Sand, ships and stabbings at the EGX preview of Assassin's Creed Origins...
Assassin's Creed® Origins is a new beginning
Ancient Egypt, a land of majesty and intrigue, is disappearing in a ruthless fight for power. Unveil dark secrets and forgotten myths as you go back to the one founding moment: The Origins of the Assassin’s Brotherhood.
I went into Ubisoft’s latest open world stab'n'stealth game with expectations lower than ever. It’s not so much that I don’t like the Assassin’s Creed franchise, quite the contrary I’ve bought and played them all save for Chronicles, its just I really don’t like Ubisoft.
They are, in my opinion, utterly devoid of empathy or understanding towards their audience but boy oh boy do they love their audience’s wallets. But what’s perhaps even worse than being money-grubbing business bastards is that they seem to have implemented an assembly line, copy and paste approach to their game design. There’s nothing that will rile me up worse than lazy design, especially when you have as big a budget as Ubisoft plays around with. And while elements like narrative, motion capture and level design are all things that are consistently great in the AC series, time and again they are marred by this repetitive template.
I’m talking about the collectibles that have no basis in the story or the characters. I’m talking about the same secret vault holding another suit of fabled armour. I’m talking about the same red zones that need to be cleared to gain control of yet another city district. The international cast that all exclusively speak English with a sprinkling of phrases from that year's Lonely Planet guidebook. These are the repetitive mechanics and details that the series is mired in, much the same way that the insane business-model of DLC packages haven’t changed under Ubisoft’s command. You can argue that these are the tropes, the cornerstones of the franchise but when was the last time an Assassin’s Creed game actually changed or surprised you?
"Jacob, just put on the hood. You look like a right prick."
Well, Origins might do that.
I only had a chance to play a short burst at EGX and while it didn’t afford me a broad view of the game it did reveal some, and you’ll want to sit down for this… changes! The Setting
Starting off in the desert on the outskirts of a large port I was quickly faced with the dilemma of ‘Do I head to the mission waypoint that the demo was clearly structured around?’ or ‘Do I go full Skyrim and run vertically up a mountain and see what I can find?’
Disappointingly I did the former which in hindsight I regret, as it led to more or less a lot of the same Assassin’s Creedy things that you’d expect. Awkwardly trampling villagers, cutscene, cutscene and finally a target. But even from that string of events it was clear that the game has certainly expanded and I think the setting largely contributes to that.
Origins is the first entry in the franchise that has returned to the Middle East since the very first Assassin’s Creed! But we’re going back to a time long before Altair Ibn-La’Ahad (a Syrian protagonist?! Rounded out with depth and emotion?! See Ubisoft you did fresh design once before!).
Because of this the game has to focus less on the grand cities that have dominated Unity and Syndicate and look once more to the rolling sand dunes, blood red mountain ranges and crumbling ruins that exist in the wilderness. That’s not to say that the urban areas are any less impressive, you can always count on an Assassin’s Creed game to deliver on bustling streets and a vertical playground to run through. However, one thing that stood out more than any other part of the game’s visuals was the colour.
Perhaps it's because we’re coming off the back of the smoggy grey of Syndicate’s Victorian London but Egypt is beautifully colourful especially during the daylight hours that the demo fell within. Shining sands, sparkling blue waters and skies along with all the greenery that clings to the fertile Nile. Even with regards to character design and modelling, the detail on the Egyptian bling is brilliant and especially important considering Origins is introducing far more RPG-like customization for your character.
Story and Character
I honestly didn’t get much from the demo with regards to plot or character but the playable chap named Bayek was interestingly NOT an assassin, at least not to begin with. He is however, a medjay. That same group of Egyptian fellas that banded together with Brendan Fraser to fight the powers of early 00s CGI. But the game is set in the waning years of the Egyptian dynasties and it seems the elite medjay defenders of said dynasties are waning too. Bayek seemed to be either respected or disregarded by the various strata of society.
