Assassin’s Creed Origins

• TW3: only tolerable in Polish or German
• Origins: you absolutely need the Pharaohs DLC (for early game level boosting)
• Unity: only tolerable in French or German
• Brotherhood: does not run well on newer machines
• AC3
• Odyssey: not an AC game, too grindy and only tolerable playing as Kassandra
• Syndicate
• Mirage: basically, an improved version of Revelations and Valhalla

AC2 is a good game with very outdated mechanics. I did not enjoy AC1 or AC4 and I hated Rogue.

+ Very beautiful.
- Bland and predictable storyline.
- Complete disregard for what made the series unique, this is just another open-world game.
- Horrid level-gating by making everything overlevelled and then selling XP boosts as microtransactions. This only proves the level-gating is unnecessary.
- The gameworld is somewhat boring and bland, considering it's a desert, minus the cities.

Not completed.

Got nothing on the classic AC games. Does not even feel like a Creed game for most parts, even in the gameplay. Starts off decent, but second half and ending as a disaster. Its fun to play as Bayek, but Aya is like playing as Jada Smith. Overrated to the moon. 2/5

This is my first Assassin’s Creed since the third. I used to be a sucker for Ancient Egypt, and even though “Assassin’s Creed Origins” is set way past my favorite era, I was looking forward to visiting familiar locations. It feels like much has changed, but the reasons I got tired of playing the series are still the same. The main plot drags too long, and most missions play out the exact same way. It might work if you enjoy the gameplay loop, but I found the controls and combat incredibly clunky. The addition of levels also made skills and stealth useless. You can’t stealth kill enemies with a level higher than yours, not even by headshotting characters without helmets. Seriously, I can’t believe I am asked to spend hours farming experience in an “Assassin’s Creed” game. The side missions didn’t offer anything new, but the game literally forces you through them unless you want to lower the difficulty settings.

Eagle vision has been changed into an actual eagle spotting points of interest for the player. It felt cool initially, but in the end, it just became one more unnecessary chore. The sad reality doesn’t change: you get spoon-fed the location of hidden items so that you don’t need to explore yourself.

The most entertaining part for my taste was exploring tombs and pyramids, even though the puzzles were underwhelming. Just keep going straight and you’ll eventually get to the end. Considering the fascinating setting, so much more could have been done.

The plot is a little slow, but it gets a little better toward the end. We get to see how the assassins were born, and there are even some majorly famous historical characters involved to spice things up as usual. It felt like the cutscenes were poorly directed though, many times I wasn’t sure if they were confusing due to a bug or just a questionable directorial choice.

Overall, I thought “Assassin’s Creed Origins” was just ok. It can entertain for a while but goes on for way too long for what it has to offer.

While the setting is original and a fun one, and while I applaud the direction this game went into as opposed to earlier entries, I feel like this game falls short on a number of areas.

I liked the game, but the main problem is that the new RPG elements are actually on the shallower side. In later AC entries they would be improved. There isn't much strategy you can be doing or many "builds" to be playing with, but this did set the stage for later entries.

The story is sometimes being applauded Origins, but honestly I couldn't get invested in Bayek. I feel like his main quest is shallow. It's like the character has no complexity or immersion into it. The story itself is also on the more vague side, you have no connection with who you kill, and who you are. Some of the things are poorly explained even if the world feels very atmospheric and alive, and made me longing to learn about the Egyptian world, you don't really learn much about it, as everything is explained in quite a dry matter. Even the Discovery Tour feels like a textbook being pushed down your throat like they do in university with very dry explaining.

The third issue is that the game gets a bit repetitive and after a while feels very formulaic. There simply isn't enough variety to justify this massive open world, especially in gameplay and to a lesser extent in setting, even if the regions itself have a distinct feel, it are the same type of locations you see over & over again, the same objectives you have to do over & over again, and choosing your abilities or weapons only matter to a minimal extent. I feel like there is a lack of strategic thinking, and that the game is made too easy for you.

I do like the game but maybe not enough to have played 90 hours, to get all trophies, and I feel like this game is being praised too much compared to Odyssey and Valhalla.

If this shift in the series is a result of Unity and Syndicate underperforming commercially, then I'm glad they failed. This shift towards an RPG format seems to have prompted Ubisoft to start investing some time into their characters as well, and it's paid off with the most interesting main character since Ezio.

Assassin's Creed has always excelled at creating incredible open worlds that make me take an interest in the history of a place I didn't previously care about. They've managed to do it again here, but Bayek carries this fucking game on his shoulders. A story beginning with a parent losing a child has a chance to fall really flat with players who can't relate, but it's written extremely well and it makes Bayek feel far more human than earlier AC protags, who feel much closer to superheroes than anything else.

The writing does a lot of the work, but Abubakar Salim puts in an excellent performance here to bring Bayek to life - it's a combination of the two that makes it believable. You understand what his values are without needing to be beaten over the head, and you can see through his interactions with children when he's reminded of his own son, without needing some hallucination or flashback to assist. Bayek very often feels like a man held together by ideals and duct tape and that's what sucks me in.

I know a lot of people were turned off by the shift towards RPG-lite mechanics and to be honest, they're alright here, but they're definitely half-baked in comparison to Odyssey. There are times where the difficulty between missions spikes a little too much and it feels like you're meant to level grind since these are sudden jumps in difficulty, as opposed to a slow-growing gap between player level and mission level. The system of having multiple bows is a little weird and feels kinda clunky at times, and I basically just ignored one of them for about half the playthrough.

Moving away from paired animations makes the combat feel exhilarating at times, and the hitboxes match up pretty well to what's going on on-screen (I don't know how they fucked this up so bad in Valhalla after getting it right two games in a row). Aside from the sections where it feels like you're meant to level grind, the combat is generally challenging without feeling unfair and watching the Phylakes turn from a genuine roaming threat into juicy sacks of loot is a satisfying change.

All in all, Ubisoft very clearly put work into this game and the result isn't perfect, but they made some pretty dramatic changes to their flagship franchise and managed to create something worthwhile. Some of the changes that I think worked well for Origins don't work so well for later games (looting tombs was neat for Egypt and not so cool in Ancient England), but I'm really happy that Ubisoft decided to try something new when they could have just raked in the cash by shitting out another AC game that was 5% different from the last one. I think some of the things I liked most about Origins won't return to the series for a while, so I'll let the rest of you enjoy the newer games as they hone this formula - Origins is my own personal flash in the pan.