Assassin's Creed Origins (2017)

Third AC title cleared off (after the 1st one and Valhalla in wrong order, silly enough)... I currently feel rusty and dispassionate for elaborate review writing, so I hope these key points will get my opinions across.

• Rich and beautiful world reconstruction.
• A fun way to familiarize with Ptolemaic era Egypt civilization and landscape.
• RPG elements like level scaling and skills are well-balanced. (Contagious poison and berserk are my favorite tools)
• Stealth and combat movements, while janky, are made practical for playstyles respectively.

• Main story has its ups and downs between intricacy and pretentiousness.
• Besides some extra quests, there's much padding with side activities.

Overall, I am happy with experiencing the adventures in ancient Egypt, getting in touch with the formation of landscapes and cities. The freedom of playstyle between action and stealth leaves me with satisfaction carrying out the missions and location clearing my preferred way. As much as it's a joy for what the developer team has put together to make Egypt memorable as a stage and reconstruction, the fat could be trimmed down on abundant optional activities that rewards too little for the time and effort. Nonetheless, it's a strong AC entry with a daring initiative for the action RPG blueprint.

While I wasn't a huge fan of AC Odyssey, I decided to give Origins a chance since it was on sale and I knew that Julius Caesar shows up and I'm a student of Roman history. This game was sort of the reboot of the AC games, seeing a big change after a few years off.

The gameplay here is similar to Odyssey. The climbing and traversal mechanics are good, I didn't have the old AC problem of accidentally jumping to my death, except maybe once. The combat I'm still not totally sold on. It's a hack'n'slash affair with light and heavy attacks. I know "rhythmic combat systems" in games have sort of fallen out of favor, but I would rather see it return some how to this series, I think they had it figured out by the time of Unity. This new combat system feels sloppy and countering is about impossible. You just kind of swing your sword around & hope you're close enough to hit the enemies. The stealth systems are much more intuitive in Origins. There's plenty of tall grass to hide in and guards don't find you immediately. A roll function would've been appreciated. There were a few times I was discovered and if I had a roll I could've made it to a patch of sneaking grass. This game also dabbles in a very simplified investigation mode, you just wander around a room and click on the interactibles. Still this little mode helps break up the combat and sneaking.

Like Odyssey, I think Origins is just too long story wise. Origins didn't quiet drag on as bad as Odyssey, but it could've been condensed. You are tracking a cult down in this game as well, but there's only about 10 members compared to Odyssey's 50 or such. This game also doesn't feel as grindy as Odyssey. You aren't constantly getting missions to fight enemies that are 5 levels above you, only the bounty hunters are sword sponges. The main quest slowly shows the beginning of the Assassin Order, but the pacing is spotty at best. Early on you see where the ritual of cutting off the ring finger comes from, but after that you meander around hunting cultists, only to at the very end get to start creating the Order. This uneven pace doesn't do the game's length any favors. I know I thought some other AC games felt too short, but this is a swing too far in the opposite direction.

There's also plenty of side quests that you have to complete in order to be the proper level for the main quests. I get you have to make some side questing necessary or else no one would complete them, but many of these quests aren't that interesting. Most are self contained little missions, usually saving this guy or finding this item. There are a few side quests that are related to each other, like cleaning up Memphis. Those quests are a little more engaging cause you feel a more a part of the world over just another fetch quest.

Even though Origins and Odyssey share so many similarities, I enjoyed Origins much more. I think one other reason is the main character, Bayek. Part of it is his role as a Medjay, basically Ancient Egypt's Federal Marshals. He loves his country and community and he's got friends in most of the towns, he feels like a real person in the community. Bayek's also just a likable guy, he's charming and is sort of the best friend who's always there for you. He'd be a great wingman. You also have a few levels at the end where you randomly play as Bayek's wife Aya. She's alright, not much characterization.

Another reason I enjoyed this game is the setting of Egypt was much more interesting than Greece. This game is set in Ptolemaic Egypt, basically the last dying throes of Ancient Egypt when it was more Greek than Egyptian. So you won't be dealing with the old pharaohs or pyramid building, but I think this is actually makes a great game world. Origin's Egypt is like a greatest hits of the ancient world. Southern Egypt has the more classic Egyptian look with old pyramids and giant statues, while Alexandria in the north is a Greek mega-city and the countryside is dotted with Greek style farms. And while you don't spend much time in it during the main story, Libya in the east drenches you in the Roman world. The varying landscape and mixing of cultures kept my attention cause you're going to see something different everywhere you go.

