Welcome to our review in progress of Assassin's Creed: Origins. Having received PC code Tuesday afternoon, I haven't spent nearly enough time in the sprawling Egyptian setting to render a verdict just yet—and we're preparing a full performance review as well—but here are some thoughts on the opening dozen or so hours to consider in the meantime.
'New location discovered: Siwa', the text on the screen reads, just as my NPC companion, a longtime friend, says "Welcome home." The NPC proceeds to fill me in on the recent and dire circumstances in Siwa (I will soon discover another 'new' location—the house I own and live in), delivering the news while brutally trampling several pedestrians and one braying donkey under the hooves of the camel he's riding. This occurs after the opening of Assassin's Creed: Origins, which begins with a fight (interrupted halfway through by a cutscene) during which my enemy charges full speed at me and then stops, standing completely motionless for several seconds, before swinging his weapon.
Yes, Assassin's Creed: Origins is most definitely an Assassin's Creed game, with all the enjoyment (sneaky stabbing and beautiful scenery), oddities (the game's opening titles come up during my fifth hour of play), and perplexing design choices (you're welcomed to the game by having to spend 20 minutes in the most boring cave imaginable) that brings.
I'm having good fun. I'm also occasionally shaking my head in exasperation. But at this point it's a sort of fond exasperation, like the mom in a paper towel commercial when little Timmy has spilled grape juice all over the kitchen floor. She should be annoyed, probably, because he does this pretty much every year and he should really know better by now, but it's Timmy! It's hard to stay mad at that little scamp. That's where I'm at with Assassin's Creed: Origins at the moment.
Thank you, ancient Egypt: not only are you a beautiful and mesmerizing setting for a game, but you also don't have a lot of tall buildings (with the exception of, y'know, a couple pyramids). Assassin's Creed's trademark activity, having you endlessly clamber up and down the sides of buildings, is reduced by about 75% in Origins over past games, and thank fuckin' Ra for that. Climbing in AssCreed hasn't felt fresh or novel in ages, and I found it immensely tiresome in Assassin's Creed: Syndicate. Mostly, I get around by camel or horse, and that's way better than just pointing the mouse up and holding down the space bar.
Stealth is still fun: whistling at a guard while hiding in a bush, then neck-stabbing the dope when he walks over to investigate, even though I've just done the same thing to 4 of his coworkers, will never get old. Combat feels trickier this time around, requiring well-timed dodges, strikes, and power-strikes, and mobs will really mob the hell out of you, as Tom pointed out in his preview. I'm approaching crowds as I would in a Far Cry game: picking off as many strays as I can with stealthy or ranged kills and only going toe-to-toe when I have to.
Which is why I'm loving the predator bow and the unlockable skill for it that lets you steer your arrow, in slow-motion, after you've launched it. It's great for headshots on moving targets, for hitting enemies obscured by cover, and for firing into the mouth of an enraged rogue hippo when it's chasing your boat.
I'm also in completely in love with my pet eagle, which is always circling overhead (if you stop and stand still it will even perch on your forearm). You can use it for scouting, to tag enemies and animals for crafting resources, to spot targets and objectives, hidden entrances, and even treasure chests. You can even unlock a skill to have it harass one of your targets during combat, which will distract them enough to give you the upper hand.
If you're only going to magically see through the eyes of one large bird this year, make Assassin's Creed: Origins' eagle, whose name I've forgotten.
I just looked it up, and it's Senu. Good bird, Senu.
And there have already been a few wonderful free-form infiltration missions. For the first few hours you really only tackle small enemy outposts, camps, and buildings, plus engage in some random street combat, and then the game abruptly tasks you with sneaking into the sprawling palace in Alexandria to acquire some information on a target. It was great fun, suddenly being in a real sandbox with dozens of guards to bamboozle or neck-stab, the kind of mission you feel in no way prepared for until you realize, oh yeah, you totally are.
The pacing of Origins, in terms of leveling your character, felt just about perfect in its first eight hours or so. I made my way through the first handful of assassinations while completing a smattering of side missions and doing some free-form exploring, and I always seemed to be just the right level to continue the main story when I wanted to.
Now, however, opening up the next handful or main quest targets, I find myself several levels too low to tackle the first, which means taking on a heap of side-quests first. Most of the side-quests have been fine so far, not always super engaging but no real stinkers. But now that they're essentially mandatory to progress, it's suddenly feeling like a bit of a level grind.
You can, of course, use what Ubisoft is calling "Time Savers": trade in Helix points (either earned in-game or bought outright with cash) to buy everything from crafting supplies to gear packs to ability points to in-game currency. I'm not feeling it's necessary by any means: I'm still keen to explore the massive map on my own and level up a bit between targets, but now I feel like I'm counting XP until the next level instead of just romping around for fun.
The Abstergo plot is back, of course, which I can't get on board with personally (I've always found it nonsensical and needlessly intrusive), though the two sequences (thus far) have been blessedly short (though still bad).
I'm getting a good performance with my Nvidia GeForce 980 GTX, with most settings on high or very high, and I'm typically nabbing around 40-70 fps. I've had one crash to desktop in about 12 hours of play, which is better than, say, 12 crashes, but not as good as, say, zero.
So, I'm mostly having fun with Origins at the point, with a few reservations. In the coming days I'll have a full review posted, and you can expect a comprehensive performance analysis soon as well.
Also, yeah, there is an expensive Heka Chest for sale at one vendor, which contains a 'mystery item'. I suppose that chest is a box and that item is loot. I guess you could call it a loot box. I could not afford it and felt no need to buy it.
