Altair and Ezio in “Assassin’s Creed: Origins”
Credit:@UbisoftClub
On Oct. 27, 2017, Ubisoft’s latest entry in the Assassin’s Creed series was released, “Assassin’s Creed Origins.” “Origins” is the tenth installment in the Assassin’s Creed series, and the first installment since the 2015 “Assassins Creed Syndicate.” “Origins” was highly anticipated due to its setting and impressive trailer at 2017’s Electronic Entertainment Expo. Luckily, it seems it may live up to the hype.
One complaint about the Assassin’s Creed series is that a new game comes out every year, not much would change, and they would always be set in a European country instead of going into more interesting countries. However, “Origins” takes place in ancient Egypt and had a significantly longer development cycle, with two years spanning since 2015’s “Syndicate.”
The game’s story revolves around the first assassin, Bayek, and how he created the assassins’ order. It also focuses on how the antagonists formed the templar order that makes up the two main forces and their dichotomy of the rest of the series.
“Origins” is the earliest game in the series yet, going all the way back to around 30 BC, in the last days of the Ptolemaic Dynasty. During this time in Egypt, Cleopatra is beginning to start a coup against the king Ptolemy XIII, and Julius Caeser was also beginning to take notice of Egypt. The player character Bayek, is a “Medjay” or ancient police officer, and as such begins to dive into the forces that are threatening his county and manipulating these events.
“Assassin’s Creed Origins” development began when Ubisoft took a poll in 2011 about what settings players would like to see out of an Assassins Creed game. Egypt was one of the winners, along with Feudal Japan and World War II. However, the games creative director said that these three options were “the worst choices.” With this, the series continued with more European settings, and not really venturing out into more adventurous settings. However, official development started on “Origins” in 2014, after “Assassin’s Creed Black Flag” was released. After Black Flag, Ubisoft CEO Yves Guillemot said his desire to focus on the quality instead of quantity of the series.
Now that “Origins” is released, it can be seen that the longer development cycle can be seen. While the game is still slightly glitchy and has some technical issues, it is a far cry from the horrid bug filled release of “Assassin’s Creed Unity” in which characters’ faces disappeared.
Another thing of note about the release of “Origins” is the PC release. Ubisoft is known for having bad PC ports of their games, poorly optimized and full of bugs. However, for “Origins,” the port this time around came out quite well, with not many issues and leading to players actually wanting to purchase the game on PC.
The game has received “generally positive” reviews according to Metacritic. Some critics are stating that the game is the best since “Black Flag,” which was known for being especially innovative with a Caribbean setting and pirate ship content. Colin Campbell of Polygon gave the game an 8.5/10 and gave an especially poignant statement that describes the series fairly well: “In essence, Assassin’s Creed Origins is much the same game as the original Assassin’s Creed, which came out a decade ago. It’s a formula that people like to play, and it’s certainly been honed and improved over the years. Origins is, then, undoubtedly the best iteration of this formula yet.”
Assassin’s Creed is clearly a series that people like; however, as a series, it is simply so repetitive. All of the games have you climbing towers, jumping off of them, and going to historic cities. Because of this, it is refreshing when “Origins” has all of this, but also adds more. “Origins” adds much more role-playing game elements, as well as animal controlling which is fun. “Origins” also features a brand-new combat system, leading to a more interesting standard combat loop than just mashing the counter button for all of the combat. Also returning to the series is boat combat, underwater exploration, and tomb raiding.
Many games in the series try some things, but quickly drop them, such as Black Flag’s well-received naval boat combat. However, in “Origins” many of these systems return, allowing for a much more fun experience. Also being added is more solid fantasy elements, with Bayek fighting creatures such as a giant basilisk or the Egyptian gods.
In conclusion, “Assassin’s Creed Origins” is a fresh installment in a series that is getting very stale very quickly. Much like “Syndicate,” it changed just enough to be better than the previous games, and it defiantly seems like the series may be turning itself around from Ubisoft’s microtransaction infused and glitch fest games of a few years ago.
