Assassin's Creed Odyssey is the biggest Assassin's Creed game I have ever played. It's also the best Assassin's Creed game I have ever played. As somebody who usually only has a few hours before bed to play video games, I spent quite a few nights staying up late and hating life the next day just to progress further in the game. I think when all was said and done, I'd spent about 93 hours of my life clearing quests and hunting cultists from one side of the Greek world to the other. To the casual gamer and people who don't game, 93 hours seems a bit excessive (for comparison I logged 87 hours into The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim back in 2011), but I assure you that it was time well spent, and here's why . . .
When one thinks of Assassin's Creed, they usually think of a story that started out intriguing, got sort of intense, and then ultimately ended up going nowhere (to where it still seems to be going). What made that rollercoaster tolerable was the historic settings and the - usually tragic - lives of the protagonists found throughout the animus. The trouble with that was that even those stories weren't always that interesting. While you can certainly make a case for the Ezio Trilogy and Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag being amazing games, all of the others had pacing and technological issues. Even 2017's Assassin's Creed Origins - though a beautiful game - had its fair share of issues, especially in terms of storytelling. One thing they did do right last time around, however, was reincorporate the modern day setting, which Ubisoft seemed to put on the back burner over the past few entries. Assassin's Creed Odyssey's modern story picks up with the same character, Layla Hassan, still fleeing from the Templars and now part of the Brotherhood of the Assassin's. Do the modern bits push the story a whole forward at all? No, not really. Is it still interesting? Yeah, I would say so. Through Layla, you learn what the Assassins have been up to in the years since the demise of Desmond Miles and the release of the benevolent, self-proclaimed gods from the Abstergo mainframe. While Odyssey ends with a touching scene between Layla and the game's historical protagonist(s) Alexios or Kassandra, it still doesn't expand the mythology in terms of the bigger picture. The odyssey, though, is an entirely different story, and it's one that feels complete for what might be the first time ever in this franchise.
In Assassin's Creed Odyssey, you play as either Alexios or Kassandra, an amateur mysthios (mercenary) from the Greek island of Kephalonia. As soon as the game starts you're thrown into action, thanks to your friend (and mentor?) Marcus, who instead of paying back money he owed to a local thug, spent it on a vineyard. This, in turn, gets Alexios into some trouble that ends up being the catalyst for his journey. There are so many elements to the story, but here's a quick rundown that I'll try to keep as free of spoilers as I can. There's a group of powerful individuals controlling the Greek world called the Cult of Cosmos. One of them shows up on Kephalonia to employ the services of Alexios. What does he want? He wants to send Alexios to kill his own father, The Wolf of Sparta. From there, Alexios discovers that his mother is still alive, and the cult is after her. The cult is also using his sister, Kassandra, to do their bidding. What is their obsession with this family? They have the blood of Leonidas running through their veins, and that gives them abilities far beyond those of an average human. Though they never go into detail about how Leonidas obtained his spear (which contains technology from the first civilization) or how they came to possess the powers they have, the spear is passed down to your character, and you're charged with upgrading it in order to fill your stats.
The rest of the story is broken up into three main quests. The main quest-line of the game is your odyssey, which revolves around finding the members of your family and getting them all back together (assuming your choices throughout the game don't result in their deaths). The second quest is the hunt for the Cult of Cosmos. Once Alexios (or Kassandra) infiltrates the cult meeting, finds the artifact they have and meets their sibling (whoever you chose not to play as), this quest-line opens up. This one takes a lot of time, which is fine because a majority of the places where you find the cult members can't be easily traversed without being a higher level. Other cult members you encounter just by doing the side-quests. Take my advice, and do the side-quests. I'll get back to that in a minute, though. The third quest-line is the one involving the artifacts that need to be returned to Atlantis. This is where Greek mythology meets science-fiction. After meeting your biological father in Atlantis, he tasks you with hunting down four artifacts that are allegedly the key to understanding the knowledge left behind by the first civilization. These can't be done (easily) at least until level 35. So, again, I highly recommend doing the side-quests. After defeating the Minotaur, a Cyclops, a Sphinx, and a Gorgon, you return to Atlantis only to discover something that could change the course of the Assassin's Creed games forever, Make sure you complete these quest-lines in this order (Odyssey, Cult, Atlantis) because the game's true ending comes after the Atlantis quests, and even then, it doesn't really end. At least not in the bow-on-top way that Origins ended. I imagine it's because of the add-ons they're planning on releasing over the course of 2019.
