After skipping out on its once annual release in 2016, Ubisoft has released Assassin’s Creed: Origins on PC and console. Having finally been based in a long-awaited setting; Egypt, Assassin’s Creed: Origins puts you into the life of Bayek a Medjay from the Ptolemaic era. Along his travels Bayek becomes involved with an impending war between Ptolemy and Cleopatra & Julius Caesar.

Assassin’s Creed: Origins a 2017 reboot of the action-stealth series Assassin’s Creed, it is developed and published by Ubisoft. It is available on PC, Playstation 4, and Xbox One.

The world’s first assassin Bayek.

Acting as a soft reboot for the long-running Assassin’s Creed franchise. Origins takes a break (hopefully a permanent one) from annual releases for the core games. Providing players with more depth in story, gameplay, and it’s overall presentation, it changes the Assassin’s Creed formula with great success and Ubisoft should be proud of what they’ve accomplished. Origins will go down in history as not only one of, if not the best Assassin’s Creed entry, but one of the greatest games of 2017.

A long requested fantasy is finally realized in Assassin’s Creed: Origins.

THE GOOD: Assassin’s Creed recieves it’s way over due (soft) reboot with Origins. Though not a full on restart, everything feels revamped enough that they may as well had redesigned the series from scratch. The world feels truly open, combat is more refined and doesn’t feel like a chore. Enemy AI is vastly improved, in fact there;s enemies in the game that the average player will probably never kill during their run. However, perhaps the most important aspect of Origins is that the world feels real and vibrant with life & color. Nothing feels like it’s just empty space taking up the map one way or another you’ll encounter either people or animals to weed out any potential feelings of loneliness as you explore all that Egypt has to offer.

Origins takes all steps necessary to avoid the blunders of its annual past.

In Assassin’s Creed: Origins one of the major issues has been fixed, and that’s actually feeling like an assassin. There’s so many ways to kill enemies that go beyond the cheesy wrist blade, high kill, and stealth kill. Those are still there yes, but variety has been given a huge upgrade. You can use anything from fire to even animals to eliminate your enemies or at the very least take down a decent sized amount of health to give you an advantage in combat. For the first time since maybe Blackflag, the game map feels truly open. You can travel via boat, camel/horse, or fast travel across areas, but regardless of your method of travel the game will feel very open-world without the open-world issues (like the aforementioned empty space and limited life).

Whether it’s random bandits, police, citizens, or animals there’s life a plenty in Origins.

The story and characters feel accurate and rich respectively. Bayek’s family man persona is relatable and his quest for revenge brings unexpected emotion throughout the game’s run. Speaking of accuracy, Origins’ portrayal of Egypt seemed realistic enough and even the biggest critics of Egyptian history could agree. Origins never feels like a chore to play and many times you’ll be replaying quests, but it feels so rewarding completing them (mainly due to difficulty), you end up not caring when you realize you spent over an hour on the same quest, and if you find an easy out to completing it beyond killing everything in sight it feels unsatisfying.

Side quests, treasure hunts, and more are here to distract you from the main quest.

Something else Origins does right is basically making upgrading Bayek and his arsenal of gear a necessity. While not forced, it feels required to a degree that you’re just wasting your time against later enemies unless of course you’re ok with just cheesing them, which I had my fair share of guilt doing so because I didn’t upgrade. I was honestly expecting to breeze through the early hours of the game, but Origins makes sure to help you disregard such a misconception. Side quests are revamped with actual story threads and some mini-games such as finding a body, chariot racing, or translating Ancient Egyptian text for treasures. They’re a nice little detour from the main storyline, especially if you’re desperate for XP.

Cheesing won’t be the solution in Origins for long, eventually character progression is heavily suggested.

THE BAD: While a new attempt at the Assassin’s Creed formula which works, it’s still suffering from a small amount of issues leftover, which will hopefully be erased once Ubisoft commits to the bi-annual release schedule. For example, Abstergo is still apart of the story, admittedly the game has a very limited Abstergo prescence, but it doesn’t stop it from slowing the game down. Speaking of slow downs some technical issues here and there can also interrupt the enjoyment factor. There are lootboxes present in Origins, but they’ll more than likely be virtually ignored, especially considering they never seem crammed down your throat.

The assassin’s life has a bright future ahead.

OVERALL THOUGHTS: Assassin’s Creed: Origins is a more than modest attempt at breaking the tired Assassin’s Creed formula. Taking genuine time and effort to revamp the series with a begged refresher. The changes are welcomed, though some of the old vision is intact, which is a problem, but an easily ignored one.