While the mixed setting was interesting and you can tell Ubisoft put their all into creating the world map, it's honestly the one thing they do consistently well, I think the map is unnecessarily large. Don't get me wrong, it's impressive that they've recreated a huge chunk of the ancient world, but you barely explore half the map during the story. Most missions center around the major cities, which makes sense that's where the people are, but most of the map is full of deserts. Again, I get the deserts are barren, inhospitable environments, but a mission or two that makes you journey into the sands would've been neat. Being in Egypt, one of the unique selling points is the pyramids. You can turn grave robber and go explore inside the pyramids. These help break up the gameplay and give the game an adventure vibe for a short bit. The pyramids usually aren't too complicated, but they felt like a modern take on the old Tomb Raider games to me.

The history of this game is okay. Bayek is helping his wife help Cleopatra take over the pharaohship. You do that by killing cultist, which coincides with Bayek's vengeance, as the cult killed his son. I will give Ubisoft some credit, it's hard to do a blow by blow of ancient history. The historic accounts are spotty and mixed in with urban legends and mythology. Caesar and the Romans don't show up until the 3rd act and we finally see some of the Civil War struggles. I think this game would've benefited from the type of story telling they used in AC 3 or Black Flag, where we skip around a few years to maybe hit some of the highlights of the period, but again that may be hard with spotty records. Still, the Library of Alexandria is in this game, and it's known for two things. Figured we'd get to see it burn down. There is a separate game mode called "Discovery Tours". I really liked this idea, sort of an interactive museum exhibit. Their tours aren't super in depth, more general overview stuff, but for the regular, no-nothing that isn't a history lover, they might work to inspire them to research more.

All in all, I think this game was an okay change, but seeing what it leads to with the bloated grindfest that was Odyssey, I'd've rather Ubisoft try to salvage the systems they had in Syndicate instead of rebooting everything. It sounds like the next AC game in line is Vikings, and I'll probably pass on that. It seems like the smart move would be to finish off the ancient trilogy with a game set in Imperial Rome. I would give that one a chance just for the opportunity to explore ancient Rome.

During it's first 10 years, the Assassin's Creed franchise constantly added new little features & tweaks to their previous games. Assassin's Creed Origins takes all of that and throws it in the dumpster. In its place, it lifts gameplay mechanics from almost every game ever -- except the previous Assassin's Creed games.

First you start with Borderlands and its constant barrage of quests & infinite firehose of weapons dropped by enemies. Take away all of the guns & humor & cel-shading, and put it in ancient Egypt. Add some MMO/Destiny-style weekly events. Replace almost all of the previous games' intricately-crafted mocap cutscenes with zoomed-out views of stationary NPCs randomly waving their arms and asking you (in the most cheesy overacted anime voice possible) to rescue yet another villager who's been captured by bandits and imprisoned in a wooden cage.

I dug into the Assassin's Creed series after hearing gushing, glowing reviews of how great this game was, and how it revitalized the series. So, over the last year, I've experienced the highs of Black Flag, and the lows of AC3. Once I got to Origins, I was... whelmed by the experience. It's not bad, per se. It's just not great. It's a most mediocre hamster wheel, dedicated to keeping you playing simply for the sake of playing. There's a constant stream of mindless side quests to keep you busy for dozen of hours, but with no real payoff in the end.

The story is equally middling. Basically: "Avenge your murdered son. And assassins happen at the end, I guess."

I'm still playing. I paid for that Gold Edition DLC, and gosh-darn it, I'm gonna play it. ...I just need to grind the repetitive side quests for another 6-8 hours before I'm leveled up enough to play them.

The Assassin’s Creed games have had a problem for a while. And that is that the Assassin/Templar conflict has gotten increasingly silly. Here’s the thing: what is the historical setting of the Crusades? It’s two rival ideologies fighting for control of the Holy Land. The first game changed the underlying ideal but kept the basic essence of the era’s conflict intact. And that’s why the first game worked. Plotwise.

But how then do you adapt this to other eras? Say, the American and French Revolutions? Ideology mattered, but to the extent that it was universalist at all it was about overthrowing the entrenched power structure. Really though, it was tied firmly into a rising ethnonationalism (something the games struggle hard to avoid linking either side to) that had good qualities and bad (they increased the power of average individuals but at the cost of increased persecution of minorities outside the majority group) but bear little resemblance to the struggle between order and chaos. How can starting a revolution to overthrow the corrupt French aristocracy with a democratic regime to make France a powerhouse again in any way be of direct benefit to globalist fascists? Or globalist Assassins for that matter. The essence of these historical periods has nothing to do with global dominance of a single ideology. And to avoid this conundrum the games ignore all motives and leave the events we see onscreen inexplicable. It isn’t as bad when they focus on personal motives and individual villains, but even there they tend to mess it up.

