Expectations are unavoidable, and for gaming companies they must certainly be managed. If the hype outruns the marketing, or the expectations of the audience misfire, it can affect the reception of a game in unexpected ways. The reason I start this review by mentioning expectations is that I believe that if Assassins Creed: Odyssey had different expectations it would have gone down as one of the greatest games of all time and would be hailed as a legendary RPG. It was well received, but due to its Assassins Creed heritage, it’s reception refracted through a lens of expectation and it got marked down by its own community for diluting the “Assassin’s Creed” experience. If Ubisoft dropped the “Assassin’s Creed” and went with “Odyssey”, marketing it as a new RPG from the makers of Assassin’s Creed, it would have been stripped of its expectation to be an Assassin’s Creed title and I truly believe that it would inhabit the same sphere as Skyrim, Elden Ring or The Witcher 3; it would be in the uppermost echelon of RPG’s.
I know those are some huge claims, but if we line Odyssey up alongside RPG heavy hitters, I truly believe it holds its own in more ways than one. I’ll start with the world, Odyssey takes place in Ancient Greece; it is absolutely gorgeous and not only is it huge, providing you with huge sweeping vistas to look across while you traverse the road as a mercenary, It is teeming with life: Civilians go about their day-to-day activities, transporting pottery, carving wood, mining salt or clay as well as engage in recreational activities such as Greek wrestling or day drinking. It is a simply incredible backdrop for your adventures, the towns are all varied and have their own industries, you will come across fishing villages, salt mines and vast pastoral lands; villages surrounded by golden fields of grain, and yes, you can walk through them with your hand delicately held out, skimming the tops of the stalks just like Russell Crowe did in Gladiator. It’s simply awe inspiring, as well as the vast mainland of Greece to explore, there is plenty of ocean, ocean that isn’t empty, but filled with shipwrecks to explore plenty of picturesque Greek islands brimming with content. Alongside all the landscapes, towns and oceans there are many Greek temples to explore, filled with statues, ceremonies and priests. As always, Ubisoft have done their research and everything is portrayed as historically accurate as possible, it’s a tremendous leap back into the past. “Discovery Mode” first introduced in AC: Origins makes a comeback, so even non-gamers can experience the incredibly immersive world of ancient Greece. Odyssey provides the player with an absolutely stunning world to explore.
The main story will take you through most of the map, however to explore its many regions and all of its islands, you will need to do a lot of your own wayfaring to see all that is has to offer. The story was designed to mimic a Greek tragedy, although unlike other AC games this is mostly up to the player, you can make choices that change the outcome of the story, nothing too drastic when compared to games like Mass Effect or Dragon Age, but for an action RPG there are more than a few player choices that can lead to different outcomes. I
made reckless choices, and my version of Alexios became brash and temperamental, a true Spartan hothead. I won’t spoil anything, but to put it simply I arguably got a bad ending, but it was on brand for an epic Greek Tragedy, which is what I was aiming for. If you make better choices and represent a more rounded Alexios (or Kassandra) you can have a much more wholesome story, again it’s up the player; you really can choose your own Odyssey.
