I’ve already playedAssassin’s Creed Odysseya handful of times this year and every time I walked away from it I felt incredibly optimistic. I said after E3 that this installment in the series felt like it was going to containa good mix of everything that I’ve loved from it in the pastbut what I wasn’t expecting to love so much is all of the new elements that have been added.
Last week, I was able to do an even deeper dive onAssassin’s Creed Odysseyat a preview event held by Ubisoft and played almost the first eight hours of the game. Once again, I came away with overwhelmingly positive impressions that are leading me to believe thatOdysseyhas the chance to be one of, if not, the best in the series to date.
Here are ten of the biggest takeaways that I had after playing through the early portion ofAssassin’s Creed Odyssey.
1. The Story is Legitimately Great
I’ll be honest: I think a vast majority of video game narratives, especially in the triple-A space are pretty lacking. Don’t get me wrong, there’s usually a standout story or two every year but for the most part (and especially in the history ofAssassin’s Creed) I think the storytelling is hardly ever engaging.
Boy, oh boy, is that not the case inAssassin’s Creed Odyssey. By far my biggest surprise after my time with the game is just how much I was invested in the arc of Alexios/Kassandra. I haven’t felt this way about anACgame sinceAssassin’s Creed II. Again, I’ve only seen the first few hours of the story but the twists and turns that it takes in that span of time alone has me overly excited to where my own character will end up at the story’s conclusion.
2. You Can’t Go Wrong with Alexios or Kassandra
Up until this demo, I had only tried outAssassin’s Creed Odysseyby using the female protagonist of Kassandra. For this session, I decided to mix things up and try out Alexios and I can now say with confidence that I love them both. In the end, the writing for both characters is the exact same so it stands to reason that as long as that element is good, which it is, then both characters would turn out well. What I was impressed with from both characters were the performances from the voice actors.
Alexios and Kassandra really remind me ofMass Effect’sShepard in the sense that no matter which version of the character you select to play, you’ll still have a great time. There’s really no “right” choice to be made when selecting who to play as and I’m still trying to decide who I’ll end up using in the full game.
3. Exploration Mode is the New Way to Play
Exploration Mode is one of the newest aspects ofAssassin’s Creed Odysseyand it encourages you to explore the world more than ever before. Rather than placing a mission waypoint on your HUD every time you receive a new quest, Exploration Mode gives you the freedom to find where to go on your own by giving you a rough outline of general directions. Most of the time this ends up being by way of cardinal directions in reference to other noteworthy landmarks on the map to indicate where you should head.
While it might sound more difficult to find out where to go, it’s really not at all. I never found myself getting lost even a little bit in my extended time withAssassin’s Creed Odyssey. Plus, whenever you get within a certain distance from where you need to be heading, your eagle will indicate that you’re close and will prompt you to take to the skies to find the specific area that you should head towards. This is the best new way to experienceAssassin’s Creed Odysseyand I cannot recommend it enough that you turn this mode on when you play.
4. New Mercenary System is Like the Nemesis System and It’s Awesome
Perhaps the most low-key addition toAssassin’s Creed Odysseyis that there’s a new mercenary system that feels like theACversion of the Nemesis System and I cannot stress enough just how cool it is. Throughout the world, random mercenaries will appear and will begin to hunt you down if you start to build up a bounty on yourself. In turn, there’s a hierarchy of mercenaries that you steadily climb up the more you defeat those that are ranked above you. Mercenaries will be scattered all over Greece and the more you kill, the more you’ll begin working towards becoming the top-ranked merc.
At the most insane moments during my demo, I was being attacked by three different mercenaries at once, each of which had vastly different abilities and builds. I was bouncing off of rooftops left and right trying to fend them all off. For the most part, mercenaries are randomly generated which means you’ll likely never seen any two that are similar to one another. This is a system that smartly expands upon what made the roaming Phylakes fromAssassin’s Creed Originsso great and adds a fun sort of metagame that will keep you hooked after completing the main story. I really think it’s going to be one of the most talked-about aspects ofOdysseyonce it releases.
5. Your Ship is More for Travel than Combat
This is something thatUbisoft has been saying a lot about in reference to the ship aspects ofAssassin’s Creed Odysseybut I felt it important to stress myself as well. If you’re expecting the naval portions ofOdysseyto play out in the same way as what was seen inBlack Flag, then lower those expectations. Your ship withinAssassin’s Creed Odysseyis a means of traveling throughout Greece first and foremost, though doing battle on the high seas is still an option even if it’s not the main purpose.
you may also still upgrade your ship over the course of the game to improve your hull, enhance your attack power, and even add some personal customizations. More than anything, your boat will act like a base of command throughoutOdysseyand will become your traveling home so feel free to make changes to it however you see fit.
