‘Assassin’s Creed Odyssey’ review: Gorgeous and massive, but more of the same

The
open world of “Assassin’s Creed Odyssey” is huge, but not always
impressive.
“Assassin’s Creed
Odysessy”/Ubisoft

• “Assassin’s Creed Odyssey” launched on October 5th for Xbox
  One, PlayStation 4 and PC. It’s the 11th game in the flagship
  franchise from publisher Ubisoft.
• Set in ancient Greece, the game lets you choose between a
  male or female protagonist for the first time in “Assassin’s
  Creed” series history.
• The open world in Odyssey might be the largest in any game to
  date; the main campaign takes about 30 hours to finish.

“Assassin’s Creed: Odyssey” is the first game in the series I’ve
ever put any serious time into, and yet, it feels like I’ve
played it before. “Odyssey” takes lots of cues from other
big-ticket action games, fully adopting a huge open world and RPG
mechanics that have become standard for the genre.

But there’s not much that sets the game apart from its
competition.

“Odysessy” is the 11th “Assassin’s Creed” game in the same number
of years, without counting the spinoffs for handhelds and mobile
devices. In some ways, the lack of identity in “Odysessy” seems
intentional; newcomers to the series like myself don’t need any
prior story knowledge to start playing. The game picks up in
ancient Greece and spends the opening hours largely ignoring the
science fiction/time-travel elements that tie the series’ story
together.

“Odyssey”
is the first Assassin’s Creed game to allow you to pick between a
male or female main character.
“Assassin’s Creed Odyssey”/Ubisoft

In lieu of relying heavily on old plot points, the game focuses
on the story of its protagonist. Indeed, “Odyssey” is the first
Assassin’s Creed game to let the player choose between a male or
female main character, Alexios or Kassandra.

Both have their own voice acting and will garner some different
responses from other characters in the game’s open world. The
main character begins the game as a mercenary on the island of
Kephalonnia, but the world quickly expands to involve more than
30 nation-states.

Odysessy builds on the gameplay of the last Assassin’s Creed
game, “Origins,” which was released less than a year ago.

“Origins” revamped the series’ combat mechanics in favor of a
more straight-forward hack and slash style and introduced
traditional RPG elements like character levels and item crafting.
While the mechanics should be familiar to anyone who has played a
single player action game in the last five years, they continue a
departure from the gameplay of the early Assassin’s Creed games.

Rather than feeling like an evolution, it feels like “Odyssey” is
content to emulate the strong points of games like “The Witcher
3,” “The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild,” and “Shadow of
Mordor.”

Combat
in “Odyssey” ranges from open field battles to solo stealth
missions, all using the same mechanics.
Combat in “Odyssey” ranges from open field battles to
solo stealth missions, all using the same
mechanics.

As a result, there’s not much about “Odyssey” that feels
exceptional. The combat is mostly fine, despite some weird
targeting issues. The RPG elements ae serviceable, but will
occasionally force you to grind side quests to avoid being killed
in one or two hits by an enemy that’s a few levels higher.

The story isn’t awful, but it’s spread out over dozens of hours
of gameplay and the open world format makes it feel in-cohesive.
The visuals are good for a game with such a huge map and variety
of areas, but pale in comparison to other big budget games
released this year, like “Marvel’s Spider-Man” and “Shadow of the
Tomb Raider.”

“Odyssey” certainly doesn’t suffer from a lack of content,
featuring dozens of side quests, unique enemies, and mythical
creatures spread across the Greek states. Each area is full of
life, with warring leaders and political undertones driving
interactions with civilians, politicians, religious cults,
soldiers and bandits. The player’s actions have tangible
consequences in the story, which helps add some meaning to a
campaign that lasts more than 30 hours. Outside of certain
poignant moments with specific characters, it’s not particularly
memorable.

Some
dialogue options will determine if a character lives or dies in
the story.
“Assassin’s Creed
Odyssey”/Ubisoft

What’s left is the grind. Players who want to complete everything
the game has to offer can easily play for 50 or more hours, which
is a lot of value for the $60 base game. Having a huge variety of
equipment to alter your character’s appearance makes the grind
for new items less boring, but add to the lack of identity as
your character will likely shift between dozens of outfits to
best fit your current scenario.

Ultimately, “Assassin’s Creed: Odysessy” feels like a baseline
for the AAA-quality adventure genre, or the video game equivalent
of a summer blockbuster. For gamers who are satisfied investing
50 or more hours into a single player game to unlock everything,
“Odysessy” wont disappoint.  On the other end of the
spectrum, those with little experience in the adventure games
should find “Odysessy” accessible. But overall, “Odyssey” feels
somewhat uninspired and doesn’t really push the boundaries of
what these kinds of games can accomplish.