Outside of the main story, there is a lot of content to explore, even the tutorial island of Kephalonia could take you up to 5 or 6 hours if you wanted to fully complete it. Once you do get off the tutorial island, you are set free in Ancient Greece. You can hunt down cultists, (essentially proto-templars), there a lot of these cultists, and while the main story has you assassinate a small percentage of them, the rest you will need to hunt down yourself. As well as hunting down cult members there is an entire civil war you can get involved in, you are able to take part in huge battles for either Sparta or Athens, outside of these battles you can contribute to the war effort by infiltrating bases to assassinate leaders, burn grain supplies, steal weapons and a whole host of other options that will weaken the faction in control of that region, this will speed up the process of the invasion, but without your input or not, these regions will change hands. You are not the only mercenary either, other mercenaries roam the world, and another fun side activity is trying to climb the mercenary rankings by hunting down and killing those of a higher rank, these same mercenaries can also hunt you down if you end up with a price on your head. You can also fight these mercenaries in the arena, and you might also encounter them on the battlefield, paid by the opposing army to fight for them in the same way that you have
All of this and I haven’t even mentioned the actual side missions, of which there are a lot. If I was to mark down Odyssey down for one thing it would be the sheer amount of content, there are a staggering amount of side missions and this can make the game feel a bit bloated, however if you disengage with completionist tendencies, and do side missions when it’s convenient for you they are great filler, they have dialogue and sometimes will play into the main story, and they’re a great way of exploring the world as these missions will take you on escapades across land and sea. My favourite strand of side missions by far are the boss battles such as the Nemean Lion or the Erymanthian boar, as well as the other labours of Hercules. Alongside the handcrafted side missions there is also an endless amount of procedurally generated side quests, but these are side missions presented in their watered down, most basic form: kill five of these enemies, kill this person, fetch this thing, protect me, deliver this thing here. These can be skipped, however the fact that they’re procedurally generated and fully voiced means that no matter where you are on the map, there is always a quest giver nearby, and because the game will never stop generating them, there is theoretically an infinite amount of content, although these
smaller generated missions will wear a bit thin quite quickly, but they’re useful got getting some extra funds. Again, if I was to mark Odyssey down for one thing it would be the bloat, but if you just take the game slowly and accept that you most likely will not see every side mission, and just enjoy the ones that you stumble across, they fill out the game wonderfully.
Between the handcrafted side missions, the mercenary system, the Greek civil war and the Cult Of Kosmos, there are a huge amount of things to get lost in alongside the main quest; the amount of content truly is epic in scale, and the map on which you can do it really does make you feel like you are experiencing your own Odyssey. Traversing this map between missions is easy, the movement feels fluid and the parkour is a lot less aggravating than past AC titles (although there is less of an emphasis on parkour in this game, so it’s hard to compare directly) and you have a horse, which can be magically summoned with a whistle button, you have your very own trireme, that can be upgraded and customised, fand of course in classic AC style, you can fast travel to discovered viewpoints. So, whilst the map is huge, you never feel marooned, or that you need to trek to get somewhere, it’s a game that despite its size still respects the players time, this game only feels bloated if you allow it to.
In between travelling and questing you will be doing a lot of fighting, the combat system further distances itself from its Assassin’s Creed heritage by implementing a more action RPG combat system first seen in Origins, its predecessor. Gone is the instant kill button present in earlier Assassins creed titles, enemies have health, and you will need to block, dodge and roll whilst dishing out combos of light and heavy attacks. To supply all this pain, you have a choice between spears, swords, axes, maces and daggers, each provides a different style of combat so there is a lot of variation in how a player can approach a combat situation.
Combat is further complemented and diversified by the players distribution of skills; for the first time ever in an Assassins Creed game there is a skill tree. It can be boiled down to three distinct playstyles: Ranged, Stealth and Combat, so while not as deep as skill trees in other RPG’s it provides players with a nice amount of options when it comes to building a character, you can focus on sticking to your Assassin’s Creed roots and focus on a stealth build, using daggers and subterfuge to clear out enemy bases, or you could embrace a more classic RPG approach: tankiness and a huge axe to batter enemies into submission whilst they feebly attempt to tear down your high level armour stat.
The skill trees, action-oriented combat, huge map and side content are all ingredients for an incredible RPG. Not to mention the dazzling amount of customisation, there are hundreds of different weapons and armour that not only have different stats, but different
aesthetics as well, so you end up with this incredibly personalised Greek warrior in a huge game world filled with missions and activities. In fact, almost too many activities, if you embrace the fact that you won’t see everything and you just do the missions you find on your way instead of trying to complete everything, you will reduce burnout and you will end up with a unique odyssey in every playthrough, which is what Ubisoft intended. Again, it must be stated that, it is fundamentally not an “Assassin’s Creed” game in the classic sense of the word, apart from the proto-templars and the logo this is essential an action RPG set in ancient Greece and if that’s’ what you go in expecting, then it perfectly encapsulates that experience. Although it must be noted that on rare occasions you will be transported back to the modern world outside of the animus, which only ruins the pace of the fabulous RPG that Ubisoft have created here. If you’re looking for a classic Assassins Creed game, then this isn’t it, however if you’re looking for an epic RPG, with good combat, customisation and a large, beautiful world filled with content, then this game a is an absolute must buy.
