Assassin's Creed Origins

Assassin’s Creed Origins is a breathtaking sensorial odyssey. It is the MMO I have been waiting for without the MMO part, and boy would my heart skip a beat if it were massively multiplayer online. Ubisoft has won a new superfan.

When I heard that the Assassin’s Creed series was heading to Egypt, I was cautious. My love for the subject matter meant that I would probably scrutinize the game more than if another location in time and space was selected. But the two year wait between games has meant that a well-researched product with smooth controls, interesting quests and a gorgeous visual experience has been delivered. Assassin’s Creed Origins is clearly my new favourite in the series. And, I still have Egypt on my bucket list, but Assassin’s Creed Origins has satisfied my appetite in the meantime.

Ubisoft Montreal managed to make Egypt not only beautiful, but extremely atmospheric. When you’re admiring the city and a mounted patrol rushes past you, you always get that urge to step aside to avoid getting trampled, even though you know you can eviscerate them all in a blink of an eye. [Issue#225, p.32]

This is a big win for Assassin’s Creed. Just about every aspect of the game is better from combat, to hunting (thanks to Senu), to stealth play with a sense of consequence. Top it off with the memorable yet vulnerable duo of Aya and Bayek, and this sequel managed to go back in time while taking several steps forward.

Origins by no means perfect, particularly in its iffy movement systems and overreliance on the new Eagle companion. But by taking a year off a brutal annual release schedule, Ubisoft has given us a huge, polished, well-written game that successfully reworks and pushes Assassin’s Creed forward in ways I didn’t even realise were necessary. Assassin’s Creed Origins is the best the series has ever been by a long shot, and I sincerely hope it’s only onwards and upwards from here.

For those of you who were suffering from franchise fatigue, Assassin’s Creed Origins should cure your ailment. Ubisoft’s increased development time for the game brought a gigantic open-world full of stories, exciting battles, and a loot system that have you exploring for dozens of hours.

I could wax on about Assassin’s Creed Origins for a long time. For all its foibles it’s a staggering achievement, and most certainly the best the series has ever offered alongside Black Flag. Those who prefer the dense city networks of the original games may bounce off it a little, but for anyone even remotely interested in the prospect of The Witcher and Assassin’s Creed crossing paths, this comes highly recommended.

Origins absolutely achieves Ubisoft’s goal of bringing back their flagship franchise with a bang. The game has very few flaws and issues, and all of these are dwarfed by the strides it has achieved on the gameplay front. Origins marries the parts of the familiar AC formula that work with a host of improvements that result in an extremely entertaining and satisfying gaming experience, backed up with a great story to boot. Assassin’s Creed is back, and it’s better than ever. Oh, and you can pet cats! GOTY 2017.

Assassin’s Creed Origins is the best Assassin’s Creed game in years. I’m really tempted to say it’s my favorite game in the series period but it’s too soon to know for sure on that count. Hopefully this is a rebirth for the series and we’ll see further iterations and continuing in this style moving forward.

The combat is challenging and thoughtful, and while the loot system doesn’t match up to games like Destiny 2, there are enough different weapon types and enough enemy variety to keep you swapping between weapons, catered to the situation. The RPG elements encourage challenges of their own, and even despite a handful of bugs, I desperately wanted to keep playing.

Assassin's Creed: Origins doesn't overcome the Ubisoft formula, but perfects it for an outstanding open-world adventure.

Assassin's Creed: Origins is the best in the series. This breathtaking recreation of Ancient Egypt is truly something to witness. With a beautiful setting, a huge open world with tons of content and side quests with more plot than you can think of, Origins will grab you the moment you step in the Animus and won't let go until you've had your fill.

AC Origins is a strong signal for the continued existence of superb single-player games. Huge scope, great setting, exciting battles and motivating RPG-elements: Assassin's Creed is back again.

Assassin's Creed: Origins marks a new beginning for the series as this open-world prequel successfully merges the old and new. While not perfect, the result is still a deeply satisfying Egyptian playground that will revitalize your love for a series that was starting to fall by the wayside.

