Assassin’s Creed Origins — Just Walking Like an Egyptian

As someone who holds the opinion that Assassin’s Creed II is not only the best game in the Assassin’s Creed series, but one of the best games to release in the last console generation, I started thinking that Ubisoft wasn’t capable of making another game that reached its heights. The game featured a beautiful open world with several locations to explore, large enough to capture a memorable sense of adventure. But it was a shame its immediate successors couldn’t live up to that. Brotherhood was a little smaller and felt like slightly more than an expansion in parts, while Revelations really felt like an expansion. Future games tried to capture what worked in ACII, but either struggled in execution or were bogged down by glitches and overall performance issues — or both.

With Assassin’s Creed Origins, however, Ubisoft took an opportunity to semi-reboot the series to appeal to lapsed fans who thought they’d never reach those aforementioned heights again like me, and attract a new audience. This time, they took good inspiration from other popular games in this console generation, especially The Witcher 3, and the publisher gave their worldwide development teams more time to develop it. The result is the best AC game since II.

The game takes place in Egypt, a setting that was constantly teased as the origin of the Assassin’s Creed saga in previous games, hence its name. The story is told through the perspective of Bayek of Siwa, the last of the Magi clan, who’s fighting back against the creeping influence of the Romans in Egyptian territory and is seeking revenge for the death of his son. Like previous installments, the story also involves actual historical figures whose portrayals are entertaining despite not being entirely historically accurate. The story often feels aimless, likely due to the need of the writers to focus on the main game and the side quests, but the characters are developed well. The relationship between Bayek and his wife, Aya, is especially a highlight.

From the start, it’s evident that Origins’ world was crafted for everyone who wanted a large sense of adventure like me. It’s huge and full of activities and quests. ACII provided a large playground to explore with Renaissance-era Italy, but Origins goes beyond even that for Egypt. It lets players explore the poorer and richer parts of the world, the latter of which happen to feature several Greeks. Sure, the scale isn’t quite as large upon realizing that much of the world is covered in large oceans and deserts that don’t feature as many activities as the towns (if they do at all), but it’s still impressive.

It’s even better that Origins presents a large world while looking splendid. The developers put a lot of resources into creating their interpretation of ancient Egypt. It’s no surprise that the game looks better on more powerful computers and consoles, it’s still a looker for anyone stuck on a base console like me. The visuals are splendid enough that it’s easy to excuse how similar the smaller towns look, especially when there are so many of them. The character models also look great, though the main characters stick out from the rest.

The story doesn’t make the game feel like any kind of reboot. Instead, its status as a soft reboot is established through the gameplay. The AC games had a history of being unpolished, but while this was tolerable for several earlier installments, the reluctance to tinker with even the smallest features like climbing up and down structures or, at times, basic movement became annoying by the last few titles. Other gameplay features were changed for the worse, like combat, where the team imitated combat systems from other action games poorly.

This isn’t to say Origins doesn’t take inspiration from other titles in terms of combat, as this game borrows cues from From Software’s Souls games; but what matters most is whether it feels better than in previous games, which is the case here. The combat is tougher in Origins than in its predecessors primarily thanks to the lack of any healing items during battle, as Bayek (and other playable characters) recover health after all surrounding enemies have either been defeated or if the player has run far enough away from them. But it’s enjoyable, especially with the number of different weapons and attacks Bayek can use. It took a while for me to execute parrying efficiently, but it makes a big difference when surrounded by high-level enemies.

Speaking of “levels,” Origins differs from previous games in being a stealth action RPG instead of being a stealth action game. Bayek levels up through completing tasks and missions, and through defeating enemies. It adds a rewarding sense of progression, though it comes with some hindrances.

Stealth attacks are still performed in ways similar to previous installments, where enemies can be stalked through tall grass, bushes, or while using obstacles as cover. But the addition of levels adds a new layer of depth, though not entirely in a good way. Enemies whose levels are considerably higher than Bayek’s can shrug off stealth and basic attacks. With the risk here, it’s sometimes not worth exploring some locations until Bayek is at the recommended level for it, a switch from previous games where a good portion of the world was open early on. This isn’t a big issue given all the other locations that can be traveled to early, and it would have been overwhelming if there was too much to explore too soon.

I went into the game with measured expectations for the mission design, for both the main story and especially the side quest offerings. But I was looking forward to seeing whether the side quest structure was as big a leap as some earlier rumors promised, in another comparison to The Witcher 3. The quests are a step up from previous games in terms of their length and depth, but several of them nonetheless feature tasks that have become arbitrary in open world video games. There are standout examples, but many of them involve taking out specific enemies, or retrieving certain items or missing people.

Fortunately, I didn’t get too tired of them, even though the game is structured in a way where it forces the player to do them. The story missions are sometimes at a higher level than my character, meaning time needs to be spent on tackling side quests to level up, especially early in the game. The side quests didn’t receive as much care as the story missions in terms of polish or their objectives, but this is something I hope they’ll address for future installments.

The voice acting is good for the main game, to the point that I wasn’t concerned about some Egyptian characters not being voiced by Egyptian people, and the accents not being completely authentic. (The AC series has the excuse of being a computer simulation, as a way to handwave any historical inaccuracies.) The acting for the side quests could be dodgy at times, but it’s not bad enough to bring down the game. The soundtrack implementation is similar to previous titles, where music plays sporadically while exploring or in battle. Here, composer Sarah Schachner did a great job with compositions for both.

Assassin’s Creed Origins isn’t without its problems, but it’s the most enjoyable AC title I’ve played in years, and shows how Ubisoft’s development teams can assemble a great installment when given enough time and resources. Since Assassin’s Creed Odyssey is very much a successor to this game thanks to inheriting most of its feature set, Ubisoft has a good new formula going. They’re also thankfully making sure not to run it into the ground too fast by having the franchise take off another year this year. Hopefully they stay on this track.