Oh boy...This is the big one.
During E3 2017, we were fortunate to be part of a Ubisoft media booth tour, taking us across a whirlwind of titles over the course of a few hours. Among them; South Park: The Fractured But Whole, Far Cry 5, The Crew 2, and of course, Assassin’s Creed: Origins.
The Assassin’s Creed series is polarizing. Longtime fans of the series have yearned for a simpler title like Assassin’s Creed and its sequel were, while others prefer a more open adventure like Assassin’s Creed IV: Black Flag had with its naval adventures, and thousands of things to do. After taking a year off to re-evaluate the series, Ubisoft hopes to have found the answer to both pleas with the latest offering in the series, Assassin’s Creed: Origins.
Taking place in Egypt during the formation of the Assassin’s brotherhood, we got to play a short demo through the eyes of new main character Bayek, a member of the Medjah, a sort of police force in this society. The demo saw us interacting with many new characters, exploring new mechanics, and seeing the world that has been created at Ubisoft Montreal over the past four years.
I won’t lie, the game feels good. The new combat system which sees a shift from button mashing to more strategy based trigger and bumper (on controller) mechanics is a very welcome change. The new mechanics for movement and stealth work very well and the flying eagle you can call in to assist you blows my mind every time I see it. The abilities that little guy offers you are unparalleled and it’s a cool, unique twist on the experience. Being able to swim underwater and have underwater exploration factor into things is another key element that I really enjoyed.
The demo was running on an Xbox One X at 4K and 60PS. It looked incredible. The level of detail both far away and up close is unmatched in any 3rd person RPG to date on a console. When I asked if the experience would be similar across all platforms that have the same specifications, I wasn’t given a totally clear answer, but I would assume that yes, the experience across a higher end PC, a PS4 Pro, and Xbox One X will be quite similar with caveats made for the Xbox One, Xbox One S, PS4, and PS4 Slim here and there. This isn’t a bad thing, by any means, and I’m excited to see where the series goes visually from here.
While we couldn’t capture gameplay, you can check out some of the various E3 footage below. Assassin’s Creed: Origins launches October 27th, 2017 for PC, Xbox One, and PS4.