in terms of efficiency for the project."
World Design Director, Ubisoft
"While a good part of our team was from the culture, and we had access to plenty of opinions in the MENA region, we were nearing a critical point in production and still struggling with key elements. It was through Glaire and Sarah's expertise, research, clear presentation, and actionable recommendations that we were able to make simple but incredibly effective changes."
Producer, House of Hikmah, Lunacy Studios
Engagement scope: character and costume design, environment guidance, and public-facing language
Bridging Islamic Art, Games, & GLAM
Besides consulting, Anderson and her team have led and co-led games projects from pre-concept to release.
Anderson's original Digital Munya Project (2010-11) used Unity to translate historical research into playable experiences set in tenth-century Córdoba, the capital of al-Andalus.
That build became the basis for Digital Munya 2 (2023), a freely released, immersive 3D experience of a medieval Islamic villa, built on primary sources and reconstructed artefacts, with a lore-driven discovery mechanic inspired by FromSoftware, Inc.'s Bloodborne and Dark Souls.
The updated build was then used for The Cordoba Journey (2023), co-developed with a student development team at Abertay University, which extended the Digital Munya concept into a released educational game.
Digital Munya 3 (2024 to 2025) brought Ubisoft World Design Director Maxime Durand into the DLIVCC, working alongside Anderson, the DLIVCC team, and a student development team to create the concept for a new game set in tenth-century Córdoba.
We know what production demands because we've done it.
If your team is preparing or already in production on a project where authenticity matters, request a call with Dr. Glaire Anderson. The discovery call is a focused 30-minute conversation. She'll ask about your project and tell you directly whether and how DLIVCC can help.
With an experienced team and extensive network of collaborators and experts across the UK and around the globe, the Digital Lab offers services at all project stages, from planning to post-launch.
When a project reaches beyond our own historical range, we bring in a specialist associate to extend it. The client always contracts with DLIVCC, and we stay accountable for the work throughout.
Advising on historical architecture, technologies, figures and events over a range of historical time periods and geographical locations
Avoid risk, avoid inaccuracies. Historical authenticity and cultural sensitivity reviews to support accurate, respectful content
World building support for development teams, with validated historical inspiration for environments, characters, and quests. Sessions are designed to be direct and practical. Teams leave with a clear framework.
"What kind of diverse voices are we hearing, when we only see the same representation time and time again? ... working with historians is so important... There are these buried treasures in history, full of narrative, full of interactivity that you're not really going to find being a game developer just scrolling through Wikipedia. You need some direct approach, you need someone to tell you where to look or what you can mine from, and when you have that, really good things can happen. I'm seeing that, as a writer, as a narrative designer..."
Lead Narrative Designer, Gameloft, on collaborating with Anderson and DLIVCC on Digital Munya 3
"It was my genuine pleasure to have worked alongside Glaire and her team on the project Cordoba Journey. The dedication they have to their craft and the passion they bring to projects really breathe life into them with an authenticity that would have been impossible otherwise. Oftentimes, when two disciplines meet to build something together, there’s always a wall to overcome to understand one another. However, Glaire and her team made that easy, with their open and inviting approach to collaboration and learning."
Co-Founder & Chief Technical Officer, Shouty Knot Games
"Glaire and Sarah were fast, thorough, and very specific in what we could change, and were happy to have a follow-up call and review sketches made based on their advice. This was huge for us as an indie team, as we found economical ways to address issues with expensive 3D assets."
Producer, House of Hikmah, Lunacy Studios
Engagement scope: character and costume design, environment guidance, and public-facing language
Each engagement begins with a focused conversation about your project and its specific needs. From there, DLIVCC provides research, feedback, and guidance in forms your team can use directly: prioritised, clearly written, and timed to where you are in production. Complex historical and cultural material is distilled into what is relevant and actionable for your project.
Book an Expert Consultation
Some questions cannot wait for a full engagement. A scene is being locked, a character is being written, a launch is approaching, and a question comes up.
A paid consultation gives you a direct, authoritative answer before the decision is made. You bring the question. You get a clear, defensible position and a written summary you can take back to your team.
Sessions run from a single focused question to a half-day intensive, online, scheduled directly with Dr. Glaire Anderson.
To book, email consultations@digitallabivcc.com with a short description of your question and the time you think you will need. Every enquiry is read personally, and you will receive full details by return.
"We were nearing a critical point in production and still struggling with key elements... They went above and beyond to mark up background materials and even helped us land on the best Anglicised versions of our characters' names."
Producer, House of Hikmah, Lunacy Studios
Engagement scope: character and costume design, environment guidance, and public-facing language
"In addition to providing intensive seminars on medieval Islamic art to the Ubisoft in-house history team, Glaire and her students contributed directly to this feature, reviewing texts and suggesting illustrations from museum collections."
Creative Director, Ubisoft
“It felt on paper like it could be a great partnership opportunity. Then from the first calls, we quickly realized that you had a great personality and that it would be great to collaborate with you on a daily basis…that’s what really made us want to move forward.”
World-Design Director, Ubisoft
If you're a cultural institution or a studio working on a project where accuracy, authenticity, and cultural sensitivity matters, request a call with Dr. Glaire Anderson. The discovery call is a focused 30-minute conversation. She'll ask about your project and tell you directly whether and how DLIVCC can help.