Robespierre’s whole assassination at the Cult of the Supreme Being exemplifies everything that’s wrong with this approach. Robespierre’s attempt to create a non-Christian monotheistic religion to undermine the power of the Church makes sense when you see him reacting against an entrenched aristocracy that uses Christianity as a form of social control and opposes all change. But why is Templar Robespierre doing it? For that matyter, why is a Templar destabilizing society and promoting radical liberty? We’re never given a reason. And this is but the worst of many examples of the games ruining themselves by forcing every event in history to line up with the same tedious Templar/Assassin ideological conflict. Hydra has a more complicated and consistent ideology and we get that explained in all of a minute by Zola.

So what does this have to do with Origins and why was I so excited to see if it could correct the long-running problem of the series? It takes place before the Assassin Brotherhood was established and therefore has an opportunity to avoid these tedious cliches and forced characterizations and strike a new path. Does it manage it? Somewhat. The basic conflict at the time is right. Romans are taking over slowly (though we’re given precious little context on who or what these generals are) and Cleopatra needs to gain her throne. And the ulterior motives of Caesar seem to be some variation on motives attributed to him by historians. So far so good.

The main plot is concerned less with that than with avenging the death of Bayek’s son at the hands of a conspiracy (obviously a proto-Templar group) which is a step in the only direction that’s worked so far, the highly personal quest of AC2. And since these evil figures are mostly ahistorical this story can do what it likes. The secret society mostly works because it seems narrow in focus and not universalist like the Templars. These are bad men in alliance and not some ideologically pure group simultaneously bringing together invading Romans, Ptolemaic loyalists, and Cleopatra’s adherents while being somehow on the same side.

But alas, it turns out that getting rid of the Assassins and Templars doesn’t stop the poor characterizations and stunningly simplistic good/evil divide. This mostly comes in at the end, but there’s basically a moment where you’re betrayed for no reason whatsoever except that the character’s an evil jerk. And then every other character on that side turns out to be an evil jerk and oh look, they’re just Templars by another name. It’s all so uneccesary and stupid. And it could have been so easily avoided by spending even a single minute thinking about establishing motives for the villains beyond a mad lust for power and willingess to stab reliable allies in the back at a moment’s notice. But they never do. And I’m so sick of it. Every Templar is exactly the same character in a different skin.

And let’s look at Caesar. Really look at him. What does everyone know about Caesar? He ended the Republic and tried to become emperor and was assassinated for it. Grade schoolers know this. But how much of that would we know if we only played the game? Only that he was assassinated. The game never even mentions the fall of the Republic, even when we meet Brutus and Cassius. They’re just discussed as personal allies since obviously they are to become assassins. This isn’t a demand for perfect historical accuracy but a plea for some sort of context for why we should care. Just look at a show like Rome. We understand by the first episode exactly what the big picture is and how everyone fits in. This game has easily twenty or thirty hours to establish a setting. Why are these games so eager to go into great detail when creating sets and setpieces but unwilling to exhibit even an ounce of historical context?

So if I hate the plot and characterization so much why am I still giving this game four stars? Because nobody plays these games for the plot. I had it runninhg for months without ever beating it since I knew I’d be disappointed. What’s really great about these games is your ability to visit (and stab) a long lost world. And in that the game is more realistic than ever.

The setting is probably my favorite so far, and not just because I’m an ancient historian. The last few titles have been restricted to a single city and, while I love the work they’ve done making the cities feel alive and varied, that doesn’t compare to the sheer sense of scale and variety we get here. There’s enormous differences between the cities of Siwa, Alexandria, Memphis, and Crocodilopolis, each of which is huge and fully explorable, but also between the terrain of the Delta in the north (mostly swampy with crocodiles galore), the barren desert to the west, and the more fertile areas on the southern Nile and the oasis at Siwa. In addition to this you get numerous villages, a variety of animals, a day/night cycle, and features such as sandstorms. It all looks astounding and is a joy to run/ride/sail through.

The gameplay is different here than in earlier games. I won’t say it’s necessarily all improvement since there are things I like about the old combat system better, but it certainly improves in some areas while leaving areas that could use improvement in future games. Basically, it’s been changed from a block/counter system to one more like God of War. I think this makes combat a lot more balanced and the dodging in particular really helps keep action fluid.

On the other hand, it does rather undermine the one area you want to keep unbalanced: the assassinations. By including crafting and other RPG mechanics the gamemakers have decided that the hidden blade no longer means an instant kill. I really hope they bring that back since it ruins the fun of sneaking into heavily guarded encampments and catching the leader by surprise only to have to fight him and the entire garrison anyway since stabbing him in the eye while he was sleeping only mildly discomforted him.

