- very good stealth game which is fun in an open world.
- sailing boats are a bit reminiscent of motor boats in terms of sensation
- the hud is very well managed
- the weapons handle very differently from each other, we inevitably find a weapon that we like
- the lore is well managed too
- there are bugs that are annoying, like the hit animation when you're in the water is almost as long as the attack speed of a crocodile, so you start to get harassed unfairly by only one crocodile and when there are two you just have to wait to die in solitude and pain.

So in my opinion, a balanced game, but still requires improvement to be a 4*

Acho esse um dos melhores dos RPG de hoje, a história é legal e o Bayek é bem escrito e a muié dele não é buxa igual uma certa ruiva ai, combate é bem legal e fazer as pirâmides dava uma dinâmica do krlh o erro desse jogo é te obrigar a grindar secundária, ENTENDA UBISOFT NINGUÉM QUER GRINDAR PRA JOGAR MODO HISTÓRIA você tentou copiar the witcher com a desgraça do odyssey e nem isso soube adaptar até hoje, é foda hein!

resumindo, é um bom jogo tirando o grind eu gosto muito do Bayek você sente que ele realmente fundou os assassinos, não é nada atoa.

After buying Syndicate in 2017 and deciding that it actually was a good game but I wanted to replay all the series before continuing, I still bought every next Assassin's Creed game that got released after Syndicate and directly shelved it. Origins waited the longest until it finally saw the inside of my blu-ray drive, and I was excited for it the most, because I already heard a lot of good things about it and saw some stunning game play videos.

Since then I also learned that Origins was seen as kind of a soft reboot of the series by fans of the franchise and learned that Ubisoft themselves rather see it as their second period of Assassin's Creed games after the first periode that started with the original Assassin's Creed finally ended with Syndicate in 2015. But what brought in this change? Basically, that Assassin's Creed wasn't selling as well anymore, as expected. From original AC to Black Flag, every new title beat the older ones in units sold (that is not counting the continuations of a series, as well as taking into account that Black Flag only fell short by a tiny margin to actually beat AC III - but it still made more profit than the original and ACII and plays in the same ballpark as Black Flag). Until the infamous double release of Rogue and Unity. Unity stood far behind expectations being only on place 6 of the the rang list, and Rogue became a disaster, with the least number of units sold in the entire franchise. Syndicate, playing in a famous time period and with a lot of infamous historic characters only managed to outsell Rogue, second to last. If you ask the players, you'll often hear that there is a kind of product fatigue - since 2007 Ubisoft was releasing a title every year, and in since 2012 this became two titles - one mainline title and either an DLC (Like Liberation or Freedom Cry) or a secondary title like the Chronicles series; and with the double release of Unity and Rogue even two main-line titles. And all the while there was no real innovation in the game-play and even the story (regarding Isu and modern-day story) got convoluted to a point that people couldn't follow anymore.

Additionally, with every title released, Ubisoft pushed the timeline further to the modern day - next in line after the End of the Industrial Revolution would have been modern day, already.

So Ubisoft decided to take a break - leave two years out, and return in 2017 with the first game of their second period: Instead of stealth-action adventure games, Ubisoft decided to shift the focus to role-playing video games (though I would argue that the first period games also fit quite well in that description). The biggest changes for me in the game play are two: 1. the unguided open-world approach; where older titles would actively hinder you to reach certain areas at an early stage by putting an animus barrier around the area you can explore, or by denying you access via doors, portals, etc., in Origins and games to come you are allowed to wander freely right from the get-go. There are some hints as to what makes sense to do next (difficulty levels), but which mission you do first, which characters you interact with first or which areas you explore first is totally up to you - for better or worse. 2. the entirely changed fighting system that abandoned the "paired animation system" (i.e. when attacking an enemy both parties lock into an animation sequence during which nothing else can happen, and where the outcome is predefined by the situation and kind of attack) for the "hit box system" (i.e. you swing your weapon freely and as often as you want, and if it by chance touches the hit box of an enemy, that enemy gets an effect), which changes the entire way combats are played (allowing - amongst other things - to further categorize weapons into damage, speed and range, and allowing those weapons to be played in different modes (heavy and light)).

The other striking novelty is in the time setting and thus the story told: the four games of the second period range from 431 BC to 878 AD; the Order of Assassins was founded around 1090 AD, the Knights Templar in 1119 AD. Is this still Assassin's Creed?

Let's see how the first installment in the second period - which incidently is the 10th overall installment - holds up:

In the modern-day of origin we get to meet Layla Hassan, a young and brilliant hacker and maker who is working as a researcher for Abstergo Industires. She is on a mission in Egypt to retrieve some artifacts, but accidentally stumbles upon the mummified bodies. Instead of reporting this, Layla decides to use her modified Animus in the hopes to find out something useful that might secure her position at Abstergo.

Our main ancient character is Bayek of Siwa, on of the last Medjay in Ptolemaic Egypt under Ptolemy XIII, who does not only need to worry about an invading Roman army under the command of Julius Caesar, but also has to fend of revolutionist in his own ranks who are under the influence of his sister Cleopatra that seeks to overthrow his brother. In the midst of this, the son of Bayek and his wife Aya gets killed by a group of 12 masked men. Bayek seeks revenge and learns of the Order of the Ancients - a cult that believes in Gods called the "Ancient Ones" (which turn out to be our Isu) and try to control humanity with their gifts. This group has existed for centuries around the world. Bayek in his quest for revenge kills them with his wife Aya and the help of Cleopatra - and after that founds a group of people - "The Hidden Ones" to fight against these "Order of the Ancients" and protect the people from them - just like the Medjay of the old times did.

