Developer: Ubisoft Montreal
Publisher: Ubisoft
Release Date: October 27, 2017
ESRB: Mature / PEGI 18
MSRP: $59,99
Available Platforms: PS4 [Reviewed], Xbox One, PC
Genre: Role-Playing Game, Action-adventure, Stealth
Graphics & Performance
The game runs exceptionally smooth compared to the last couple of Assassin’s Creeds. When I think about how laggy AC Unity was, this is a big step up. I don’t recall ever having frame drops. This is a fantastic technological feat when you keep in mind how big the open world is. However, it also has fewer NPCs on the screen simultaneously than Unity did. The world looks stunning and the graphics are the best in the series to date.
Game World
It is by far the most content-rich Assassin’s Creed to date with the biggest map and most locations to explore. As you may already know it is set in Ancient Egypt. There are vast deserts, seas, mountains, cities, and villages. Dangerous animals roam the wilds and bandits are found in certain places such as strongholds and obviously during missions. It’s all one big connected map. A true open world that you can travel entirely on foot or on a mount without ever having to use fast travel or seeing any loading screens. The only time you would see a loading screen is during fast travel and in missions. The villages feel alive with people and pets walking the streets. The desert is understandably lifeless with few animals and only small groups of bandits here and there. Fast travel is possible to settlements and viewpoints you have previously synchronized. Yes, viewpoints are still in the game and they are marked on the map as always. They are pretty easy to climb and aside from acting as fast travel points, also reveal more of the map.
Story, Side Quests, Side Activities, Gear
The story starts in 49 B.C.E. You play as Bayek, the man who would start the group of the “Hidden Ones” that later transformed into the Assassin’s Brotherhood (as far as the game franchise is concerned). Hence the name “Origins” because it’s how it all started. This storyline paired with the egypt setting go well together. As usual it’s somewhat rooted in history blended with imagination. Along the way you meet the biggest historic figures of the time including Cleopatra VII and Gaius Julius Caesar.
In a change to previous games, the DNA sequences for main missions have been completely removed. You have just a quest log where you can see available main missions with their recommended level. The leveling system is also new. The game has a lot more RPG elements now. If you are too many levels below the requirement it will show the mission levels in red color. This means they are very hard to complete. If you are underleveled you will deal little damage to enemies and they kill you in 2-3 hits. All your gear also has a level attached to it. The gear has 3 different rarity levels. Blue (normal), purple (rare), yellow (best/legendary).
Blue and purple gear is pretty common. You get a gear piece from pretty much every treasure chest and for completing quests and papyrus puzzles. Interestingly, things you buy from blacksmiths can be upgraded to your own level at any time in exchange for coins. They also sell purple (rare) items. Say you buy (or find) a legendary spear, you can come back after leveling up and upgrade the spear to your character level. You can also sell equipment that you don’t need.
Doing side activities plays a more essential role than ever before because you have to level up to play the next main mission. The side quests have a wide variety of objectives, different enough as to not get repetitive. Some are short fetch quests, but they all have their own little story and NPC conversations to them. Very much like a classic RPG would. Many quests transition into longer quest lines with several objectives.
What I liked most were the papyrus puzzles. They don’t show markers or waypoints. Instead, one quest gave me a riddle “If your feet are firm in Letopolis, look west to the Pyramids. Within the golden dunes lies the Temple of a Million Years, guarded by stone lionesses”. So what I ended up doing was going to the highest viewpoint in the town of Letopolis and looked for Pyramids in the distance. There was a stone structure near the town and as I approached, saw the two lioness statues. Exploring the ruins finished the quest. I absolutely love this type of gameplay. It feels so much more rewarding to complete a quest like this and you’re not just following waypoints all the time. It’s what made old Assassin’s Creeds grow stale. They were just “go here, go there, kill this person, repeat”. Basically, running from waypoint to waypoint is just a simple matter of completion. But in AC Origins you have to use your brain and look around carefully to complete these quests. It really pushes you towards exploration and this kind of treasure hunting feels fitting for a game based in ancient Egypt.
Combat, Hunting & Skills
The combat has gotten a complete overhaul, so have the controls. In preparation I replayed some old Assassin’s Creed games. In Origins I initially felt dumbstruck by the new controls, they changed pretty much everything. And that’s a great thing! The Assassin’s Creed series needed some fresh wind and Origins delivers just that. It took me about 2 hours to get used to everything. As time went on I discovered more specialized moves such as charging up power moves by holding R2/RT or that you can have your mount ride along the road automatically while you scout ahead with Senu – your eagle companion. You can control the eagle to mark enemies and find mission objectives. He’s great for marking enemies in camps before attacking them. The enemies stay highlighted permanently after spotting them with the eagle.
The combat feels much more like Dark Souls now and is more challenging than any other AC game (though not as difficult as Dark Souls, just blocking with shield / dodging behind enemies feels the same). Your hidden blade stealth attacks no longer guarantee an instant-kill. I encountered elite enemies with a yellow mark above their head who would not want to die by a stab in the throat from behind. It does take a lot of their health away but the higher-level elite enemies often survive assassination attempts. All the normal enemies that were on my level or lower level died instantly from sneak attacks.
The shield is a new addition. The combat revolves much more around blocking and dodging behind enemies now. You also have several types of bows. One bow lets you shoot a few arrows at once, others are good for precision shooting and let you zoom in, and some fire single arrows in quick succession which is great for hunting. There are also lots of types of primary weapons: regular swords, sickle swords (khopesh), dual swords/daggers, heavy blunts (mace), heavy blades (axe), scepters, spears, barehanded. Each weapon plays completely different, has its own super move, charged attacks, kill animations, damage, attack speed, guard break, critical hit damage, special effects etc.
