Assassin's Creed Odyssey - It's time to Greek out

Right. If this turns out successfully I might envy people who skipped Origins and went straight to this one for their new gen AC experience.

I don’t understand the cooing over this while dismissing Origins. This looks mechanically similar to Origins. Same open-world structure, similar loot and combat, quests look the same, etc. This just has a lot more naval combat, a gender choice, and some tweaks to the way powers and skills work. Hell, a lot of textures and model assets look ripped right out of Origins.

Origins at times feels like a proof of concept for a new iteration of the series.

This feels like they’ve got a better chance at fully realizing the ideas with some focus, story, and writing chops that were missing from Origins. They’re clearly drawing on quest structures and complex story arcs from The Witcher 3 and trying to incorporate that within this framework.

For me, the hope is that this will be to Origins what AC2 was to AC.

I’m suddenly a lot less interested.

Why do you think this doesn’t have a story line?

I suspect most naval combat will be optional.

Or at least really fast.

Welcome back!

I suspect that it will be almost an open world rpg. Though I will say I have no idea what the combat is like. I have a controller now though! So I am ready!

It is rare for me to jump in early on a new game.

Yeah I’m still weirded out by it preceding the origin of the Assassins. I’ll wait until I hear (much) more about it. Syndicate 2 where are you?

Though I do worry: Ancient Greek combat was a matter of phalanx. Spartan mastery of Greece was strength though Phalanx and hoplite. Armor and organization and control: This is what beat the Persians.

So AC: Odyssey is about a solo warrior?

(and yes I know my ancient greek warfare)

To me, I find Greece much more interesting than Egypt (dislike deserts in general), Kassandra seems much more likeable than Bayek and the added RPG aspects of increased player agency - interactive dialogue, choices and consequences - make a huge difference fo me. Plus I didn’t read great things about Origins quest design, but in Odyssey that aspect could also be more promising.

Then count me in! I’m flexible.

Well, that’s a matter of some dispute. And I say that as someone who’s done his PhD in Greek warfare (turned into a book) and has written extensively on the subject. For example, here’s an article based on a lecture I once gave at a Belgian university about the historical importance (or not) of the Battle of Marathon (490 BC) and this features a download link to one of my peer-reviewed articles on the connection between “hoplites” and horsemen.

To get some idea of the complexities involved (and excuse the plug), we did a podcast about hoplites not too long ago that gives a decent overview. There’s plenty more stuff about this on the Ancient World Magazine website (which I edit and write for). Most of the people involved come from an ancient warfare background, so if you’re interested in the topic, it might be worth checking out.

As regards Odyssey – I’m obviously interested in it, but I don’t think I want to pay what Ubisoft is asking, so I might not be able to check it out for a while. If I do, I’m sort of tempted to do a let’s play, just to comment on the historical aspects of the game.

It is about a solo warrior but there are large conquest battles with dozens of soldiers fighting in movie style combats, no massed phalanxes. A game has to be fun and I’m not certain how being one guy in s massed phalanx would be fun.

Both of you make excellent points. Thanks for the sources Josh! Of course Homer talks a lot about single combat between heroes, my view of the game scenes so far make it look a lot later in time than that era.

But yes Grifman, I doubt spending an hour as part of a phalanx pushing back and forth against each other. Heck it appears the main character doesn’t even use a shield!

I am still in day one. Can’t help myself on this one!

ps thx for that great podcast link Josh!

One of the few things RYSE Son of Rome did well was the pre-scripted sequences where your main character ordered a Testudo formation, to break through certain areas. I actually liked them.

Yeah, the first time you did that in Ryse, that’s when I finally sat up and said wow, this game is something else. It’s a flawed game, yes, but man, I still kind of love it. It really made me feel patriotic as a Roman soldier. I’m Roman goddamn it, and they should fear me despite their bigger numbers.

Heh. This post reminded me of a course series I took on Rome back in the 80s as an undergrad. The prof was dramatic, liked almost physically re-enacting battles in front of the class, waving his arms around while speaking. He said one time that the Romans were like pitbulls. You might outnumber them, you might on occasion beat them, but once they bit down they wouldn’t let go and would wear their enemies down over time if they had to.

We can only hope the next game jumps forward to ROME then. :D

I know @tomchick for one will love that.