I found they could get tough fast if you stay too long. They get harder the more places you raid, as you go deeper up the river towards Col. Kurtz. Oh, wait, wrong movie. But they do get harder.
“Discovery Tour: Viking Age,” the edutainment historical DLC, will be released on October 19th.
Continuing in the footsteps of previous Discovery Tours, the new experience was designed with input from historians and archaeologists, and will transform the game’s world into a nonviolent, educational experience that players can freely explore to learn more about the places, people, and cultures of ninth-century England and Norway. However, Discovery Tour: Viking Age takes a new approach to how players explore history: instead of embarking on guided tours, they will assume the roles of different characters and take on quests, which aim to bring them closer to the material by putting them at the center of it.
While following the narrative and completing the quests’ objectives, Discovery Tour: Viking Age players will have the opportunity to interact with Discovery Sites that each focus on an element of the culture and traditions of Vikings and Anglo-Saxons in the Viking Age. Those Discovery Sites feature images of items from the collections of Discovery Tour’s museum partners, which include the UK’s Hampshire Cultural Trust, Preston Park Museum & Grounds, York Archaeological Trust, and The British Library; France’s Réunion des Musées Nationaux; and the National Museum of Denmark.
Oh I guess that’s why when I jumped on for a quick game today, there’s a 30GB patch…
Has anyone tried this for Origins? Is it cool? Or is it just a gimmick? And is Origins the only other game that’s done this? Is there a Discovery Tour for Odyssey?
-Tom
There is a tour for all the newer A/C games, Tom.
So bad at taking tours!
I’ve only ever gotten deep into Odyssey tour but it’s great. Of course ot doesn’t go deep into any given topic and it’s like reading a history book for children. But for me it worked like sort of director’s commentary on top of the movie explaining why and how stuff was done. The one that stuck was me was a tour on wine making. Not because it is interesting in itself but because the whole process can be seen in the game. As you go along the tour the camera shows people doing different things (gathering grapes, storing it in baskets, pressing it, processing it, letting it ferment, pack it for transport by ship in a special type of amphoras). All those people om the streets you pay no attention to are often involved in some historically recreated activity. Children play a reconstructed game. Stuff near altars is not just random assets but a specific set of items depending on a place.
When people talk about modern AC being less historical it’s crazy to me. Go try Odyssey Discovery Tour (Origins is fine too) to see how much effort went into representing the historical reality. Of course a bunch of Ancient Aliens and concious anachronisms were put on top, but it’s still miles ahead of any other media product at both broadness and detail. Would be great if they find a way to convey that without a separate commentary mode.
I did some of the tour content for Origins, I thought it was really interesting. One thing I recall is how popular beer was with the Egyptian culture. I feel much more in tune with them, in fact I may be part Egyptian.
I didn’t know the Discovery stuff for this had a different format from the Egyptian one. I thought Egypt was too clunky to endure but this might be worth a look.
It looks good. Too bad it’s a separate mode. A lot of people think that cause those games have fantastical and anachronistic elements they are not the biggest historical portrayals of their settings.
Well, yeah; the games were never intended to be history lessons. The whole AC mythos is bonkers anyhow, so any historical verisimilitude is sort of a bonus!
Though given how often I’ve had to disabuse students of odd notions of things like the Spartans in ancient Greece based on that film 300, maybe folks do have a hard time separating reality from fiction.
What I mean is I often see people talking about modern AC being “less historical” than previous ones cause there’s more Ancient Aliens stuff and clearly anachronistic weapons and attires. Plus in the latest ones you can play as The Female and internet historian cherish their knowledge of women not being accepted as equals in the good old days, nevermind the fact that previous games had Italian dude being instantly accepted in the court of Ottoman sultan, Native American being a bro to George Washington, Irish low-class dude being bro to English nobles etc.
Ahem. What I mean is how detailed the world is, and how surprisingly a lot of stuff is based on reality. Some towns in Odyssey have a very specific wall ornaments, and you have to go to Discovery Tour to see that it’s not just a random designer choice but based on archeological evidence. Children play the games they probably played. Craftsmen quarters portray realistic manufacturing processes. Of course you have 300 style presentation and stories on top of it, but it’s still amazing. Wish they’d find a way to make their efforts more visible. It would make the world much more meaningful without having to load a separate game mode.
Ah, gotcha. Yes, I’m always very impressed by the work that goes into these things.
Video here:
Sorry, not going to catch up on the whole thread, but what’s the verdict on the Season Pass here? I’m assuming that I would want to move on to a different game long before I run out of “stuff” to do in the main game, but is the DLC qualitatively different/better to be worth the extra $16 for the gold edition over regular?
I enjoyed both of them, though I though the Druids one was a bit more robust. I think they are definitely worth a few buck certainly.
They were both decent, but by the time I played through them last month, I was just plowing through the main quest lines so I could move on to other games with a clean conscience! I needed to stop trying to 100% things, so I didn’t get to appreciate the expansions.
You can leave the DLC content til you’re done with the main game, and see if you fancy more. That’s what I did.
They added swords via a dlc recently didn’t they?
Do I need a dlc to see swords appear in the base game?
I think the short swords came with the FRANCE dlc.