Most other gameplay tweaks were an improvement. The new eagle vision (a literal eagle) makes navigation much easier, even if you’re missing the minimap. The ability to summon a mount makes navigation through long empty areas a delight rather than a burden, and the ability to fight easily from horseback corrects an often silly problem where PC equestrians are at a severe disadvantage in combat. The naval combat remains basically unchanged from Black Flag except that they’ve replaced one of the cannonades with a ram. It’s seriously underutilized and seems obvious that it’s serving as a test for Odyssey the same way AC3 was for Black Flag.

Honestly, my complaints are sincere and damning but they don’t stop these games from being fun because the whole point is never the main story but all the exploration, action, and side quests. And in that respect this game’s better than ever. I’ve never enjoyed slashing my way through beautiful scenery more. I have to try the DLC next, which promises mummies(!), but I’m very glad for any excuse to return to the beautiful realm of Ptolemaic Egypt.

It's fine. It's all fine. Assassin's Creed Origins - it's fine. See? It's fine.

So, the obvious thing to bring up is the combat. It's different, that's for sure, taking on a more Dark-Souls-lite or Witcher 3-esque style, as opposed to the "counter everything every time" And it's, y'know, it's fine. It's not terribly fun and not terribly challenging (though more so than previous games), but it works, at least. The different weapon types are interesting to play around with, and knocking skulls around with the heavier blunt weapons is satisfying in its own grisly way. Even with the variety, though, the combat quickly grows stale, though that's not just because of the pure mechanics.

It's also because you're going to run into a gaggle of generic enemies in doing basically any quest. The quest system is somewhat revamped, with your standard main quests mixed in with somewhat more in-depth, narrative-heavy (though, let's be fair, that's pushing it) sidequests. Of course, does it really matter? The story isn't great, but we'll get into that later. No, basically every quests consists of attacking some restricted area and killing/sneaking around the guards and assassinating a target or freeing some dude in a cage or whatever. Like I said, they try to gussy things up by adding a little story to even the most mundane of sidequests, but to me, they don't really help.

The stealth is also, y'know, not great, but has anyone played an Assassin's Creed to actually sneak around? You kind of have to, though, since if you attract enough attention you'll end up with a whole base's worth of disgruntled guards chasing after you, and that's a total drag. So, you have to sneak a little bit. You have to hide in some tall grass, maybe pick some people off with your bow, and then do some recon with your d̶r̶o̶n̶e̶ really well-trained eagle. Yes, really. Ubisoft really wanted to carry over the whole "array the battlefield with a drone" thing that they did in Watch Dogs 2 and Ghost Recon: Wildlands and whatnot, but obviously you can't have a drone in Ancient Egypt. (Let's be real, though, at this point in the series, would anyone even give a fuck if they just straight-up added a high-tech drone into the past? Who fucking cares, right? They can write in some Animus bullshit to explain it.) So, yeah, you use your pet bird to spot enemies. Why not?

I've complained enough about the story so far, so let's really get into it. Simply put, it's boring. You have to slog through yet another vague political conspiracy, and your motivation comes from your dead son. I don't want to sound unsympathetic to men having to deal with the death of their child, it's just that it's the most boring, generic backstory to turn your main character in some sort of brooding "badass" type. What's worse is that Bayek actually has flashes of personality every now and again, which makes it even worse that the only motivation they could think of for him was "dead son, I guess." Can't a man be a good dad and also want to fight a shadowy group of men who seek to shift the balance of power in an empire?

The start of the game is also truly awful from a narrative standpoint - they drop you in without explaining anything, really, and you murder some dude and fight another dude (who you also end up killing). It's a really perplexing decision that immediately soured me on the whole experience, and it's not like the gameplay is so compelling that it really just drew me in.

Also, once again, we're subjected to long-winded death monologues from our assassination targets. These often boil down to - listen to my vaguely tragic backstory! I totally had reasons for murdering all these people or whatever in order to satisfy my murderous cravings that I've wrapped up in excuses! I guess they're trying to get you to confront the morality of, y'know, murdering people, but you also have to kill otherwise innocent, random guards in nearly every mission that you do, so I suppose they just don't matter.

The wife is cool, I guess, and generally seems to do more interesting things than Bayek does. Oh well.

The map is also way too big. I know a lot of people complain about that when it comes to open world games, but come on. There are so many segments of the map that are just stretches of open desert. Good lord.

But is it all bad?

Well, no.

It's a good-looking game, when you're not just running against miles and miles of sand. It's fairly well-made and polished. The climbing, while unrealistic, is very smooth and you can scale basically anything you see, which adds a great deal of freedom to navigating the world. The auto-travel of your steeds is actually really useful, striking a great balance between the normal fast-travel and the Witcher 3-esque hold-a-button-to-follow-the road style. It's basically the only feature I'd like to see in other games.

But Assassin's Creed: Origins? Yeah, it's fine.