Assassin’s Creed: Origins Review

Assassins Creed became a considerable franchise ten years ago, with each iteration continuing to bring history into the video game world. It pushed forward realistic historical locales with stealth combat and even launched a movie franchise in the process.

After a relentless release cycle, the franchise has gone underground, as Ubisoft has relied on a more extended development times to soft-reboot the Creed. The newest installment in the Assassins Creed series is set to revitalise the franchise, but does it work? Find out as Jordan Samuel reviews

Assassins Creed: Origins Review

Assassins Creed has always been admired the game industry for bringing complex historical events into a virtual realm, delivering grand recreations of popular cultures. While despite being a massive franchise, Ubisoft always takes efforts in bringing alive, prosperous time periods: it hasn’t always been a rosebud with Assassins: Creed Unity (2014) almost killing the beloved video game series.

Assassins Creed has matured throughout the last couple years, with the franchise scope getting more much overtime and bringing in new elements into beautiful stealth playgrounds. Ubisoft has bloomed the franchise from unknown to a solid player in the modern gaming industry, with it becoming a cultural icon to many players

Years have passed since Assassins Creed: Syndicate (2015) failed to captive audience’s due to disappointing results and frankly dull location. Unsurprisingly the franchise took a break with Ubisoft, now pushing the development cycle for another installment our further out than before. Can the franchise get a good revival? Or does the franchise assassinate itself?

Find out as Jordan Samuel reviews Assassins Creed: Origins

After releasing new Assassin’s Creed each year for a decade (including the 2016 bombshell movie adaptation) AAA publisher “Ubisoft” have taken a step back in creating a revival of the franchise to former glory. Assassins Creed Origins (2017) marks a cracking return for the assassin order pushing into right directions with focused and streamlined stealth mechanics, all coming together in a grandiose recreation of ancient Egypt circa 49 B.C.

Origins (2017) continues taking fans to historical locales with players tackling ancient Egypt this time around, giving us a needed break from the bleak European setting in the last couple games. We play as Bayek one of the first ever assassins in the universe he is also an Egyptian sheriff and warrior, blending elements of other protagonists in the long-running series.

I enjoy the whole blending of mythologies and beliefs within his character going further distancing its self from last couple outings, setting up a decent update on the frankly embarrassing edgy protagonists.

The entire story all route from the characters depressing past (which I won’t spoil in the review) but gives audiences a reason to care about Bayek and his motivations, upgrading immensely on the shockingly dull and poorly written British twins from Assassin’s Creed Syndicate (2015). The supporting cast includes Bayek's wife Aya, who is a capable warrior when the time arises. I loved the surprise appearance from historical figures Julius Ceaser and Cleopatra, adding towards bringing Origins back to franchise standards.

Plot elements do get cluttered throughout the final stretch, with the inconsistañt last act failing at captivating the first couple hours. Ubisoft still is forcing modern day settings into the franchise, with those moments feeling at odds with Bayek's adventure.

Apart from conventional story elements, I have often blown away with the charming towns, and liveable recreation of Egypt origins delivers. It is the most significant setting seen in the Assassins Creed franchise, going places never imaginable with desert landscapes coming alive on current generation hardware including PS4 Pro, Xbox One X, and PC.

It’s bursting with plentiful side quests, as Ubisoft give the player violent situations to encounter and complete. A mission involving a drunken man being lost and found near a pack of dangerous alligators, had me rolling in belly laughs: gives the franchise decent personality. All thanks to new quest based mission structure which bring the series to an RPG level of content in tangent as with the assassin mechanics, flowing with the change.

Primary missions are plentiful and created with the stealth mechanics in the forefront, making merely running through enemies impossible correcting problems seen in the long franchise history.

The grandiose cutscenes all make sure Assassins Creed: Origins (2017) is a mostly well-produced adventure, that updates the formula freshly and excitingly. Combat is now more reminiscent of Dark Souls than the Arkham Knight video games; attacks are allotted more precise than previous interactions: making sure the player cannot abuse the oversimplified battles before.

You can’t just avoid fights in the game instead rely on the standard stealth combat which allows for more exciting encounters; I loved the simplified elements of being hidden. Bring the franchise to its routes with no gimmicks taking away from the series, Eagle Vision has changed (now a proper Eagle) giving a broader vision to the player.

Ubisoft takes a few pointers from the open-world brothers with clear inspiration taking from The Witcher 3, Destiny and Far Cry. Robbing ideas which limit Bayek from having a signature experience, but in today’s climate, I can take that because the 30+ adventure was a great one!

Assassins Creed: Origins (2017) a complete return to form for the ever-aging franchise, blending an excellent recreation of ancient Egypt with fresh ideas: pushing towards a new era of Creed.