6. New Combat Abilities Make Engagements Way More Fun
One of the biggest criticisms that I heard from many fans last year–and one of my own–withAssassin’s Creed Originswas that the combat got too stale. Even though each weapon in the game behaved differently, I agree that combat was a bit too one-note inOriginsand rarely prompted much experimentation.
Luckily,Odysseyis changing all of that by introducing the variety of new combat abilities that you can use when fighting foes. While it might seem like a simple addition to add moves like the Spartan Kick into the rotation, these abilities really do spice up combat and make every engagement far more interesting. What I really started enjoying the more I playedAssassin’s Creed Odysseywas figuring out how to combine different abilities with one another to either quickly take down one specific enemy or fight against larger hordes. There’s a lot of room to play around with these new abilities inOdysseyand I’m really looking forward to unlocking even more of these moves in the full game to see how they interact with one another.
7. Your Choices Really Do Matter
Outside of more narrative-driven experiences that you might find in a Telltale of Quantic Dream title, I find that making major choices in many games rarely matters. Regardless of what decisions you make in most games, more often than not you seem to be fed down the same path or NPCs don’t seem to regard you based on how you may have treated them in conversation.
One of the newest additions toAssassin’s Creed Odysseyis the ability to make your own choices both in terms of dialogue and wide-ranging plot decisions and all of these instances play a vital role. It took a few hours for me to make some initial decisions for me to see the ramifications of those choices but once I started to see my actions playing a major role in what was transpiring both on the large scale and personal connections around me then I started to realize how well Ubisoft has integrated this new element intoOdyssey. While I’m usually very skeptical of choices in games, especially those that are tacked on as a feature later in the series similar to whatOdysseyis doing, everything I’ve seen so far indicates to me that Ubisoft has handled this new addition incredibly well, especially for their first go-around.
8. Greece is Stunning and I Haven’t Even Seen Most of It
My goodness y’all, Greece is absolutely breathtaking. I think this new region has shown well in the trailers forAssassin’s Creed Odysseybut it’s a whole other thing once you’re playing in it. The sheer amount of color and variety within each landscape is stunning and made me even more happy that the series decided to make this trek to Greece.
What’s insane is that I think my demo only took showed me 5%-10% of the full game and there are still so many new regions I’m looking forward to digging around. If you’ve been on the fence about investing in one of the premium consoles or a high-end PC to play in 4K, this is one I would absolutely suggest making the jump for.
9. I Can’t Believe How FunnyOdysseyIs
This is something thatAssassin’s Creed Odyssey’sCreative Director Jonathan Dumont stressed to me in a recent interview, and he was absolutely correct – this game is incredibly funny. While the overall story arc is just as dramatic as you might expect, Ubisoft has mixed in far more levity this time around to make for an experience that will put a smile on your face more than you would think.
In retrospect,Originswas pretty lighthearted and funny in its own right but that playfulness in the dialogue has been dialed way up withOdyssey. Not only that, but there were some downright ridiculous moments in these opening hours than had me legitimately laughing out loud. What’s best about this more laid back, funny tone thatOdysseyhas is that it doesn’t interfere with the moments when things need to take a serious turn. Ubisoft has found a good balance here between both tones and I’m looking forward to playing that much more because of how funnyOdysseyproved to be in my own demo.
10. This Game is Really, Really Big
If you’re a completionist like me and are looking to see all thatAssassin’s Creed Odysseyhas to offer, then I suggest you don’t plan on playing anything else this Fall. Last year’s release ofOriginswas already massive in its own right and was a game that I kept coming back to for nearly two months consistently but it pales in comparison to the sheer size and amount of content thatOdysseyoffers.
Not only is the game world itself bigger than that of Egypt, the number of missions, contracts, and other activities to do are staggering and will easily keep you busy for well over one hundred-plus hours. Good luck to you if you attempt to juggle this alongside many of the Fall’s other open world releases simultaneously.
Assassin’s Creed Odysseyis set to release next month on October 5 for PS4, Xbox One, and PC. If you’d like to snag your copy now, you canhead over to Amazon and lock in your pre-order.
