Assassin's Creed Origins Review: 6 Ups & 5 Downs
Not without problems, the Black Flag team have saved the series yet again.
For the first time in years (ever since AC II we'd had annual instalments), Ubisoft finally decided to let the Assassin's Creed franchise rest. Granted it was less a "decision" and more a "Oh god please stop, just for a second", after both AC Unity and Syndicate were tire fires and serviceable enough affairs respectively, the notion behind taking time off was assumedly so the return instalment would then be "back, better than ever".
Is that actually the case?
Well... not entirely. The game makes a pretty terrible first impression with stilted, frenetically finicky combat, glitchy animations, tons of clipping and the occasional mid-air boat flying across the horizon. Bayek himself is on a revenge mission, but within seconds you're laboured with handfuls of generic XP-grinding quests so you're at the "right level" to progress with the more immediate story.
Still, Ubisoft have gone back to the drawing board with a number of aspects ranging from designing a Dark Souls-lite combat system to overhauling the way stealth is approached using your pet eagle, Senu.
What works and what doesn't? Well...