Not gonna spoil too much, but there are definitely choices you make early in the story that allow/block you from taking certain paths later on. Some are the “If you help person X, person Y will not believe you when you say Z” sort of thing. There’s also a number of different endings depending on the choices you made at key points.
Why aren’t there mods for Assassin’s Creed games? Someone needs to mod Valhalla’s dismemberment into Odyssey’s combat. C’mon, internet!
-Tom
That makes me love it even more. I totally picked up on the branches in the main story. I picked a very dramatic and Spartan thing to do at one point.
I was doing a sidequest where at the end, one character told me that my advice had inspired him to save another character, so I was wondering if that was just flattery, or whether that other character actually could’ve died if I had chosen differently.
Now I’m guessing he could! Awesome!
Archaeologist from University of Cincinnati who has spent the last 25 summers in digs in Greece discusses accuracy of Assassin’s Creed Odyssey’s representation of Athens. Generally gives it very good marks, although some odd issues like a mosaic which is supposed to be inside is shown on the outside of the building or a sculpture which is famously marble is depicted in game as bronze.
Overall though she seemed quite impressed by the level of accuracy and detail. She pointed out for example that the amphitheater which is now marble and curvilinear was depicted correct for the period of the game as built of wood and rectilinear.
It’s hard to overstate how much the pseudo-religious, time-simulation, real-world nonsense hurts these games. It has never even come close to being satisfying, it’s always been raw cringe, and it is devastating when it interferes with Odyssey.
The cool thing has always been the fantasy of being a badass Spartan kicking people off of mountains, or being a sneaky Hashasheen ninja parkouring around ancient Tyre. I can’t imagine most people want that to be fake, or tied to some half-assed techno-fantasy where you’re “doing it all for the angels”.
I feel like the designers of Odyssey were mostly aware of that, which is a big part of the reason why it’s better than most Creed games, but of course they still had to put some of that crap in there.
It makes me wanna headbutt my keyboard every time some disembodied robot voice comes along and ruins the fun by sounding like something from a tech commercial.
“You are more powerful than you can possibly imagine. Live your truth. Forge your legacy.”
I’m dying inside through the whole thing. I just wanna be a spartan. Can I just be a spartan? Please!
Stop. Please. No mas. I’ll buy whatever overpriced phone you want me to, just please stop it with the words.
Yeah - I obviously don’t speak for you - but I like the overall present-day story, with the precursors and all that. I don’t enjoy it in every story (I didn’t like the overlap in AC:Revelations), but overall, I do. I actually didn’t like Unity (I think) as much, because they took so much of the overlap out.
But to each their own. Just don’t speak for me when you say you don’t like the present-day overlaps. It’s not a universal feeling.
I’m in between. I think most of the time it’s dreck, and unnecessary, but once in a while it’s kind of cool. I’d like it more if the Animus stuff (expressly linking me to the present) wasn’t so in your face maybe.
It makes the games ten times more immersive to me. If I try to believe I’m a Spartan, I’ll never believe it. But to believe I’m in a virtual simulation playing as a Spartan? It really helps make it feel authentic and believable.
I think that for obvious reasons they kind of spend less effort on the back end of the games than the front end, and it really sullies whatever experience they were aiming for. It was so bad I still remember but in Origins around 2/3 of the way through it was something like:
Long load screen
10 second cut scene
Long load screen
Bayek at a different location stares, then walks out
Long load screen
“Did it have to be this way? It did” people nod.
Long load screen
Much of the modern stuff is just philosojumble that doesn’t go anywhere. It could be cool if it actually did go somewhere, but the narrative is “mind blowing drunk undergrad thesaurus abuse ” “ramble ramble cyber stuff”. Ok! Says the main character, who [destroys] the [MacGuffin].
I remember getting to the end of Odyssey and as that final main story reveal happened I was thinking whoa this has some pretty big implications for the past few centuries of… Oh. Nevermind. They just handwaved it all.
I guess it did technically leave the door open for having Kassandra back in any time period you’d like. Yay!
On the flipside Valhalla’s modern day tale definitively ended this trilogy. It was weird to do the DLC after that ending though.
Been playing through Odyssey. The last AC game I actually completed was AC3. I’ve played Origins and Valhalla, but probably won’t complete them ever. I’m far enough along in Kassandra’s story (if you go with Alexios in the intro, is Kassandra Deimos?) that I’ll probably finish it, but I’m starting to see the matrix. And the level system means I can just do what I usually do with open world games and go straight through the main storyline missions.
I kind of wish they’d made hunting down the Cult members the whole game and given you better tools to do more sleuthing. As it is I’m kind of feeling like I usually do in these games: led around by the nose.
Yep. I think there is an option to have fewer breadcrumbs and map notes, but it doesn’t change the fundamental structure of the game’s interactions with you. OTOH, you can climb damn near anything, and kick people in the nuts.
Definitely not bored of this.
How far did you get into Origins? I hit a plateau on it and got distracted which led to a long hiatus but I came back to it a couple of months ago and played a lot more, right up to what I gather is the final sequence. It’s pretty good. If you have the time to spare I recommend you return to it someday. Or at least watch a good Let’s Play or a video of the cut scenes. It’s got a great ending, albeit a bittersweet one.
OK, I got to the end of the Deimos storyline, which ended rather abruptly. I guess that’s the end of the game? I suppose I could go around taking out the last few Cult members, work my way to the top of the Mercenary tiers and/or fight another mythical creature to gain entrance to Atlantis, and maybe I will at some point, but I’m happy to take a break for now. Like all non-Rockstar open world games, it has devolved into busywork and I’d like to move on to other things. It once again makes me appreciate the genius of GTAV (and RDR2 to a lesser degree), which somehow consistently raises the stakes and remains fun and interesting until the very end.
The plot pacing in this game is pretty terrible. It doesn’t flow very well and often things happen that seem to be random. The battle between Sparta and Athens is a complete sideshow, so this whole mechanic where you can influence one side or the other is totally wasted. And you end up having zero investment in either side.
I got to the switch in character to Aya. I meant to go back, but got distracted.
I would call it less of a sideshow than that the Peloponnesian war is a backdrop to the game, but yes, the political map change stuff basically amounts to what color you want to paint the map. Which is perhaps what some real wars amount to, come to think of it…
Not even that, as the territories will switch sides on their own. So it’s impossible to get the world to be one color.
I would say this resolution is actually more important than the Deimos story.
I’d say finishing up the mythical creatures is even more important, given its ties to the overall narrative.
Does anyone else notice if the positional audio is bad with 5.1 speakers? I’ve been paying extra attention to the audio because I am considering changing my setup. I’m positioned in game with my back to the water and the lapping water sound is much louder coming out of the front speakers… Do I possible have something setup wrong?
I do have my default speakers set as 5.1 audio.