The story of Bayek and Aya is really captivating, thrilling and at times also heart-breaking. We get so much time with the characters and their feelings that we really start to take a great interest in them and be more engaged in the story as any other Assassins Creed has ever managed to do. I was identifying with these characters right from the get-go and knew their emotions and motivations, and it was fun playing them and exploring the world the main story and the side quests with them. The main quest is pretty straight forward - travel around Egypt to find clues about the Ancient Ones and kill them. But there are a lot of twist and turns on the way, and by traveling around Egypt we get to explore the wonders of it as well: we get to travel from small oasis villages to enormous ancient cities like the greek-built Alexandria or the Egypt build Memphis, but also cross the dessert and mountain areas and even get to climb the Pyramids and explore the tombs in the Valley of Kings. Besides traveling by foot we also get to ride camels and horses, carriages and even get to go by boat on larger lakes or the river Nile. This world is enormous, and to make it even more fun to explore, we get a ton of side quests; some are stand alone quests, others are series of quests and then there are even quests that spring from main quest events where we get to see how the people are doing afterwards - if we want to, as side quests are totally optional of course. But in Origins non of the quests feel repetitive as every quest has its own story and fate behind it, so this never feels like a chore to do.

The new fighting system feels great; its much more fluent but it also needs you to learn some tactics that vary with the kind of enemy you are fighting against; and it's become impossible to fight against whole group of enemies at once - whats true for you (hit box system) is also true for the enemies - if three of them hit you at once with a heavy attack that takes away a third of your life then you die in an instance. So even though fighting is much better and much more accurate and fun to do, it won't allow you to cut through your enemies like previous games did; so you need to adapt your strategy. I myself had a lot of fun with stealth sneaking around and killing my enemies from a distance with bow and arrows. The predator bow is an incredible weapon and there is an incredible ability that even allows you to steer your arrow while it is in the air, but you are very limited in arrows, so I tried to stake out an enemy camp find all my possibilities to recharge arrows and then strategically planned my takeouts - trying to not alarm anyone, if possible. Coolest thing I learned: A burning arrow deals much more damage, and to make your arrow burn you actually can stand next to a fire source, or - if at a distance - shoot through a fire source in which case your arrow will also catch fire. Boy had I fun finding the perfect trajectory lines or trying to steer my arrow mid air so it could pass through a fire source and still hit my target. To perfect your play style there is a skill tree and different weapons in various rarities that can be even further upgraded.

Besides all of this there is also an arena where you have gladiator style fights and an arena where you have Ben Hur like chariot races, and there are even missions that are set on the ocean on a trireme, with Black Flag like mechanics for some boat fights. All in all this gives you a pretty decent amount of variety - and for an Assassin's Creed title that is saying a lot.

And if that is not enough for you and you want to immerse yourself even further into the life of ancient Egypt, there is an entire game mode where you are allowed to run around the world freely without any obstacles and visit certain landmarks or locations to go on a guided tour and learn about every days life, believes, economic systems or scientific achievements of ancient Egypt. This opens up the world on a much deeper level and makes you appreciate certain game aspects so much more; and it is a really fun way to learn new things or refresh on your textbook knowledge in an immersive way that even museums cannot offer; oh and btw. this mode has already been discovered by teachers who actually use some of this material in their classes.

Included with my edition came two DLCs:

1. The Hidden Ones: A new mission that takes place in Sinai, where Bayek helps an allied rebel leader to fight against the Romans. In general it was fun to play, but I felt it didn't feel and fit as good in the story. Some elements where copied over without even thinking about them making sense in the new environment or not - so while I generally liked it, I felt that it was just a sloppy addition that could have used more care.

2. The Curse of the Pharaohs: This is the DLC where you should put all your money in. Especially when playing this, you will even more so feel that the "Hidden Ones" was just a sloppy copy of the original game to add some missions and game time to the game. Not so with The Curse of the Pharaohs. This time you'll dive deep into the Egyptian believe system - deeper than you think: In Thebes all of a sudden Egyptian Pharaohs rise from the dead to punish the people. Bayek gets called to investigate this, and not only dives deep into the tombs found in Thebes and Luxor, but also reaches the Egyptian worlds of the dead: The "Fields of the Reeds", "Aten" and the "Duat" are places he has to visit to appease the raging pharaohs. And those where incredible experiences of interpretations of what Egyptians believed in. Each world has its own look and feel, enemies, missions and side quests that felt incredibly unique, and everything is framed in an really interesting story that also allows us to visit new real existing Egypt cities to explore. Definitely one of the best DLCs of the entire series.

So, was the wait, the re-haul of the entire game and the change from stealth-action adventure to role playing game worth it? In my humble opinion - as a story game enthusiast - yes, definitely. Everything was so much more immersive, so much more fun to play and got so much more depth. Heck, even Layla had more depth with the tiny portion we got to explore about here (mainly by going through her personal files in the computer, though) then Desmond had with all four of his game installments.

But take not just my word: While sales where dropping with every series since Black Flag, Origins was the first game to exceed all previous games in sold units, making it the first game since a decade to beat their previous record - by more than a million additional copies sold. Financially, Assassin's Creed did everything right; and story and game-play wise it at least impressed me the most; it's definitely in my Top 3 titles I enjoyed most - maybe even the best of them all? And I really have a hard time finding anything I disliked during the entire experience.

Le jeu qui m'as réconcilié avec la franchise. J'avais été déçu d'Unity et je n'avais pas joué a Syndicate. C'est le tout premier jeu que j'ai platiné tellement j'avais envie de continuer à explorer l'open world proposé. Le coté RPG du jeu était nouveau et l'open world était immense.
L'histoire et les personnages étaient assez réussis j'ai été impliqué du début a la fin. Seul défaut c'est les missions animus que j'ai trouvé inutile ( comme toujours ) et le monde ouvert un peu trop grand à mon goût.