14 DAY TRIAL // 
Ubisoft announced two years ago that the Assassin's Creed franchise is going to take a sabbatical, so fans of the series won't be playing another game until 2017. While the wait might have been painful for die hard fans, Ubisoft was in a much worse position since it couldn't benefit from the profits a new Assassin's Creed game usually brings each year.
Now that the game is out, we'll try to answer some of the major questions that most of you surely have, like whether or not it was worth the wait and what exactly the new title sub-dubbed “Origins” means for the series.
From the first few hours of gameplay it's pretty clear that Assassin's Creed Origins is supposed to breath new life into the franchise, as Ubisoft is trying to go where it hasn't been before with series – the RPG land.
Trying to turn a full action-adventure game into an action RPG melange might seem easy from the outside, but in reality it's no small feat as proven by Ubisoft.
Assassin's Creed: Origins is a very, very long journey and while that's not necessarily bad, it might be intimidating for players who don't want (or don't have) enough time to invest at least 35-40 hours to finish the game.
It took me around 45 hours to play throughout the entire main story and complete more than 2/3 of side quests. Still, I'm almost certain that there's content that I haven't touched yet for another 10 hours or so.
Story
Every Assassin's Creed game is an opportunity for players to visit a certain period in time and get to know prominent people who put their mark on history of humankind in some way or another. More importantly, each game lets you visit a location (country) that's recreated in lavish detail by Ubisoft.
Assassin's Creed Origins is more about places rather than persons. The story of the game begins in 49 BC after the struggle for power between Cleopatra and her younger brother, Ptolemy, ended up in the latter becoming the sole ruler of Egypt.
You play as Bayek, a so-called Medjay, a protector of the Egyptian people. The Medjay were also known as pharaoh personal bodyguards in ancient Egypt, or an elite paramilitary police force in charge with the protection of sensible areas of the kingdom like the capital cities, royal palaces and tombs.
In the game, Bayek must protect a region called Siwa Oasis, but after the assassination of his son by five masked men, he embarks on a perilous journey to revenge the death of Khemu. As it happens, the five unknown men were the members of a cult called the Ancient Order, which seeks power no matter the costs.
The main story involves learning the name of the members of the Ancient Order and then assassinating them one by one. Your wife, Aya, will help you in this endeavor and will become an important piece in the plot as you advance into the game.
The journey will take Bayek through the whole ancient Egypt and some regions under Roman occupation, so you'll get to visit iconic locations like Alexandria, Memphis, Cyrenaica and Giza Desert.
Unfortunately, that journey takes too much time without something exciting happening in between main story missions. To make players spend more time in the game, Ubisoft added so-called “suggested level” for each quest, including main story quests.
Basically, you must be a certain level to have a bigger chance of successfully completing a main quest. To reach that level you must grind side quests, a lot of side quests. Usually, that's not a problem when you play a game like Witcher, but Assassin's Creed Origins side quests, with a few exceptions, are terribly written.
They are just “filler” meant to artificially prolong gameplay time and don't give you any sense of accomplishment. Also, side quests in Assassin's Creed Origins are the only way to obtain large amount of XP points, so you're stuck with them no matter how stupid many of them may sound.
Luckily, the world designed by Ubisoft is absolutely charming, so that's one important thing that keeps you immersed in the game no matter how bad the side quests are written.
The amount of content in the game is scary at first glance, but once you get the hang of it, you learn what quests or activities are worth taking on and which ones can be skipped.
Overall, the Assassin's Creed Origins' story isn't as fulfilling as those told in some of the previous games. Moreover, it's so slow paced that it becomes uninteresting and predictable long before the end of the game.
Gameplay
Assassin's Creed Origins keeps some of the franchise's iconic gameplay mechanics like the parkour moves, but introduces many more that might or might not alienate players. First off, there's a new combat system, a new animal companion (Senu), a new skill tree and weapon upgrade system.
It's true that combat system in most of the previous Assassin's Creed games was easy to learn and similarly easy to master. Well, things are totally different in Origins. Ubisoft wanted to make the game more akin to titles like Witcher 3 or Dark Souls and introduced a completely different combat system that tries to copy a little bit from each of the games mentioned.
The result is an almost clunky combat system that doesn't make sense for those used with fluid moves and lag-free combos. It's a totally unrewarding system that needs some serious refining before we can call it decent.
Firstly, it's hard to execute certain combos because of the lag. If you're using a shield with a one-hand weapon the combat system becomes even more complicated, especially if you want to parry and/or block any hits.
Personally, I've finished the game without using any shields. I have used two-handed weapons most of the game, but in some fights where I needed more mobility and quickness, I relied on single-hand weapons or dual-weapons, which are the fastest but do less amount of damage.
Undoubtedly, you can use a shield with some success, but the combat system doesn't encourages you to do so. The same goes for the combos that should be the bread and butter of every fight. They are hard to achieve, especially when you're fighting multiple enemies. By far the best way to infiltrate a garrison and kill a target is using stealthy means.
