Assassin’s Creed Origins

Overview of Assassin’s Creed: Origins.

In the entire history of the Assassin’s Creed series, there has not been a single game without serious flaws. Like some kind of curse, the series has always been plagued by scenario, gameplay and technical problems - from the monotony of tasks to bugs with the characters' faces. And, despite the long development cycle and the change of concept, Origins also failed to avoid trouble. In addition, there are even more than usual.

But does this mean that the game has failed? Not at all!

“Assassin’s Creed: Origins” does not just continue the topic of assassins - it’s that very “killer” itself! Only not the Templars, but your time. She succeeds in this business so deftly that at first you don’t even notice the troubles. There are a lot of activities here: company towers, roadblocks, and battles at gladiatorial arenas, and hunting, and chariot races, and even the study of tombs.

But the heart of the game is side quests. It was not for nothing that the developers claimed that they drew inspiration from the third Witcher: each task here is a simple but well-written story. Some sketches are immediately forgotten, some cut into the memory no worse than the main mission. Not every day you save a sacred crocodile, right?

In addition, for completing quests, the hero is literally bombarded with rewards: for example, weapons of varying degrees of rarity, type and damage. Some instances even have additional characteristics like “healing” on hit. And additional experience points here are also a real gift. With a new role-playing system that offers a whole tree of diverse skills, it’s interesting to develop a character for once. Constantly think what to buy: the ability to tame animals, smoke bombs or some kind of finishing blow in a jump.

All this awakens the player of the real manchkin, who diligently considers the numbers, and rejoices like a child in the new items in the inventory. And all this “obscenity” is happening so imperceptibly and along the way that for the time being, you almost never notice the catch. Side quests often lead to enemy camps or tombs, which are eventually cleared as if by accident, and different routines have been simplified to the limit: a valuable loot is highlighted and collected almost automatically, with the click of a button. Even a horse can be made to go to the mark on autopilot, and at this time go to make tea.

But there is one thing that spoils all pleasure. At a certain point, you finally get tired of the open world, decide to continue the main story ... but they don’t let you do it. Just because for the main quest the hero, it turns out, is not strong enough. And this “ceiling” of the levels is perhaps the most controversial decision in the “Origins”.

Yes, you can start any quest and get into any area, but most likely they will not succeed. Even the most reaching animal will send the assassin to the next world with a couple of bites, if it has indicators three to four levels higher than yours. It makes no sense to talk about serious opponents at all: they cannot be taken even with a dozen punches with a hidden blade.

After such unpleasant discoveries, you have to forget about the search for the truth for a while and spend a few more hours pumping in side quests. But they, alas, lose some of the charm when they are imposed by force.

Another controversial issue is the structure of tasks. Since Assassin’s Creed is now a role-playing game, most of the assignments have become typical of the genre: run away, kill, bring. Almost all the quests (both main and secondary) come down to the same thing: to go somewhere, conduct reconnaissance or investigation, and then arrange a sortie to the enemy camp.

In the combat missions of the players, a kind of sandbox awaits, and here game designers already want to praise. Although almost all outposts are more or less the same type, it is interesting to fight every time - thanks to almost complete freedom of action and a rich arsenal.

Once you get through the roofs, then quietly shoot everyone from the bow. In the other you’ll try to sneak through the bushes and bite the whole guard with a hidden blade. A separate topic is all these darts, bombs and poisons, with which you can provoke a lot of funny situations. For example, to “zombie” a hippopotamus and lead it straight into a crowd of opponents - the battle will turn out right. Sen is also a good help, the hand-held “drone” eagle: with it, you can circle around the location at any time and mark enemies and useful objects.

Finally, no one forbids breaking into a gates riding a camel right through the gate and making a bloody feast for the opponents. Moreover, the combat system really took a step forward: fights are now tied not to context-sensitive counterattacks, but to “light” and “heavy” attacks, blocks, rolls and parries. Enemies no longer attack in turn and do not give a break at all: there are ordinary soldiers, and guys with shields, and spearmen, and thugs with huge axes, and even equestrian arrows. And this whole motley gang is attacking, usually in bulk.

