I’m not looking for pristine, uncompromised games. And none of my favorites in 2018 was compromised quite like Assassin’s Creed Odyssey. I’d only played the second and fourth in the series before starting, and Far Cry 2 was the sole Ubisoft game I’d even liked. So admittedly, I went in with my knives out. And the dull frame story did not disappoint. Pythagoras, the animus, some precursor nonsense, lord help me. It’s like they don’t even understand why people like these historical fantasies. As if worlds from the past, the details of distant lives, are not enough. Pile on some typical Ubi excess and you’d think I’d be out. There’s only so much assassination I can take.
But the excess had a curious effect. Because Odyssey also committed to a certain amount of role-playing this time, my Kassandra was able to choose. Not just which option in a quest but whether to do it at all. It gave voice to my zealous inner Bartleby. Thin the local bear population? I’d prefer not to. Turn the tide on that there battlefield? I’d prefer not to. Get revenge for a petty neighbor? Naw. I don’t fuck with that.
Odyssey’s muchness contributed to a stronger world feeling without stoking some inner completionist. I went where I wanted, followed my interests, of which there were plenty, and the whole thing unfurled. The spiraling map, the many interlocking systems, the slow unveiling of the cult, it’s actually remarkable how naturally it all unwinds before the player. Which makes the DLC’s forced hetero blood legacy choice I’ve heard about so disheartening. I generally don’t mess with DLC, but even from a distance it sours my Kassandra’s future a bit.
Because otherwise, what I’d found by the end of my odyssey was this: a gods-haunted people in landscapes of astonishing color and light centered on the best avatar in an open world game.
Assassin’s Creed Odyssey gives us a layered history, a past with many pasts. The Greeks you meet are grappling with all of them — recent events, fading stories, and ancient myths alike — and asking existential questions with refreshing urgency. How do you live in a world of fickle gods? How do you live without them? There is an immediacy to these questions that humanizes almost everyone you meet. And not just famous figures like Socrates. Though Odyssey does recognize, correctly, what a sweetheart he’s always been.
Much of this humanity comes from the writing, full of pathos and good humor, warm and philosophic throughout, but always with a light touch. My Kassandra was worldweary and worldwise, nobody’s fool, but also a misthios who just plain cared. You could hear it in her voice. She saw people clearly, their dreams and their bullshit, and yet still wanted to throw in with them. She was game for the struggle, and she had the arms to prove it.
There’s just so much life in Odyssey. Such a feeling of world happening all around you. The markets and shrines, your ship with its shanties, every single dusk and dawn. They don’t announce themselves or demand your attention. When you come upon a patch of morning mist that just catches the light, the game doesn’t overdo it. It’s not there for your mission or cutscene but for world feeling alone, something that just happens. And sure it’s all background, and true you’ll run right through it, but that’s by design. This isn’t your pokey howdy ma’am realism asking questions the game cannot answer. Instead, it simply aims for beauty and adventure and a proud ancient world, with all the zip and thereness it can muster. Even when it stretches, with stunning transitions from land to ship to swelling sea, its felt sense of continuity and scale makes the speed a source of wonder. Will the illusion hold? By the gods, it will.
Odyssey asks solid game questions, for now. It attempts a world, not a stage show. This world may clearly be a videogame simulation, but it’s not trying to fool you. There’s far too much murder, but the game doesn’t ask me to mourn the assassin’s lifestyle or con me into believing it’s something it’s not. And it is this honesty, along with its writing and its misthios and its goddamned humanity, that makes it 2018’s true alternative to that malákas cowboy game.
But the excess had a curious effect. Because Odyssey also committed to a certain amount of role-playing this time, my Kassandra was able to choose. Not just which option in a quest but whether to do it at all. It gave voice to my zealous inner Bartleby. Thin the local bear population? I’d prefer not to. Turn the tide on that there battlefield? I’d prefer not to. Get revenge for a petty neighbor? Naw. I don’t fuck with that.
Odyssey’s muchness contributed to a stronger world feeling without stoking some inner completionist. I went where I wanted, followed my interests, of which there were plenty, and the whole thing unfurled. The spiraling map, the many interlocking systems, the slow unveiling of the cult, it’s actually remarkable how naturally it all unwinds before the player. Which makes the DLC’s forced hetero blood legacy choice I’ve heard about so disheartening. I generally don’t mess with DLC, but even from a distance it sours my Kassandra’s future a bit.
Because otherwise, what I’d found by the end of my odyssey was this: a gods-haunted people in landscapes of astonishing color and light centered on the best avatar in an open world game.
Assassin’s Creed Odyssey gives us a layered history, a past with many pasts. The Greeks you meet are grappling with all of them — recent events, fading stories, and ancient myths alike — and asking existential questions with refreshing urgency. How do you live in a world of fickle gods? How do you live without them? There is an immediacy to these questions that humanizes almost everyone you meet. And not just famous figures like Socrates. Though Odyssey does recognize, correctly, what a sweetheart he’s always been.
Much of this humanity comes from the writing, full of pathos and good humor, warm and philosophic throughout, but always with a light touch. My Kassandra was worldweary and worldwise, nobody’s fool, but also a misthios who just plain cared. You could hear it in her voice. She saw people clearly, their dreams and their bullshit, and yet still wanted to throw in with them. She was game for the struggle, and she had the arms to prove it.
There’s just so much life in Odyssey. Such a feeling of world happening all around you. The markets and shrines, your ship with its shanties, every single dusk and dawn. They don’t announce themselves or demand your attention. When you come upon a patch of morning mist that just catches the light, the game doesn’t overdo it. It’s not there for your mission or cutscene but for world feeling alone, something that just happens. And sure it’s all background, and true you’ll run right through it, but that’s by design. This isn’t your pokey howdy ma’am realism asking questions the game cannot answer. Instead, it simply aims for beauty and adventure and a proud ancient world, with all the zip and thereness it can muster. Even when it stretches, with stunning transitions from land to ship to swelling sea, its felt sense of continuity and scale makes the speed a source of wonder. Will the illusion hold? By the gods, it will.
Odyssey asks solid game questions, for now. It attempts a world, not a stage show. This world may clearly be a videogame simulation, but it’s not trying to fool you. There’s far too much murder, but the game doesn’t ask me to mourn the assassin’s lifestyle or con me into believing it’s something it’s not. And it is this honesty, along with its writing and its misthios and its goddamned humanity, that makes it 2018’s true alternative to that malákas cowboy game.