Assassin's Creed Origins keeps many of the promises made, revolutionizing some of the traditional elements of the series and giving us a solid starting point in perspective. The PC version allows you to enjoy the experience at its best, up to native 4K and 60 frames per second.

After several years, AC: Origins is the first Assassin's Creed game that we can recommend without hesitation. It's definitely not perfect, some gameplay mechanisms have not been fully exploited, some others have remained attached to the past, but the scales are clearly positive. It is huge, addictive, entertaining and the series are now going to the right direction. Hopefully they will continue to follow up on it.

Naturally, once you've beaten the main quests you can continue exploring the world, and the biggest compliment I can give Origins is that I'd much rather be playing it than writing about it. It's a got a dazzling and beautiful setting, lots of enjoyable systems for mischief and mayhem, and has just the right amount of diversions and distractions to keep you busy without ever feeling like busywork. The extra year Ubisoft took with Origins didn't result in a completely new and novel experience, but it did provide one of the best games in the Assassin's Creed series.

Not only Assassin's Creed: Origins makes us feel excited about Ancient Egypt, it makes us face an unusual Assassin's Creed game with different mechanics and gameplay.

The resurrection of the seemingly exhausted series was successful. Beautiful and enormous Egypt is complemented by the sympathetic hero Bayek and plenty of modifications to the proven formula. [Issue#280]

This killer holiday in Egypt is definitely no boring. On the contrary, it is a pleasant excursion to the times, when the sphinx had a nose, and mysterious killers did not call themselves assassins. You cannot find a nicer version of an Ancient Egypt in any other game, and up to it it’s entertaining. A modest family story affects the whole empire at the end, and you will forgive a handful of bugs to its charismatic heroes, as well as the fact, that you have played the same pattern so many times, just in another scenery.

Stealth-action reinvented as easy-to-digest open world RPG-action. [Issue#268, p.68]

Assassin’s Creed: Origins is an exciting addition to the Assassin’s Creed legacy, featuring new brotherhood lore and intriguing RPG elements. Crafting and a skills tree promises character customization beyond that in previous Assassin’s Creed titles, while underwater exploration and mounted combat give you fresh ways to play and interact with enemies and an expansive map. If you like assassinating people with primitive weapons, Origins is for you.

Ubisoft were hoping for two things when they decided to give Assassin’s Creed a gap year: they wanted to deliver a more polished experience, and they wanted us all to have time to miss shanking people in the neck in a gorgeous historical setting. They have achieved both. Assassin’s Creed as a series has had a strange evolution, but going back to the start of the story, the place where the entire Creed was formed, has breathed new life back into it. Absence really does make the heart grow, well, stabbier.

I can't eloquently explain why I like it so much after spending most of my words rattling off negatives. I just like it. If you want to escape into the best Assassin’s Creed world in the series, this is the ticket.

Quite a things in Origins are open to debate, but all in all, it’s a good game.

Assassin’s Creed: Origins grew on me. That’s worth noting up top, as I upgrade this review-in-progress to full review status—it grew on me, and it’s the first entry in the series to do so. Assassin’s Creed is mostly a what-you-see-is-what-you-get type of series, and generally within a few hours you’ve seen it all. AC II, Brotherhood and Black Flag were good early on. AC III not so much. The rest somewhere in between. But Origins starts slow and finishes pretty strong. Not that I’ve radically changed my mind about the game. Much of my original review-in-progress remains as accurate 40 hours in as it did at 15. Side quests vary wildly in quality, the RPG systems need some work, the map is overlarge for the amount of content, and the combat system is better but still no real challenge. The good stuff remains true too though. It’s a technological marvel, especially on PC. The setting is incredible, spanning ancient tombs and somber Hellenic temples, verdant oases and arid deserts, thriving cities and abandoned villages, and everything in between.

While Assassin's Creed Origins reaches great heights in this new setting, it routinely runs into issues that bog down the overall experience. Technical issues make for an inconsistent experience and its new gameplay pillars wobble under the weight of its systems.