Assassin's Creed: Origins - 2017, Ancient Egypt, hawk spotter drone

Doubtful. From what I understand the cracks bypass the DRM, they don’t actually stop it from running. Any cycles gained would be negligible.

Yves Guillemot told investors on the latest con call that the company has “a few other DLCs” on the slate after the season pass stuff.

“You will be amazed by what will come on Origins, so that’s the only thing we can say for now.”

They have already released a few cosmetic DLCs outside of the season pass, that have irritated their fan base. I am sure this news will go over well.

Yves implied he was talking about something more substantial than just more of the cosmetic DLC packs. In fact, he seemed to discount suggestions that they’d have a new AC title for this year, instead opting to release a new expansion.

I think the Assassin part of this series has to be let go now, in the same way they dropped the social stealth and the counter-based combat.and made the parkour automatic. Even if they did a by-the-numbers RPG, I’d love to see this engine and these artists give that a go. Even better if they put some imagination into it.

Oh, I should add that a Ubi rep clarified that as far as he knew, Yves was referring to the Discovery Tour and The Curse of the Pharaohs DLC when he said “a few other” content packs. According to the rep, there are no large DLC plans beyond that.

Shame. I know plenty of fans that would like more of Origins.

Here’s some more details on the Discovery Mode stuff:

Interesting that they folded game dev behind the scenes bits into it.

This is something I would like to see as well. In general, Ubisoft seems to have an understanding of the building blocks needed for making immersive open world roleplaying games but whether it is the constraints of working within the confines of specific franchises or something else, their developers only seem to scratch the surface with these building blocks. I want to get lost in their worlds but I always end up feeling like a guest in some kind of Westworld like theme park.

The tour mode goes live tomorrow, Feb 20th.

How many guided tours are there?

The Discovery Tour features 75 guided tours curated by experts tied to five themes:

Egypt: the land of Egypt, geography, and wildlife.
Pyramids: the most iconic landmarks of Egypt.
Alexandria: explaining the Greek influence that started with Alexander the Great.
Daily Life: information about the people and not only the monuments.
Romans: few tours about the growing influence of Rome at the time of the game.

How long does it take to complete a guided tour?

The time to complete a tour ranges from 5 to 25 minutes.

How many characters will we be able to play as?

Players will be able to explore Egypt with several different avatars ranging from the main characters of Assassin’s Creed Origins, Bayek and Aya, to important historical figures who also appear, such as Cleopatra and Caesar. There’s a total of 25 avatars.

I heard they’re going to sell this Discovery Tour as a standalone game as well. I’m very tempted by it.

OTOH, I could probably wait for a sale, and by the time I get to this point in the series, it will be given almost for free anyway.

Oh, the video doesn’t show it, but there’s a first-person mode in the Discovery Tour. It’s clumsy and meant for just looking around, but you can parkour with it.

The update also has New Game Plus.

I just tried the Discovery Tour - very, very cool! It’s a remixed version of the whole game, and the whole map is open. I wish they’d managed to make this seamless within Origins so you could get the history as you’re playing, but it’s still fantastic. The tours are a mix of travelling to waypoints, listening to narration on the topic, and a bit of curated art from galleries. Interestingly, the performance is much better than in Origins (on PC).

Finished this yesterday after 50 hours or so. Looked out the window to see this guy in the tree outside. Tell me that’s not Senu.

Yeah, this Discovery Tour is pretty damn good. It’s definitely not some half-assed thing. I can see why they separated it out now.

Still, I did miss having some snarky Shaun Hastings entries while I explored during my playthrough. There were countless times I’d come across some structure and think, “Oh, I should look that thing up,” and then not because I was busy playing.

Did you mean to put a “not” in there, by any chance? It seems to contradict the previous sentence.

Whoops! Yup.

That’s very cool. Had my own Senu experience over Christmas while playing. Thought to myself, “I wish I had an eagle buddy!”. Next day, this beauty visited my garden

They know about us.

Wait, so this is mandatorily a separate install? I’ve been keeping the game on my SSD all this time for no reason?