Fortunately, you have more than a couple of scenarios at your disposal if you want to quietly infiltrate an outpost. You can hide in a cart that's visiting the outpost or scout ahead with your animal companion for underground tunnels that might get you close to your assassination target. And no, there's no “disguise” ability in Assassin's Creed Origins.
Moving on to the skill tree, I have to say that was a bit disappointed to see that at least half of the abilities or improvements that you can unlock are completely useless. For example, you are required to spend one skill point just so you can pass the time artificially from sunrise to sunset and vice-versa. You also need to spend a skill point so your character can automatically loot enemies killed while in stealth mode.
Other so-called passive abilities that you can unlock will provide you with 1% (?!) XP bonuses when you kill an enemy with a headshot using your bow, or stealthy. What's worse is you're forced to unlock some of these abilities in order to get to those that are really useful and are placed farther into the skill tree.
That's one aspect that should have put the “RPG” stamp on the game, but it's truly far from what such a genre offers in terms of powers and abilities. It's like Ubisoft lacked the imagination (or the experience) to embed a well-structured skill tree with meaningful abilities.
What I really did like is Senu, your faithful eagle that can scout garrisons before infiltration. You can even use it to find better hunting grounds that would provide you with the necessary components to upgrade your gear.
There are two skills that you can unlock to make Senu even more useful, as he occasionally attacks other animals that you're hunting or even soldiers. It's also nice to see Egypt through the eyes of an eagle.
I'd also like to say something about the loot system in Assassin's Creed Origins. There are three types of gear in the game: Blue (rare), Purple (epic) and Yellow (legendary). There are no armors in the game, but you can upgrade the one you wear using various components that you can obtain from the world.
Also, if you don't need a weapon, you can dismantle it for components. It's much better than selling it to a merchant since you'll have plenty of money as you progress into the game, but you'll need higher amounts of ingredients to upgrade your armor, melee damage, ranged damage, and hidden blade.
Aside from melee and ranged (bows) weapons, you can also learn to use other fighting tools like smoke grenades and poison darts. They will certainly make some fights easier, but I haven't used them much.
You'll also have mounts in Origins. There are two types of mounts present in the game: horses and camels. The former are faster on the roads, while the latter are better used in the desert. You can acquire rare, epic and legendary mounts from merchants, but they only provide extra flavor and contribute to the immersion without adding any advantage over the regular ones whatsoever.
More importantly, the easier way to fight a very powerful unit like the phylakes, deadly bounty hunters who are looking to kill you, is mounted. Although still clunky, you're not really required to do any combos or dodge any fatal blows while mounted on the horse. It takes some time to get used to, but once you get the hang of it, you'll know you just found the best strategy to kill these powerful brutes.
Gameplay-wise, Assassin's Creed Origins is a completely new beginning for the franchise. Not a great one I'd say, but solid enough that Ubisoft can continue to build upon in the next iterations.
Graphics and audio
We've been given a PS4 copy for the purpose of this review, but even so Assassin's Creed Origins looks breathtaking. I can imagine that the PC version looks much better when it comes to graphics, but most of the world built by Ubisoft is absolutely gorgeous.
If there's one aspect where Assassin's Creed Origins shines this is it. Climbing the pyramids, exploring the tomb of Alexander the Great, wondering the Giza Desert, hunting crocodiles on the Nile's shores or submerging in Lake Mareotis looking for treasure is an unparalleled experience.
I can't say the same thing about the soundtrack, but that's the least of Assassin's Creed Origins' problems. Overall, the graphics are superb and the cities you'll visit are so lively that you'll probably forget you're a dangerous Medjay looking for revenge and take on the tourist path instead.
I've only encountered a few bugs and glitches here and there (like invisible NPCs, or being stuck in a wall while mounted), but nothing game-breaking. The level of detail, the landscapes and hugeness of the world is unequaled by any other game in the series. A job well done and I'm sure extremely complex.
The Good
- Stunning, accurate world depicting Ancient Egypt
- Gorgeous graphics
- Exploring Egypt can be extremely rewarding
- Mounted combat
- Animal companion is actually useful
The Bad
- Lackluster main story
- Terribly written side quests
- Rough combat mechanics
- Too much "filler" content
- Totally uninspired RPG elements
Conclusion
Unfortunately, for me at least, that beautifully-crafted world is dragged down by a dull story and almost childishly written side quests. Add to that a mediocre combat system and you get the perfect recipe of how you can ruin an almost stellar game.
The amount of content is enormous, but it's quality where Assassin's Creed Origins fails to meet the standards of a great game. Yes, there's plenty of stuff to do in the game and if you're the type of player who likes to grind, Origins is the perfect game, but those who want quality over quantity will certainly find the journey rather tedious.
Assassin's Creed Origins is far from being a bad game, but fails to achieve greatness as well. If Ubisoft would have cut half of the low-quality content, I think we would have gotten a much better game. While there's definitely room for improvement, I strongly believe that the Assassin's Creed franchise took a turn in the right direction.
