In light of that new mount... just to confirm, there's no way to earn Helix credits in-game, is there?
Two things to note here:
1) Helix Credits can be found in the Nomad chests sometimes (the "loot boxes" that cost 3000 drachma). Good money dump at end game.
2) Helix store items, including the new mount and armour, can also be found in these Nomad chests, so you don't even need Helix credits anyway.
I'm really happy about this implementation. Not only are real-money purchases for exactly the items you want (rather than for gambling crates), but the gambling crates are only available with in-game gold. You can however buy in-game gold with real world money, so it's not quite perfect and might still end up catching a few people bad with their money in a "just one more" loop, but it's nice to see a loot crate implementation that isn't chasing whales at the expense of regular gamers. No one is missing out on items here if they don't want to pay more for the game than the cost of entry. And those who don't want to support the game with more money get to buy exactly the items they want from the online store (rather than only being able to buy gamble crates).
Here's one of me being rewarded for testing out the systemic elements like fire.
Holy crap that's amazing. I'd never even thought of trying this, but I've regularly thrown torches around to cause distractions and move guards around a bit.
Also, you know how some guards on horseback seem incredibly clumsy when they charge through towns? One of them knocked over an oil pot down a city street yesterday and set fire to a woman's store front. The NPCs on either side of her store freaked out and ran away, while the woman who owned the store started screaming, ran
towards the fire, crouched down, and started throwing sand on it with her hands to put it out.
THIS GAME.
I'm about to start playing any tips and tricks for ya boi?
One thing to strongly consider is rushing the main quest up to the point you get the hidden blade. It's very early on in the story so won't take you long, but if you're a completionist you won't consider doing that naturally. You'll want to explore every single map marker on route. The reason I highly recommend doing this and
then exploring is because without the blade your "assassinations" are non-lethal, which annoyingly means you can't pick up and move the bodies around afterwards without first breaking stealth to kill them with your main weapon. So stealthy playstyles are much harder before getting the blade. The other benefit of focusing on the store until this point is that you meet a key character, learn a lot more about Bayek and what his motivation is, and so everything you do feels a lot more grounded.
Without spoilers....
Part time fan of the series, hopped out after the travesty that was ending Desmond's story in 3. Is this worth getting invested back, from a lore perspective? I'll endure wonky mechanics and subpar technicalities if it means enjoying and reinvesting in a rich narrative. It's been the only thing keeping me away since 3, the step away from the modern day going ons and little forward movement. It's my greatest love of the movie, we finally got a modern day story and plenty of it.
So I'm in the minority here, but I'm loving the modern day section in Origins. Like you I haven't enjoyed modern sections since 3, and I feel it's essential to tying the series' overarching story together. However, to really enjoy it you HAVE to enjoy sleuthing through emails and exploring nooks and crannies like you did in AC1. There is a whole lot of info to uncover in the modern day section, mostly about who the new modern protag is, and if you're the kind of player who expects to have that info served on a platter rather than scouring for that info yourself and piecing together the clues, then you won't enjoy it. If you enjoyed AC1's modern day sections though, then this will probably be right up your street. It's similar to that, in that it's a small area (so far at least, still playing) and is more about providing info and context than robust gameplay in a modern era. But even AC2 and 3 were still very barebones modern sections when it came to gameplay, so I assume you'll be okay with that. Also, if you enjoyed the modern section of the movie, the modern protag will definitely appeal to you, but I won't go into why ;)
One other thing, without going into specifics, there's info on the modern protag's laptop that concretely confirms that Watch Dogs and AC are the same universe. That's awesome news for this series, demonstrating Ubisoft's commitment to a future that includes both of these IP.
