I thoroughly enjoyed playing this game. As of the time of writing this review, I have about 3.5 days of playtime logged, including playing through both expansions. As much as I love 100% completing games, I did not manage to 100% this. I have many other games in the 'ol library that I still need to get to and not enough hours in the day! With that being said, I certainly didn't rush through the story mode and call it quits either. I have completed several dozen side quests as well. Many nights off after work were spent playing this game, so I view that as quite the compliment!

No need to play any of the other games in the series to understand what's going on, you just need to know that you're playing as one of the first Assassins in the world, before they were technically known as Assassins. In this case you form the first Brotherhood called The Hidden Ones. The present day plot line that you'll briefly see (which is thankfully mostly skippable) just involves basically the present day Assassin vs Templar global struggle. Your character enters a device called the Animus that allows them to relive the events of your ancestors, in this case Bayek of Siwa from Ancient Egypt.



This is the first Assassin's Creed game since the original to offer anything substantially different. The previous games all had their own unique additions and quirks, sure, but Origins moves the needle somewhere from open world action-adventure game to slightly deeper into RPG territory. It still preserves the open world-ness, but a lot of the parkour from the older games is gone sadly. At this point in the series, it has evolved to simply press A (or X on PlayStation) to "freerun up" or B (O on PlayStation) to "freerun down." As a fan of some of the acrobatic challenges in earlier Assassin's Creed titles and areas that were off limits until you unlocked new parkour moves (like double jump), this feels quite a bit dumbed down for me. It has literally devolved from the earlier games in this respect.



The graphics, like in most Ubisoft games, are just great to look at. It definitely helps the game a lot. The lighting and water are awesome to look at, and like in many of my other reviews, I definitely caught myself just looking around and exploring a lot. That's definitely something you want to hear about an open world RPG! If you are at all interested in ancient history, this game will be a treat (as are most of the other AC games) for any history buffs out there. Ubisoft seems to do quite a bit of research into how these various settings of their games must have looked, sounded, felt, etc in their time in the world. The world is very detailed with hieroglyphics, different monuments and statues, relics and landmarks that are still in existence today (like the Sphinx), and much more. I will however say that the random dialect that is uttered by the randomly generated NPCs that wander throughout the villages and buildings and such seems to be very limited, and I could hear everyone saying all of the same stuff all of the time. Maybe just some more variety in audio lines, or perhaps more context aware NPC behavior would make this a lot more immersive. Seems like the NPC tech hasn't really evolved too much. In cutscenes however, characters' faces and performances are getting more believable and are pretty detailed.



This is predominantly a single player game, but there are a few basic online tie-ins like avenging other players who have been killed in the game world, or participating in events where you face off against huge bosses.

In summary - I am definitely somewhat biased as I have played many many hours throughout the whole AC series - I would say that this game is a worthy purchase if you're a fan of combat, open world games, RPG elements (but still somewhat casual), leveling a character and crafting upgrades, and of course just a fan of the AC series in general.