Assassin’s Creed is in a somewhat strange place in the gaming sphere; the yearly entries from 2006–2016 have left many fatigued from the series, yet every time a new game is announced the internet explodes with excitement. There’s something about Assassin’s Creed that is incredibly attractive — the promise of exploring a near-perfect recreation of landmark historical settings is just too enticing. The first five to ten hours of most games in the series are veritable masterpieces, leaving the player in awe of the sheer dedication to detail put into Revolution-era France or Ancient Greece. Unfortunately it’s at that point that the game begins to drag, and the player realizes that there’s about 30 more hours of game to get through.
With the first two entries of the new Ancient Trilogy, Origins and Odyssey, this drawback was only exacerbated; Assassin’s Creed is now a full open world action-adventure RPG, with all its waypoints, quest markets and fetch quests. The wonder of Ptolemaic Egypt and the excitement of experiencing a truly legendary time in human history, however, more than makes up for it.
Assassin’s Creed Origins is a slow burn. The player will take control of Bayek, the last medjay (basically national police for Egypt in service of the Pharoah). Bayek’s life is immediately turned upside-down as he loses his son in the opening scene of the game. He vows revenge on the shadowy order that executed his son and takes to the streets of Egypt to hunt down the killers one by one.
Having at least started every game in the series, I feel comfortable saying that Bayek is my favorite protagonist in the franchise. He is relatable in that he works to hone his own weaknesses into strengths; he is determined to make his own loss something good, something powerful for his country. He is driven by a need for both justice (good!) and revenge (not so good) and directs every moment of his energy towards fighting for the people of Egypt from the shadows. This excellently written character is brought to life by Abubakar Salim in some of the best video game voice acting/motion-capture I have ever seen. This, finally, is a protagonist I know, understand, and can fight for.
If you’ve only ever played the previous “Classic” Assassin’s Creed games, this one is going to give you a bit of a culture shock. Origins throws out much of the tired formula of the classic games in favor of full RPG mechanics. There are dozens of weapon classes with dozens of variations each, all available for several distinct upgrades. Armor and shields work much the same way. Bayek will need to gather crafting materials (animal skins) to upgrade his tools and armor, while most weapons can be upgraded for gold coins (drachmae) at a blacksmith.
Combat (yes, there’s real combat now!) is much improved from Syndicate. Bayek utilizes a combination of bow and arrows, melee weapons and shields to fight and depends on well timed blocks, parries and dodges. Interestingly, unlike most RPGs, I never fell into a specific kind of fighting style, instead switching to a new weapon whenever I got a more powerful one. Swapping between the heavy blunt and mirror blades quickly in one battle gave me the edge to defeat a boss without much hassle; Origins rewards players for utilizing a diverse fighting style.
Origins runs beautifully, and on my 2060 Super I was able to achieve a constant 60 FPS in 1440p 144 hz without a single frame rate drop on ultra high settings. The beauty in Assassin’s Creed Origins is topped only by its successor, Odyssey, across all of video games. The water is indescribably real, lapping up against mossy cobblestones in the agora. The swaying of the palm leaves in the salty breeze is almost too realistic. The least immersive thing about the game would have to be NPC faces during speech, but even counting that as a negative would be nitpicking.
The UI of the menus is a little cluttered and confusing, but I quickly became accustomed to it. The first thing I’d advise any player to do is shift the UI mode to “Light”, removing a lot of the unneeded clutter from the screen. The crafting menu, skill tree and map are all pretty straightforward, but again feel crowded with more information than I needed. The white line highlighting hidden enemies through walls (wallhacks) after your eagle, Senu, sees them contrasts the rich, saturated tones of the world to great effect. Senu can also scan for treasure and hidden entrances from the skies while escaping the interest of guards and is fun to fly around and take pictures with while Bayek is riding his camel 5,000 meters to the next destination.
I’d also be remiss not to mention that the PC version comes with a feature called the Animus Control Panel, allowing you to access the console of the game from a sleek and handy UI (no more ~unlock id “00f0334b”~). Change speed, jump height, enemy behavior, color saturation or even playable character and enjoy the game however you’d like.
Throughout the story, Bayek will uncover a trail that leads him closer and closer to his son’s killer, known only as The Lion. You’ll meet larger-than-life historical figures such as Cleopatra, Ptolemy and even Julius Caesar himself on this quest alongside Bayek’s wife, Aya. You’ll take control of Aya for select missions of the game and although she’s fun to play, she’s just not my favorite part of the game. Her pragmatic and direct personality is a sharp contrast to Bayek, who is something of a tortured idealist. Both want the best for Egypt but seem to be constantly at odds on how to get there, making for an interesting husband-wife dynamic. Ubisoft uses “glitches” in the Animus to sneak Egyptian mythology into the story here and there, and in the post-game Bayek can fight actual Egyptian gods like Sobek the Crocodile Lord and Anubis, the Jackal-headed King of the Duat. For the most part, however, Origins is very true to history and grounded in realism.
Assassin’s Creed Origins is the dramatic re-imagining the series has desperately needed for some time. The beauty of the open world in Origins is quite nearly unparalleled even by the sequel, Assassin’s Creed Odyssey. Bayek is an immediately likeable protagonist the player will be willing to fight for, and his quest to find the balance between justice and revenge is a path we have all been on before. The combat could have been smoother but is still fun, and sneaking/assassinating is just as good as it’s ever been. For the best experience I suggest turning the UI to “Light”, ignoring the waypoint markers and using the Animus Control Panel to turn on assassination one-hit KOs. Although it can get bogged down in the hundreds of side quests on the massive map, Origins doesn’t lose sight of Bayek’s original motivation and the theme of turning your own loss into love for others permeates the whole story.