Let's talk about gameplay. All of the things that needed further refining in Assassin's Creed Origins has been smoothed out. The progression system, while still very linear, allows you to pick from three different gameplay styles, depending on how you're used to playing Assassin's Creed games. For example, there are three different categories that you can fill out stats for. One of them is stealth oriented, one is focused on fighting, the other is for hunting and more technical skills. If you don't want to focus on any one category in particular, you mix and match. However, I must warn you that certain skills in certain categories can make the game a lot easier or a lot more challenging. Then there's the fact that each skill requires your spear to be a certain level to unlock. How these two things got tied together, I'm not exactly sure, but to gain higher spear levels, you have to hunt down the Cult of Cosmos members and obtain their pieces of the artifact. If I remember correctly, you only have to upgrade your spear five levels before being able to max out certain skills and abilities. On the flip-side of the upgrade coin is the weapon and armor system. Your weapons not only increase your damage, they also give you added perks, depending on what you're using them for, and even more perks can be gained through engraving your weapons with the different options supplied by blacksmiths throughout the game. The same goes for the armor. It took me a while to figure out the engraving system, but the perks they provide your armor can make you a beast in the right scenarios.
I want to briefly talk about the side-quests. Like most of the Assassin's Creed games that came before, this game has enough side-quests to well outrun the hours you'll spend playing through the three main quests. However, unlike your standard role playing games, Assassin's Creed Odyssey actually encourages you to play the side-quests by making regions level specific, sort of like they did in Origins. If you don't want to do the side-quests, you can purchase experience points from the Xbox Marketplace. The same can be said for the map. If you don't want to take the time to go exploring, you can buy a pack that will fill in all of the things your map might be missing. I want to discourage you from doing this, because this game has so much in it that is so great. None of the side-quests felt unnecessary. Each character you encounter in this world is genuinely engaging or crazy enough to hold your interest. Some of them are your standard hunt this down and kill this person type of quest and others take a very dark turn. There's also plenty of opportunity for romance, and though sleeping your way through these quests can shorten the game time, that tactic feels somewhat unfulfilling. And if you play the story-arcs involved in the side-quests to completion, it can yield rewards or friends who might choose to become part of your crew or give you entrance to places that you couldn't easily access before.
Another thing that was brought back in Assassin's Creed Odyssey is naval combat. While the entries that came before this tried so hard to recreate the combat system that made Black Flag so magical, they always fell short. This time, they hit the mark. Keep in mind that there aren't any cannons in this, so it requires a little more effort sink enemy vessels, but it is so much fun. You can upgrade your ship to strengthen the hull for ramming, install fire pits for flaming arrows, and you can even customize the cosmetics to make you the most feared crew on the sea. If boarding ships is more your style, rather than just destroying them, they brought back the boarding mechanics, so choose your crew wisely. You might also want to take caution when choosing your generals, because each person you meet throughout the world that allows you the option of making them part of your crew brings with them a perk of some kind. If worse comes to worst, though, there's nothing more satisfying then using the Spartan kick to send an enemy flailing into the ocean to either drown or get eaten the by the many sharks swimming in those waters.
