Assassin’s Creed: Odyssey Story
Ubisoft announced the latest addition to the Assassin’s Creed series at last year’s annual E3 conference. Set in the year 431 BC, Assassin’s Creed: Odyssey takes place 400 years before its predecessor, Assassin’s Creed: Origins, during the middle of the Peloponnesian War. The latest game in the series allows the player to choose between fighting for either Athens or Sparta by choosing one of two playable characters, Alexios or Kassandra, who are descendants of the King Leonidas.
The prologue opens with a prophecy from the Oracle of Delphi, who prophesied that the player’s family line will bring doom to Sparta, causing the players family to throw them off of a cliff in shame. The real game picks up 17 years later around the time when the player becomes a mercenary in the battle between Athens and Sparta.
As for the modern day plot, it continues on where Assassin’s Creed: Origins left off, portraying the main character Layla Hassan, who is doing research on the Animus, a machine that has been used in previous Assassin’s Creed games to relive the memories of a character’s genetic ancestors. In the previous game, Layla manages to tweak the Animus so that she only needs a DNA sample to access memories instead of finding someone who is a genetic ancestor of a historical figure.
In Odyssey, Layla is determined to discover First Civilization artifacts. During this quest, she comes across the lost book of Herodotus, in which the Greek historian writes that he knew a mercenary that wielded one such artifact. We later find out that this is our playable character, either Alexios or Kassandra, and the artifact is the broken spear of King Leonidas. Layla then acquires the DNA of King Leonidas and programs it into the Animus, which then enables us to choose between either Alexios or Kassandra.
One thing is certain; Assassin’s Creed: Odyssey picked up where its predecessor left off while still bringing a new and interesting story plot to the table.
Assassin’s Creed: Odyssey Release Facts
Peaceful: Watching over the farmers
Development for the game started in 2015, around the same time that Assassin’s Creed: Origins was in development. Ubisoft Quebec, the primary developer, got the idea for the game near the end of the development for Assassin’s Creed: Syndicate when they expressed interest in creating a title with more RPG elements. Scott Phillips was named the Game Director of the project, and soon it was decided that Odyssey would be somewhat of a sequel to Origins.
Just one month prior to its official announcement at last year's E3 conference, the game was leaked after a French website by the name of Jeuxvideo received a keychain with the name of the game on it in May of 2018. Shortly after, Ubisoft officially announced Assassin’s Creed: Odyssey at the Electronic Entertainment Expo. However, just a day before their E3 announcement, the game was once again leaked by the gaming website Gematsu, making the reputable company’s announcement of their new Assassin’s Creed game less of a surprise to the gaming community.
Assassin’s Creed: Odyssey was released on October 5th, 2018 for Microsoft Windows, Xbox One, and PlayStation 4.
Assassin’s Creed: Odyssey Gameplay
Attack: Strike first, ask questions later
Perhaps the most exciting feature in this installment of the Assassin’s Creed series is the RPG-style gameplay, which is a first for the series that has always had a linear approach. Now, players’ choices will have an impact on the story. Dialogue options are one part of the new RPG-style gameplay that will allow players the freedom to influence the story.
Another notable feature of the game are the conquest battles, in which hundreds of soldiers are pitted against each other. In these battles, your character has the chance to make a dramatic impact, which could shape the history of Greece. You’ll start off the conquest battles by fighting common soldiers and to eventually challenging heroes, which are skilled warriors of Greece. If a player kills enough heroes, they gain the attention of captains, who demand to fight them. Combat in Odyssey relies heavily on adrenaline, which can be earned by dodging, parrying, and hitting enemies. When the player fills up their adrenaline bar, a special move can be used to land critical hits on enemies. However, enemies also have special abilities that can be unleashed to weaken you and drain your adrenaline.
Adrenaline: Fill up the bar for special attacks
On a similar note, there have been slight adjustments to the skill tree. Players can now choose different branches to cater toward ranged, close-range, or stealth combat. Additionally, players don’t have to stick to just one branch or style. They can spend their upgrade points on different abilities to mix and match the combat abilities to their liking. Combat, in general, is still based around the ability to execute well-timed attacks, but this time it has another twist; players can map attack abilities to their controller or keyboard buttons, which can be helpful when carrying out combos to increase adrenaline and ultimately leads to more critical hits on enemies.