With the first two entries of the new Ancient Trilogy, Origins and Odyssey, this drawback was only exacerbated; Assassin’s Creed is now a full open world action-adventure RPG, with all its waypoints, quest markets and fetch quests. The wonder of Ptolemaic Egypt and the excitement of experiencing a truly legendary time in human history, however, more than makes up for it.
Assassin’s Creed Origins is a slow burn. The player will take control of Bayek, the last medjay (basically national police for Egypt in service of the Pharoah). Bayek’s life is immediately turned upside-down as he loses his son in the opening scene of the game. He vows revenge on the shadowy order that executed his son and takes to the streets of Egypt to hunt down the killers one by one.
Having at least started every game in the series, I feel comfortable saying that Bayek is my favorite protagonist in the franchise. He is relatable in that he works to hone his own weaknesses into strengths; he is determined to make his own loss something good, something powerful for his country. He is driven by a need for both justice (good!) and revenge (not so good) and directs every moment of his energy towards fighting for the people of Egypt from the shadows. This excellently written character is brought to life by Abubakar Salim in some of the best video game voice acting/motion-capture I have ever seen. This, finally, is a protagonist I know, understand, and can fight for.
If you’ve only ever played the previous “Classic” Assassin’s Creed games, this one is going to give you a bit of a culture shock. Origins throws out much of the tired formula of the classic games in favor of full RPG mechanics. There are dozens of weapon classes with dozens of variations each, all available for several distinct upgrades. Armor and shields work much the same way. Bayek will need to gather crafting materials (animal skins) to upgrade his tools and armor, while most weapons can be upgraded for gold coins (drachmae) at a blacksmith.
Combat (yes, there’s real combat now!) is much improved from Syndicate. Bayek utilizes a combination of bow and arrows, melee weapons and shields to fight and depends on well timed blocks, parries and dodges. Interestingly, unlike most RPGs, I never fell into a specific kind of fighting style, instead switching to a new weapon whenever I got a more powerful one. Swapping between the heavy blunt and mirror blades quickly in one battle gave me the edge to defeat a boss without much hassle; Origins rewards players for utilizing a diverse fighting style.
Origins runs beautifully, and on my 2060 Super I was able to achieve a constant 60 FPS in 1440p 144 hz without a single frame rate drop on ultra high settings. The beauty in Assassin’s Creed Origins is topped only by its successor, Odyssey, across all of video games. The water is indescribably real, lapping up against mossy cobblestones in the agora. The swaying of the palm leaves in the salty breeze is almost too realistic. The least immersive thing about the game would have to be NPC faces during speech, but even counting that as a negative would be nitpicking.
The UI of the menus is a little cluttered and confusing, but I quickly became accustomed to it. The first thing I’d advise any player to do is shift the UI mode to “Light”, removing a lot of the unneeded clutter from the screen. The crafting menu, skill tree and map are all pretty straightforward, but again feel crowded with more information than I needed. The white line highlighting hidden enemies through walls (wallhacks) after your eagle, Senu, sees them contrasts the rich, saturated tones of the world to great effect. Senu can also scan for treasure and hidden entrances from the skies while escaping the interest of guards and is fun to fly around and take pictures with while Bayek is riding his camel 5,000 meters to the next destination.
I’d also be remiss not to mention that the PC version comes with a feature called the Animus Control Panel, allowing you to access the console of the game from a sleek and handy UI (no more ~unlock id “00f0334b”~). Change speed, jump height, enemy behavior, color saturation or even playable character and enjoy the game however you’d like.
Throughout the story, Bayek will uncover a trail that leads him closer and closer to his son’s killer, known only as The Lion. You’ll meet larger-than-life historical figures such as Cleopatra, Ptolemy and even Julius Caesar himself on this quest alongside Bayek’s wife, Aya. You’ll take control of Aya for select missions of the game and although she’s fun to play, she’s just not my favorite part of the game. Her pragmatic and direct personality is a sharp contrast to Bayek, who is something of a tortured idealist. Both want the best for Egypt but seem to be constantly at odds on how to get there, making for an interesting husband-wife dynamic. Ubisoft uses “glitches” in the Animus to sneak Egyptian mythology into the story here and there, and in the post-game Bayek can fight actual Egyptian gods like Sobek the Crocodile Lord and Anubis, the Jackal-headed King of the Duat. For the most part, however, Origins is very true to history and grounded in realism.
Assassin’s Creed Origins is the dramatic re-imagining the series has desperately needed for some time. The beauty of the open world in Origins is quite nearly unparalleled even by the sequel, Assassin’s Creed Odyssey. Bayek is an immediately likeable protagonist the player will be willing to fight for, and his quest to find the balance between justice and revenge is a path we have all been on before. The combat could have been smoother but is still fun, and sneaking/assassinating is just as good as it’s ever been. For the best experience I suggest turning the UI to “Light”, ignoring the waypoint markers and using the Animus Control Panel to turn on assassination one-hit KOs. Although it can get bogged down in the hundreds of side quests on the massive map, Origins doesn’t lose sight of Bayek’s original motivation and the theme of turning your own loss into love for others permeates the whole story.