I don't think I've said many negative things about this game, but it does have some. First, however, let me highlight or reexamine the good. This is the most compelling story an Assassin's Creed game has ever had. I was genuinely engaged in all of the characters and quests. I wanted to uncover every inch of this world and see everything. That's the first time I've ever felt that way about any game in this franchise. I always tell people that Assassin's Creed is fun because it's mind numbing. This game is fun because it immerses you in a world and holds you there until you put the controller down. The gameplay is smooth, and though it has several bugs, which I will discuss in a minute, there wasn't any point where it felt repetitive or tiresome. While I loved exploring the tombs in Assassin's Creed Origins, the tomb exploration in Odyssey felt a lot better, and though the snakes are still annoying, it's quite enjoyable to throw a torch at them or hit them with a flaming arrow. Above everything else in this game, the game itself is absolutely beautiful. Every valley, every city, every mountaintop is rendered in a wide variety of colors that bring an element of realism to the game that I've seen in little else. The weapon and armor system feel leagues better than that of Origins. I also appreciate how Ubisoft listened to the fans and now allows you to remove stats from one set of armor and place it on another. I'll be honest, the demigod armor you get after facing your sibling, while very strong, is really ugly. But I didn't find anything better for several hours after getting that, and when you upgrade it, it's still one of the strongest sets of armor you have. So it feels silly not to wear it. Now I can take those stats and put them on an armor set that actually looks cool.
As for negative things, I will start by saying that there were far too many cult members to track down for an "ending" that wasn't all that satisfying. Even after you complete the odyssey and all of the side-quests, there are still several that you have to track down clues to find. Once you get the clues, it turns out they're not actually hiding They're out in the open, but they won't show up on the map until the clues are found. This is probably the only part of the game that felt monotonous.
I know many will probably disagree with me on this, but I wasn't a huge fan of the mercenary system. This was something that was introduced in Origins, and was also annoying in that game. If they limited how many mercenaries came after you to one, that would be fine, but anytime there's a bounty on your head, you can be confronted by several, which is unfortunate, considering some of the odyssey quests require you to kill individuals who are practically swarmed by mercenaries. They also talk a lot of crap. Other than the mercenary system and the cultist hunt, the game does have quite a few bugs. I even went online to make sure it wasn't just me that was experiencing them. I played on an Xbox One, so I'm not sure if it happened on other systems, but here's a rundown of what I experienced. There were times when you would be drawn into cut-scenes and enemies would attack you during those cut-scenes, resulting in your death the moment you regain control of your character. There was also an issue of having my character completely disappear except for his armor whenever I chose to change his armor. This didn't happen all of the time, but it was frequent enough to make a note of it. Then there's the game freezing altogether. This always happened at moments when the audio was becoming intense (or louder), the game would freeze up while my television made a groaning sound. After a few seconds of this, it would just go back out to the title screen. This happened at least once each time I played.
To close the complaint section out, I suppose, as mentioned above, I would have liked an actual ending. The ending from completing the Atlantis quest-line was cool and unexpected, but like all of the other games that came before this one, it just opens more boxes instead of closing existing ones. SPOILER: And while they did bring back the modern protagonist of Layla Hassan, they didn't really give any indication of what she wanted or what she planned on doing with the trident given to her by Alexios. The game was amazing, but there wasn't much at the end in terms of closure. I'm hoping this is because of the planned DLC installments, the first of which is available now.
Overall, Assassin's Creed Odyssey is a beautiful game and that casts a very large shadow over its predecessors. The role playing mechanics they introduced in Origins feel more refined and motivating. The side-quests were immersive and interesting. The exploration was well worth the time it took. Ubisoft did an incredible job with this one. I'm hoping to see more of Alexios and Layla in the planned add-ons, which will be releasing in installments over the course of 2019. Allegedly the franchise is going to be taking another year off (except for the add-ons) and return in 2020 with something special. If the changes made the last time they took a year off are any indication, the future looks good. The only thing that would make the future even brighter for this franchise is a direction for the story, in both past and present narratives. I say this whenever I review one of these games: Ubisoft needs to make up their minds and take the story somewhere. It feels like we've been going in circles since 2007's Assassin's Creed. I don't know if it's a fear of the franchise ending or too much focus being put on future entries, but it needs a direction. Assassin's Creed Odyssey isn't perfect, but it's definitely a step forward.
Reviewed By: Josh Pederson
Played On: Xbox One
Score: 9/10
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