Stealth combat has also received some changes. In Origins, players were given little to no incentive to raid enemy bases without setting off alarms. This changed in Odyssey. There will be more experience point payouts if players raid bases or assassinate enemies stealthily. The stealth tree also has quite a few more abilities to choose from, including one that allows you to send recruited allies to cause a distraction, giving you time to get closer to enemies and assassinate them without any detection.
Stealth: Assassinate foes without being detected
Naval combat has also made a comeback, which hasn’t been heavily featured in the games since Assassin’s Creed IV: Black Flag and Assassin’s Creed: Rogue. The world of Odyssey is quite expansive, allowing players the freedom to sail the Aegean Sea while making stops along the coast or to the many islands that are scattered throughout Greece. From what we can tell from gameplay videos, characters will have the ability to ram other ships as well as order their crew to fire arrows and spears and even board incapacitated ships. Along with this, players will be able to recruit most NPC’s, including civilians and even some enemy combatants, to their ship’s crew.
Navy: Explore the seas and assault enemy ships
The game’s version of Greece is divided into 27 city-states, each with their own leader. “When those leaders get in trouble and their resources go down, they become weak and other factions will invade the state,” Dumont explained. On the map, city-states will show up as red or blue depending on whether Sparta or Athens is controlling it. Players will receive quests that allow them to take these regional leaders down and will be shown a meter that displays the control the leader has over the area. Stealing, destroying, and causing havoc in a region will make them an easier target, a system that’s reminiscent of Far Cry 5.
Assassin’s Creed: Odyssey Trailers
This. Is. SPARTA!
Although the game was initially announced at the Electronic Entertainment Expo in May of 2018, the official trailer was showcased at last year's E3 conference. It begins by showing our protagonist, either Alexios or Kassandra, being thrown off of a cliff as a young child because the Oracle of Delphi prophesied that they’d bring doom to Sparta. The next scene takes place 17 years later and shows us that our hero has survived and is now curious about their family’s history. This trailer does an excellent job of showcasing the game’s incredible attention to detail in its graphics; its depiction of the Greek countryside is full of rich colors and lush flora that really brings the open world to life.
As for the way that the sea is shown in this game, it seems that it will draw on what we saw in Assassin’s Creed: Black Flag, with even more goodies. In one scene, we saw Alexios diving down into what looked like underwater ruins. Could it be some sort of puzzle room?
Horseback riding appears to be making a comeback as well. Many fans mentioned that the mechanics of horse riding in Origins were smooth and much needed for exploring the vast terrain of Egypt. With Odyssey boasting a large map as well, horseback riding is absolutely vital to the game.
Assassin’s Creed: Odyssey Developer
Scott Phillips, seated on the right
In an interview with Geek.com, Scott Phillips stated that the development team took a ten day tour of Greece to research its culture and ancient history, visiting prominent locations such as Athens, Sparta, Delphi, Epidaurus, Crete, and several other famous areas that make an appearance in the game. Scott Phillips also mentioned that the development team worked with historians to study many prominent Ancient Greek historians, such as Herodotus, to make sure the game had an authentic feel to it.
However, Phillips also admits that they took several liberties with the size of statues and buildings to make the world seem more epic for the player. He states that Spartans, in particular, lived a bare-bones lifestyle with hardly any statues or memorials decorating their towns, so the development team decorated their in-game cities in a way that was authentic to the Spartans, if not historically accurate, to give the game more of a visual appeal.
In the same interview with Geek.Com, Phillips stated that the development teams for the Assassin’s Creed series will be going back to an annual development schedule, which is good news for fans of the games who have been craving new games and content.
Assassin’s Creed: Odyssey Related Info
Dialogue:Romance your favorites
Players have the option to seduce NPC’s, including those of the same sex. However, they will not be able to romance characters like Socrates.
The Greek mythological pantheon was featured in Odyssey, just not in the way that everyone expects. In an interview last year, Phillips gave the example of the story of Polyphemus, a sheep-eating Cyclops that was blinded by the Greek hero Odysseus. Phillips said that in the real world, Polyphemus could have been a regular guy who made his neighbor angry and, as a result, that neighbor spun this epic tail about this terrible neighbor, which, eventually evolved over time into the myth that we know today. Phillips said they explored mythology in that manner.
Assassin’s Creed: Odyssey was released on October 5th of 2018 and was no doubt a different take on a familiar series.
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