If you fill up your adrenaline bar you can do a special super move by pressing R1+R2 (RB+RT). This is a powerful attack that kills almost everything in one hit. Especially the Axe does a ton of damage with that move. Powering up weapons (hold R2/RT) leads to interesting moves, for example doing this with the axe will make you swing it in a circular motion around yourself for a few rotations and deals a lot of damage. You do quick attacks on R1 and strong attacks by pressing R2. Mixing quick and strong attacks leads to different combo animations. You can gain new moves through skill upgrades. For example, doing a super with R1+R2 has a skill that lets you throw an enemy’s weapon at the next enemy – which is really powerful and ‘kills two birds with one stone’. There are TONS of different-looking weapons of each type. They all looked slightly different and can have better or worse special effects and DPS (damage per second). The damage is not shown on a per-hit basis. Instead, the weapon stats always give you a damage-per-second value. Heavy weapons (e.g. axe) obviously do more damage per hit and light weapons (e.g. twin blades) attack much quicker. You may also find that certain weapons work better against certain enemies. A slow heavily armored human can easily be overwhelmed by an axe or spear. A fast feline predator requires different tactics.
There are 53 skills in total. You earn skill points by leveling up and from finding Hermit Locations. The basic stuff costs only 1 skill point and the advanced skills can cost more.
Hunting also plays an essential part as each type of animal drops different resources used for crafting.There are crocodiles, hippos (both of which attack boats in the water), snakes, vultures, hyenas, lions and other wildcats. Some of them are pretty hard to take down actually. Especially when you encounter them in bigger groups and run out of arrows. Fighting a group of lions with only melee weapons is quite the challenge. The same can be said for fighting big groups of human enemies. Because your health does not fully recharge in combat you must keep track of your health bar at the bottom of the screen. Outside of combat the health fully refillsautomatically. During combat it recovers up to 30%. Problem is that 1-2 hits take away 30% of your lifebar so you have to play carefully and avoid being hit. Enemies often have bows, too. While some fight you in melee others will hang back and try to shoot you. You can still counter melee attacks like in previous AC games but this no longer results in an instant-kill.
Collectibles & Completion, Trophies
What would Assassin’s Creed be without some collectibles? There are 12 stone circles, 5 hermit locations, 19 ancient tombs. They are marked by white question marks on the map, same as all other locations. So going to every question mark will eventually lead to all of them. The papyrus scrolls can also be considered collectibles. They lead to miniquests that require you to solve one of the aforementioned puzzles where you don’t have a quest marker and just a cryptic clue for a location you must find by yourself in the open world.
The platinum trophy can be obtained in 50-70 hours. It is easy, just time consuming. You don’t have to do all the side quests in the game for it nor do you have to reach the max level (which is 40). Getting 100% would take around 100 hours due to the abundance of side quests. I enjoyed the trophies, they were a nice mix of everything. However, there are reports that the “Old Habits” trophy for discovering all locations is bugged. Apparently, if you get locations during a specific mission it will make the trophy unobtainable (don’t want to spoil the quest here, more on that in my Trophy Guide & Roadmap). There are also reports of icons not showing up on the map despite having synchronized all viewpoints (did not happen to me personally). What I find irritating is that the map icons are nearly transparent. They are so hard to see that they are easily overlooked. It’s a poor design choice that could’ve been remedied by color-coding the icons.
| Gameplay *Overall Enjoyment Factor, Fascination with Game World, Level Design, Variety, Playability, User-Friendliness (Ease of Use / Readability / Controls / in-game Tutorials / Menus) |
| 9/10 New combat system is a big step up. Location icons hard to see on map (needs improvement). |
| Story/Multiplayer *Quality of the Singleplayer Story, Cutscenes and/or Multiplayer Modes (whichever is available). If a game has no Story or no Multiplayer it won’t be rated (thus no negative effect on score). |
| 10/10 Story: 10/10 Multiplayer: Not Available |
| Technical Aspects *Graphics, Texture Quality, Character Details, Lighting, Weather Effects, Animations, Loading Times, Number of Loading Screens, does it run smoothly |
| 9/10 Fantastic Graphics, runs much smoother than old Assassin’s Creed games. |
| Value *Amount of Content, Production Quality, Replay Value, is there enough content to justify a purchase |
| 10/10 A ton to do, 70-100 hours to 100% completion (50-70 hours for platinum). |
| Trophies/Achievements *Rates how much fun the Platinum / 1000 Gamerscore is to achieve: Are trophies fun to do? Do trophies restrict freedom of gameplay? Missable trophies? Multiple playthroughs required? Luck-based trophies? Pointless farming/grinding? Glitched Trophies? Are stats/trophies tracked correctly? |
| 8/10 “Old Habits” has a high chance to glitch. Otherwise awesome trophy list, would’ve been a 10 if it wasn’t for the glitch. |
| Extraordinary Score Increase or Deduction *Reserved for extraordinarily good or bad features that the other categories don’t cover (such as game-breaking bugs). This score is directly added/subtracted from the final score. |
| Nothing |
VERDICT:
Origins is an Assassin’s Creed Action-Role-Playing hybrid worth playing. The best Assassin game in many years.
FINAL SCORE:
9.2/10
Reviewed on PS4 Pro. A free review copy was provided by Ubisoft. Finished the Story, found all Collectibles, reached max level.
While you’re here, check out the Assassin’s Creed Origins Wiki for all you’ll need to complete the game.
For more on how reviews are scored, check out the Review Policy.