Ubisoft didn’t have a particularly strong year. Ghost Recon: Wildlands’ reception was largely lukewarm, while For Honor, despite praise to its combat system was panned for its many problems and is currently in the process of slowly dying, at least on Steam.
As a result Ubi needs some good thing to come its way, and while Far Cry 5 certainly looks interesting, it’s still some in the future. Assassin’s Creed: Origins, on the other hand, launches in just under a month, so it’s time to collect the most important bits and pieces of information about it.
Before the Templars
Instead of moving the series’ timeframe forward, which would likely put it the late 19th/early 20th century, Ubisoft decided to take us some two thousand years back in time to ancient Egypt in the days of Julius Caesar and Cleopatra. Talk about going for big historical names.
The protagonist will be the last Medjay called Bayek, and he’s going to become involved in a conflict of interests between the two aforementioned figures and Ptolemy, the Boy King. He’s married to a woman named Aya, a faithful follower of Cleopatra. Aya shares Bayek’s training, although isn’t a Medjay herself. Reportedly she is going to be playable in certain missions. There is great potential for an interesting dynamic between the two of them, since Bayek is more sceptical of Cleopatra’s goals and methods than Aya is. Here’s to hoping it will result in something as honest and endearing as the Frye twins’ dynamic.
Either way, Bayek and Aya are likely to become the foundation upon which the Assassin order will be founded, opposing the Order of the Ancients, a very clear predecessor to the Templars that we are familiar with.
Seeing how the entire mess began is extremely enticing. Even more so, if we remember that Cleopatra was killed by an Assassin later in her life, which means that at some point she was swayed by the Templars-to-be, because from what we know so far she’s supportive of Aya’s and Bayek’s exploits.
Dynamic combat
Assassin’s Creed games are known for many good things. A great sense for architecture (within reason), respect for history (within reason), a gallery of historical figures. Dynamic, engaging combat isn’t one of them, because it’s more akin to choreographed dance of two (or more) animation rigs rather than actual input from the player. Thankfully Origins changes that.
Rather than operating on canned, if cinematic, animations, the new AC goes for a hitbox-based system, which is better at letting the player loose. You will have heavy and fast attacks, a shield to parry with and hide behind from ranged attacks, and dodges. Of course the fast and strong attacks will be chainable, and a reward for hit streaks will be, like in Batman Arkham, special movies potentially taking the affected enemy out of the picture. Permanently.
In a major improvement over what we’ve come to expect, the ranged weapons will now have a targeting reticule, rather than shooting at the highlighted character. As one of the gameplay videos shows, it will finally enable some of the more acrobatic moves, such as shooting an enemy mid-leap, an art apparently lost before Altair’s time.
Either way, although now combat won’t look as neatly choreographed, at least as far as synchronisation is considered, it allows more flexibility. It in fact is going to require it, because enemies will be reportedly much more likely to use their numbers competently this time around, instead of attacking one-at-a-time.
Aiding Bayek with the tasks ahead of him will be the loot system, with weapons actually affecting gameplay (e.g.. it will be smart to use axes against armoured enemies), and progression, which can possibly be seen as Bayek forming techniques later iconic to the Assassin order.
Exploration and stories
Origins is going to feature full, and seamless, exploration of the game’s area from the get-go. There will be three main locations: Alexandria, Memphis, and Bayek’s home village Siwa. Your ability to explore won’t even be closed off during missions, because Origins ditches discrete level-like assignment from previous games and opts for a more open-ended, unbridled approach. As a result missions become quests you can solve whenever you want or even ignore mid-way and go do something else until you decide to come back to it. This is a kind of design typically associated with RPGs, but it’s nice to see it leak meaningfully to other genres.
Another such “leak” is the amount of attention reportedly paid to both main quests and side stories, an approach probably inspired by the overwhelming success of The Witcher 3. We’re even getting some investigations, which fits Bayek’s role as a medjay, a sort of sheriff.
Conclusions
Putting the franchise on a coatrack for year is apparently going to pay off. From all that we’ve seen so far Assassin’s Creed: Origins is a definitive improvement over the increasingly stale formula governing the series since its inception in 2007. New, juicy combat, a seamless integration of open-world and story demands, a rarely explored setting, and even a loot and progression systems. All of the above paint the image of a very promising game.
Assassin’s Creed: Origins launches in October 27, leaving just under a month to decide whether or not to get a preorder.