BTW, the vibe I get from this game is…forget it’s Assassin’s Creed.
Take it as a narrative-rich action rpg set in Ancient Greece.
The most negative impressions I’ve seen involve reviewers who throw out terms like “Animus tech” and discuss the motives of Abstergo at length and what aspects of Odyssey “break canon”.
I mean, I do like the modern story tie-ins with AC games, but it’s more of a side amusement than the reason I ever play. And so if this game needs to bust some of that up to give me what I really want – running around the Peloponnese and sailing through the Greek isles in a trireme – well, let’s break those eggs.
My vibe is its an open world ancient greek rpg. Probably be my all time favorite wish list game. I think its around the Peloponnesian war. I need to look it up again to be sure.
If you were having doubts about the stealth in Odyssey, have I got a video for you.
Caveat:
It’s spoilery, a little. I have no doubt that this is just one of many such camps existing in the game. I don’t think there’s anything particularly unique about this one. But…if you were wondering is stealth was a legit gameplay style, let Kassandra help you out:
So apparently today the embargo went up on some footage. People can show only sidequests, nothing to do with story. They can’t even really talk about story…
…except Gamespot’s reviewer just said “It’s really good, that’s about all I can say.”
No spoilers there, just Alexios standing on a beach with a bird in his hand, staring at the sea
Staring at the sand.
Love me a day/night cycle. And that skybox is amazing.
So without being spoilery on the story, here’s what I’ve discerned will be in the game so far. Feel free to add to the list on stuff I’ve missed:
Naval combat + exploration
“Conquest battles” that are sort of like a fleshed-out version of when you board other ships in Pirates. You gotta keep killing dudes and knocking morale down before your side’s morale drops to zero.
A nemesis system like in the Mordor games. Named mercenaries hunt you down as bounty hunters.
Story choices with real in-game consequences. Areas of gray where decisions are difficult, a la Witcher series
Organic day/night cycles continue, just as in Origins
Skill trees for stealth, combat heavy, and ranged/hunting approaches
Level cap is apparently 50
Hilariously huge world. The Gamespot reviewer said he was showing a save 15 hours into the game, and he’d explored this teensy area of the map.
It basically fixes some of the little problems I had with the Origins combat, keeps the stealth from Origins working the way it had worked.
And if you’re going to tell me that this stealth system is some great departure from previous Assassin’s Creeds because of burning things, I’m going to just start looping videos of burning towers in Brotherhood…
No, I’m just saying, the video that was given really doesn’t show any stealth. It’s a dude being killed with an arrow in the first five seconds, then just her running around a camp torching everything in open sight.
I just thought it was funny that it was an example that stealth was still viable, but the example given had next to no stealth.
She’s crouched almost throughout, and sneaking from stealth area to stealth area, hiding bodies, maintaining concealment, etc. The entire video – until she’s stealth-killed (there’s that word again!) a good number of the guards in the camp, is her in stealth. Maybe 2/3rds of it.
The video that was listed did not have that for me - the time stamp started at around 15:30 (toward the end of the video). I assumed it started late for the reason that that was where the stealth was shown.