Assassin's Creed Origins Hands-On: 12 Things We Learned

5. Potentially Crippling Facial Expression & Lip Sync

Onto a monumental negative, and across the demo I had to force myself to keep looking at the "Work in Progress" label for reassurance, as Origins' facial animation is - in a word - terrible.

Such a thing isn't necessarily game-breaking (Horizon Zero Dawn's facial tech wasn't exactly spectacular), but considering this is the big 'return' for a franchise that needs to get every last thing right, it's just not good enough.

From quest-givers to the various children Bayek saves and even Bayek himself, it's blank faces and plain stares all-round, hardly continuing the stellar bar for conversations set in AC: Syndicate.

With just over two months until release - and factoring in the time it takes for the game to go off to the printers - there is next to no time left for anything close to an appropriate fix. I'll be amazed if we get decent facial animations at launch, as it's most likely this is what retail AC: Origins will look like.