A fresh take on the series set in an amazing environment, but gets a little grindy.
This was a great follow up to Syndicate. Ubisoft really stepped it up a notch with this game and tried something new. The game is more RPG and action focused and isn't without it's fair share of oddities. Story-wise the game is pretty solid. You play as Bayek who is on a revenge mission against a secret organization that killed his son. You travel all across Egypt (in a HUGE map) hunting them down and meeting interesting characters along the way. You periodically play as Bayek's wife Aya as well which are more story driven missions, but the gameplay feel kind of flat for me there. The mission narratives for her were great, but you lose some of you abilities when you switch to her. The out of animus activities are very limited which was nice. Gameplay-wise this one is very solid. With the RPG direction you have a fairly deep skill tree to customize to your playstyle and loot is CRUCIAL. You can loot weapons, gear, crafting items, etc. from various sources including chests/containers, enemies and animals. The leveling is fairly well paced as long as you do some side activities in each area. I had not problem with this as the activities were fun. Towards the end it can feel a bit grindy though and is required to get to the end game. The game progressed well and had solid pacing overall though.
I played entirely on Steam Deck and it played near flawlessly. I had it set to medium graphics, and locked it to 45fps and 45hz refresh rate (also set this in the game settings). I found adaptive resolution to help stabilize the frame-rate in larger cities as well. It took me a little over 38 hours to complete the main campaign. I did not venture into the DLC at this point.
Overall, I really enjoyed this game and the new RPG mechanics and more sandbox style of gameplay. It definitely gets grindy at the end, but is not excessive. Highly recommend for any AC enthusiasts or even if you are newer tot he franchise.