Gameplay
What I ended up exploring in the demo was a mission to spare a wrongly-sentenced man some nasty torturing at the hands of a priest dedicated to crocodile god Sobek. I had to hunt down the gold statuettes (probably available in the £899.99 ‘Assassin’s Creed Origins: I AM A GOD, KNEEL BEFORE MY COLLECTIBLES Edition of the game) that he’d been accused of stealing. One was in his shipwreck at the bottom of the Nile which was easy enough to locate, the other was in the possession of a swaggery arsehole striding about on a ship docked in the bay.
It was fairly evident what needed to happen to convince Captain Boss Fight to hand over the goods.
It begins with an ‘A’ and ends in ‘ssassination’. But as Ubisoft had been seen to be adopting inspiration from The Witcher 3’s quest design I thought I’d try and assassinate my target with a bit of the old medjay charm rather than medjay harm. And after I’d been run through with a spear I realized this game hadn’t quite followed the thoughtful and complex mission structures of The Witcher. At no point in the entire quest was there the ability to stray from that indomitable formula Ubisoft are so happy with. So, I killed him. But how did I kill him? Well that’s a story for another paragraph… Combat
This paragraph!
Well between being utterly unused to the controls of the Xbox I was demoing on and having no idea that I could switch weapons, killing Captain Maguffin-holder was a clumsy affair. I’m fairly certain I fell off the 100ft-long ship a number of times and I definitely saw that bitter desynchronization screen a fair few times. But when things were going swimmingly (in a more intentional fashion) I noticed a much greater emphasis placed on your skill with your weapons than a vast array of gadgets. Thankfully the ability to change from bow, to sword, to bow, to block, to sword was fluid and very very useful. I'll admit, there’re few things as satisfying as dodging an attacker and firing an arrow into the back of their head as they pass by. But by far my favourite addition to the arsenal of the assassins is Bayek’s personal drone support. Err, I mean air support. I mean bird. Bird support. Bird drone. Senu. SENU!
Senu is Bayek’s personal hawk and she’s a beaut. You can instantly switch to controlling Hawkdrone-8000 and peer down on the area from above, tagging enemies, loot and quest icons and just about waging modern warfare on the unsuspecting ancient past. The ability to plan out your attack has always been stressed in the series but now there's no need for tentatively peeking around walls or crates. Now you can fly over, clock any sentries and methodically plan out your kill shot instead of just winging it… winging it like a bird… because the bird has wings... wings.
No word yet on whether Far Cry Primal’s owl bombers or Starfox’s Falco will make appearances but hey, someone thought crossing over Assassin’s Creed and Final Fantasy made sense so go figure.
Returning to the priest and the unfortunate soul to have been caught in the cutscene with him, I handed over the statues only to be told that the Crocopriest had cooked up a number of other excuses to dish out some good old-fashioned religious abuse and that the statues wouldn’t change anything.
*sigh* See now, what was the point then in designing this sequence? I’d been drawn into a fight with the priest and his escorts that was inevitably going to happen whether or not I killed, spared, coerced or seduced my way to those statues. I have no qualms with a linear story, they’re often the ones that give us the best characters and plots, but in a world as rich and expansive as Origins seems AND the fact that games have changed to boast complex characters with complex mission designs, I can’t help but feel that the same sense of disappointment creeping in that I’ve felt before. A change in setting or character or signature weapon shouldn’t be enough to shout about in a sequel. Age-old franchises like Civilization, XCOM, Tomb Raider, Total War, Legend of Zelda even Mario have really started to push the envelope in ways that garner acclaim from critics and players alike. Come October 27th I want to see Origins introduce a mechanic or a new style of play that spins the series on its head. Show me a new era in the Assassin’s Creed franchise not just in the Assassin’s Creed story.
What's to Come
While typically Plug & Play focuses on the smaller indie gems of the gaming world, EGX afforded a look at some of the big titles soon to be released which will get similar coverage as the one above. But worry not indie gamers. I was fortunate enough to interview the developers of a few independent studios there on the scene at EGX which will be uploaded soon as well. As always, I plug what you should play.
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Tom MidgleyI play, design and write about games when I'm not hoping for someone to pay me to do these things. Archives
October 2017
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