Brought to you by Ubisoft.
The last of the Medjay.
After bringing out a new Assassin’s Creed game each year since time immemorial, Ubisoft finally decided to take a year off to develop and bring us the new world of Assassin’s Creed: Origins.
It shows.
We travel back to 54BC to play in Ancient Egypt to play as Bayek.
He’s the final member of the Medjay – a badass ancient guard to the pharaohs, tasked with protecting the vulnerable in the Nile Valley.
He’s a man with a creed. An assassin’s creed… That’s also the title of the game.
As for the villains, Templars from previous games have been replaced with an even spookier society called The Order of Ancients, a shadowy manipulative organisation that even has the Pharoh Ptolemy XIII under their thumb.
What a bunch of evil, evil idiots.
It’ll be up to Bayek and his wife Aya to get their revenge and right the wrongs of their society …by assassinating people!
Origins is a new type of Assassin’s Creed
They’ve ditched the linear story of past games for a more open-world questing experience, where you can do missions in any order.
You’ve still got Ability Points to spend and weapons to collect and improve, but the combat has been completely revamped. Gone are the days of attack and counter-attack, the new fluid combat incorporates hit counters and weapon damage. There’s a whole new control scheme to get to grips with, so the whole thing feels pretty fresh.
The scale and beauty of the world that Ubisoft has created here is on par and even exceeds any of the open-world landscapes available in the likes of GTAIV or The Witcher III. It feels alive, populated with wild animals and engaging characters. It’s vast and more importantly, it’s interesting.
Ubisoft has also announced the new Discovery Tour, a combat-free mode where you can just travel around the game’s open world and take guided history tours curated by real historians. So you can show your little cousin how the Egyptians removed pharaoh’s brains without having to be all like “Just hang on there while I finish this quest, wudye.”
It’s stuff like this, combined with all the little improvements like a day/night cycle, smooth horse-riding and your new eagle companion, that make Origins feel like the freshest Assassin’s Creed yet.
For anyone who felt like they fell out of love with the series during previous iterations, this game is a great contender to suck you back in. A lot of people loved Brotherhood, and a lot of people loved Black Flag. But Origins is the best iteration in the series to date.
Assassin’s Creed Origins is out now in Ireland on PS4, Xbox One and PC.
Brought to you by Ubisoft.
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