As a result, you have to constantly tumble, go behind your back, try to fend off numerous blows, break through enemy blocks, and also make full use of one of the new chips - reinforced violent attacks that open, you just have to fill up the adrenaline scale.

The feeling of battle varies greatly depending on the weapon chosen. Swords, axes, spears, maces and bows give completely different sensations and dictate your style of play. For once, long-distance combat also worked fine: with bows you can both quietly shoot enemies from afar and quickly shoot right at the height of the battle. He repelled the blow, bounced away, fired at the villain five arrows at once - he received great pleasure!

All this, it would seem, is only for the benefit of Assassin’s Creed, but because of large-scale changes, entertainment has suffered greatly. Neither vivid staged action missions, nor memorable chases are here, but the most offensive is that there was no place in the new concept for exquisite Hitman-style murders.

In the end, the main rule of the “silent” killer was to suffer - to attack unexpectedly, and then hide. Now each key goal after a fatal blow needs to be further completed, which contradicts the very essence of the assassins.

The only thing I don’t want to find fault with at all is the scene of action, Ancient Egypt. Yes, because of the features of the engine, the world still seems to be slightly plastic, the inhabitants are still behaving strangely, and Egypt itself is perceived more as a decoration. But this is a brutally beautiful scenery!

Pyramids, magnificent ancient buildings, giant statues and wall paintings, picturesque nature, tombs - all this looks better here than in the illustrations for the history textbook. In addition, there was a place for both Hellenistic and Roman culture, which, in essence, allowed developers to cover three types of setting at once.

But the main thing is not even beauty, but the history of this world. Almost all of the side quests reveal some subtleties of the culture and life of Egypt. There was a place for curses, and religion, and problems with hippos, and the cruelties of those times. Moreover, the latter catches on especially: the main character of the game is Mejay, a warrior who is obliged to help the citizens of his country. So in the course of the plot you will see a lot of different horrors.

At Ubisoft, this time they decided not to stand on ceremony, and numerous characters are literally cut out of the plot in bundles: here you have scenes of reprisals, and fires, and death from illnesses. Do not spare even the children. Drown a child in a river - why not ?! The world is cruel.

Against the backdrop of all these tragedies, the characters of the main characters - Mejay Bayek and his wife, warrior Aija are well revealed. In the process, they themselves experience severe pain, become witnesses to terrifying events, and sometimes even find themselves forced to kill formerly close people. All this cannot but affect their fate and ultimately leads to the main event of the game - the creation of the Brotherhood of Assassins.

Therefore, although at first the characters seem boring, the plot really has a powerful core. The main thing is that Bayek himself comes out as an interesting character: strong, sometimes even tough, but fair. He has everything in order with a sense of humor, and he is also kind to almost anyone he meets, especially to children. One really wants to sympathize with this, even if he does not reach Ezio a little in terms of charm.

True, there were some offensive mistakes: the events are fascinating, the heroes are remembered, but, like in other Ubisoft projects, a lot of things are messy and torn. The videos often end up with omissions, breathtaking moments are interrupted by loading screens, and the “forced breaks” - when you have to go into the open world to gain experience, seriously harm the script. During this time, you manage to forget some key events, and the atmosphere is partially eroded.

Origins is a great game. One of the best in the series. She drags on for many hours, knows how to take the soul of the plot and is extremely bored. But there is simply too much of everything in it, and “a lot” is far from always good. In some places, the project suffers from controversial decisions, in some places - from an overabundance of content and "numbers", but somewhere just because of technical roughness. Yes, and artificially delaying the passage through a system of levels - the idea is still stupid.

But if all the "service games" will be the same as the "Origins" (with stories, atmosphere, breakthrough classes and elaborated worlds), then the future of the single player mode is not so scary.