Assassins Creed Origins (PS4 Pro)
After years of annual sequels without logical progression from one to the next due to the long tail of development cycles Ubisoft finally reset the franchise with AC Origins which looks back at the beginning of the brotherhood of assassins while finally utilising the most sought after enviroment requested by fans, Egypt.
While Origins can be seen as a reset point for Ubisofts money making machine in reality what has been served up is a highly iterated take on the existing series, elements from previous titles are polished almost to perfection and all the usual Ubisoft open world elements pop up in staggering numbers. Once you are a handful of hours deep into Bayak's journey it becomes obvious how fucking insanely huge a patch of Egypt has been developed for you to play in. The sheer amount of points of interest, side missions and ambient wildlife/enemies/etc is absolutely unmatched in video games, most impressive of all is how well integrated they are into the play area which creates an immersive experience. I can't think of any more technologically sound title in recent memory, animation and scripting are quite astounding for such detailed areas on this scale.
Visually it's right up there with Horizon and The Witcher 3, lighting/textures/etc are all fantastic and the day night cycle (along with AI cycles for wildlife/enemies) does make for a lot of magical moments. Frame rate on PS4 Pro was really good with minimal noticeable dips and a crisp image. HDR implementation took some rejiggering of TV settings which is disapointing but moments at dawn/dusk really looked amazing, along with fire being the usual Ubisoft standard (recommend finding fire bows/swords for maxiumum enjoyment).
Gameplay progression is bog standard. Run main missions where you kill some people and/or use your drone hawk to spot important items to pickup. Rinse repeat. Not a huge amount of variety in terms of how you finish missions, although the beats along the way are always varied enough to make the journey to the final kill/item fun in the moment. The combat loop harkens back to the AC1 days and definitely feels like a best of compilation, showing how the team took the good stuff and discarded the bad. Lots and lots of weapons and abilities available so there shouldn't be anyone who misses out on their favourite load out, you'll very quickly fall into a playstyle though I expect. Boats and horses/camels handle well, would be great if there was an option for horses to travel faster just to the insane size of the world but the copious amount of fast travel towers eleviates that slightly.
Story is a real mixed bag to look at, the character interactions and dialogue is generally great and the overall plot is interesting but they only ever scratch the surface of character conflicts and don't delve down deeper into anyone which is really disapointing. It's a big step in the right direction compared to previous AC games treating characters as vehicles but with a lot of games investing gamers in characters much better these days it was definitely a sore point for me. Bayek and Aya are 3 dimensional characters but a lot of their internal comflicts are moved away from very quickly sometimes only with short cutscenes taking the place of emotional development which should have a larger impact on things. Aya is especially under utilised, having control of her for only short sections of the game without any emotional development. For such a HUGE character in the AC universe I can't help but wonder what was left on the cutting room floor and hope she gets a Lost Legacy style expansion/sequel, as it could be something really special. Bayek himself has the time to show off his range of emotions but never lingering long enough in any to show the impacts of his life and lifestyle on him. For a man who has lost everything, given everything and been taken for everything I expected to end up with a more rounded image of him rather than what felt like a hazy image through the fog showing the broad strokes but not the scars and pock marks of the Medjay life.
Oh yeah the modern day stuff! Barely tacked on, completely forgetable. Potentially a great little tie in but without much meat to it plus it really did feel tacked on. A few things that were said didn't match up with what I'd seen/played so far with Bayek and the twist at the end fell flat in the context of how you just kept doing the same thing as before. Really odd.
So yeah. Definitely recommend if you want to muck around in Egypt.
As a vacation simulator I expect it would be the closest thing to actually going to Egypt. The amount of detail in each area, tomb, town is quite mind blowing. I really loved going through the temples and seeing all the cool shit I'd read about and obsessed over as a kid. Definitely impressive.
Fairly lengthy expedition as you canter around most of the map for the main missions. The story pulls you along pretty well without dropping your attention.
4 stars, play on a big fancy TV
