Assassin's Creed Origins: 10 Things It Needs To Deliver
From historical figures to weaponising the local wildlife.
Assassin's Creed Origins is going back to the series roots with a sojourn to the beginning of the mythology, resulting in a stop at sunny Ancient Egypt. Early gameplay footage has seen assassin Bayek parkour-murdering his way through 49BC, with glimpses of North African wildlife, classic Egyptian architecture and magnificent Nileside vistas.
A sense of historical immersion is a hallmarks of Ubisoft's ludicrously popular shank 'em 'up. The first game's Crusades setting was bold and different at the time, with visits to Renaissance Italy, Colonial America, the Caribbean, London and revolutionary Paris providing similar levels of both historical detail and murder opportunities.
The Egypt of 49BC is also crammed with historical significance, with the whole Roman Empire thing about to happen, and hundreds of monuments begging to be climbed and jumped off.
With details of Assassin's Creed: Origins still emerging, its historical setting has plenty of potential that hasn't been shown off yet. To provide the new beginning for the franchise that Ubisoft needs, the game needs to make the most of its murder-friendly Egypt, from the historical figures of the time to the many exciting ways the African landscape can be used to eliminate your enemies.
10. Akhenaten
Akhenaten was the weirdest person to rule Ancient Egypt, and Egypt could be a weird place.
For a start, the Pharaoh Akhenaten's statues were creepily different from any Pharaoh before or since, with bizarre stretched features like a sandstone Slenderman. He was also completely bonkers, and tried to replace the traditional Egyptian religion with the worship of Aten, the sun-god, who by astonishing coincidence was pretty much Akhenaten himself.
Ancient Egyptians didn't take kindly to that sort of thing and tried their damndest to obliterate Akhenaten from history.
Akhenaten was dead for a long, long time by the time of Assassin's Creed: Origins, but his legacy is one that could easily play into the setting. A cult of the forgotten mad Pharaoh would make for startling enemies or allies for the assassin Bayek, and his temporary capital of Akhetaten a suitably spooky and mummy-filled place to explore.
A secret Pharaoh is very much the sort of juicy historical mystery Assassin's Creed likes to get its stabby wrist-spikes into.