Leaked Assassin's Creed: Odyssey Screenshots Reveal Story
All you need to know about Delos, Athens, and the Assassins.
Though we've known that Assassin's Creed: Odyssey would be set during Ancient Greece for at least a week or so now, the specific era during which the story would take place has been shrouded in mystery. Ancient Greece, after all, denotes four key eras - the Archaic Period, Classical Greece, Hellenistic Greece and Roman Greece. It's an enormous setting to approach, but now - thanks to some leaked screenshots - we have a better idea of when (and where) the game is set.
Coming by way of Gematsu, the screenshots detail Odyssey's leading characters, gameplay elements, customisation and more. It's shaping up to take tonight's Ubisoft conference by storm, but while bedazzling images of Greek warships, Spartan spears and the world map are sure to dominate conversation until tonight, it's the clues they've provided as to the setting specifically that has gotten us talking.
In one image, the unnamed Assassin who players will get to control is consulting with an also unknown woman. In the dialogue, she swears vengeance against Athens for their crimes against the Delians - the inhabitants of the pivotal island of Delos. Later screens then show the Assassin completing an objective of destroying "Athenian War Supplies", potentially clueing us in further on when this is all set.
Athens and Delos had a bit of a rocky history. The Athenians - the dominant force during the Classical period - persecuted the Delians mercilessly, embarking on several "Purifications" wherein the Delian populace were forced to uproot burial sights and refrain from giving birth. Later years also saw them enslaved and exploited by the Athenian state.
It gets worse though. During the height of Athenian power, the different societies of Ancient Greece founded something called the Delian League - an alliance designed to ward off the threat of Persian Invasion. While the league was designed to unify, others soon suspected that it benefited the Athenians particularly well, which sparked the beginning of the Peloponnesian War.
In any case, the Delians were repeatedly persecuted during this period, and with Athens positioned as the game's antagonist, Odyssey's premise becomes ever clearer.