The controversy surrounding the quality of Assassin's Creed: Odyssey

The divided crowd this game has is an interesting topic to me, especially since so few people actually played it and yet judge the game by it's cover. Assassin's Creed: Origins launched last year as a sort of reboot to the franchise. Gone was the usual parkour Assassin style gameplay the series was known for, and introduced was the more RPG style gameplay. Origin's while being a breath of fresh air received it's fair share of criticism, though it generally was received very positively.

Odyssey does pretty much everything Origin did but in a better, bigger and more refined way. Within that light you would expect Odyssey to have been given a more fair view by the general game community. But it seems that the past history of both Ubisoft and Assassin's Creed lingers on within the game community. Odyssey is being criticised for being a rehash, re-skin and more of the same old milking and grinding both Ubisoft and Assassin's Creed became to be known for.

Odyssey presents one of the biggest Single Player experiences to be released this generation, with a main story longer than a few games combined. According to critics the story is very well written and the dialogue is vastly improved. The graphics are on Origin's level (Which still easily is one of the best around) with an improved art style due to the variety in the landscape. That, to me, seems like a pretty important aspect of a game for it to be worth it to me.

I feel the discussions sparked over this game are mostly interesting due to the fact gamers these days are so heavily absorbed in to the politics of the big Publishers. It's quite understandable to a degree as well, since games don't come cheap and advertisement campaigns have fooled gamers over and over again. But can we really let good games pass by and fail, when games like Odyssey is exactly what the industry needs at the moment? I haven't played Odyssey yet, but I am willing to go get it because the industry needs more gameplay packed games like this one. It might not be the most cinematic experience, but it sure has a lot of gameplay mechanics RPG fans have been itching to play again.

What's your take on this?

Origins felt too long already, probably because the side missions started to feel old very quickly and you have to do them to level up and you have to level up to progress with the story, meh. Great graphics though, played on the X, but visuals alone don't make a great game. Maybe I'll try out Odyssey when it hits 10 euros next year.

I'm having a blast. I've seen Ubisoft ruin games, make great games, bring games back from the dead, and so on. I don't really care about "game politics".

I definitely miss the old formula of stalking victims, stealth, hiding in crowds, and all that stuff. However, I can appreciate the new spin, the "reboot" as you said, if you judge it as its own game.

The stealth is still there, but it's more fluid, spontaneous, and not as deep. However, the combat is enjoyable enough, so when you inevitably do get discovered or decide to go in sword swinging, you don't feel like you failed (as you do in other stealth games like Splinter Cell, Thief, and Hitman), but instead you just feel like that's how it goes *shrug*

Assassin's Creed has never been a perfect game series, at least not to me. There were always issues, be it with the parkour system not being that great, weak installments, and so on. The series has always been about reliving history, as fictionalized as it might be, and putting yourself into the shoes from times and eras you only read about. That's mainly the reason I am a fan of the series. I have a bad habit of liking games for very non-game reasons :P

If you didn't play Origins and haven't started Odyssey, you are missing out. I'm about 8 hours into Odyssey and it has the potential to rival HZD for my game of this gen. Origins was also great, but Odyssey already feels more special.

Haven't played either Origins or Odyssey yet. Waiting for Origins to drop to like $20. The main reason I'm interested in it is because of Egypt.

Don't really like that they turned into an RPG, just seems like a way for them to make it grindy and encourage people to spend real money on upgrading stuff.

Greece is also a cool setting, but if Origins is meh will probably skip Odyssey.

Woa that's a high-end compliment. How about someone who already owns Origins, do you find it still is worth the instant buy?

It's not really that much of an RPG. They added dialogue to it. Origins is where the whole "RPG" thing started. Technically, it started with Syndicate because it had a skill tree as well, but Origins is where it really took off.

If you think AC? RPG? and want to associate it with, idunno...Diablo or Divinity Original Sin or a host of other RPGs, it's not like that at all. It has a skill tree, and dialogue. That's it.

@todddow:

>HZD

>Game of the gen

Lol

The AC games just seem like a bunch of busy work. No thanks

Origins sucked and Odyssey looks like more of the same.

It's exactly what the industry needs right now? LOL. Sure, the industry totally needs one AC every year with slight changes. Totally what the industry needs right now.

Origins was an excellent game, or could be, if they trimmed 50% of the fat. The narrative was well done, excellent graphic engine, beautiful art direction, good characters and gameplay was solid. But it has way too much filler. Ubisoft saying that they want me to play Odyssey for 6 months it's more of a turn off than an incentive. In 6 months I want to play like 10 games not be stuck doing busy work in one game. Or at least they should go for a more emergent approach.

Mehh the Ubisoft formula is getting old at this point imo, despite them adding a skill tree and some more dialogue it just doesn’t change the basic game imo...

Played origins for 5-10 hours and found it quite boring, have no intention of playing odyssey...

I don't totally agree with cutting of the grinding part. Especially since all the ways to earn XP can be pretty varied and there is a whole world to explore and uncover alongside doing so. I do think they should give a main story only mode. That would help solve most problems.

@jahnee: If the grinding serves progression I'm fine with it, but such a huge map with so much stuff to do ends up feeling -to me- as too much filler when it's not really needed. I was mostly overpowered during the whole game and before deciding to just give up and finish the story I still had regions I barely scratched the surface because after so many hours it just felt like repetitive busy work.

I still enjoyed the game, it was the only AC that I managed to finish but by the end I was just exhausted. Very different from the feeling I got once I've finished BotW, for example, where I wished the game wanting more and occasionally I keep coming to it to play a bit more. With AC it never crossed my mind coming back to it.

If they make this version playable on PC it would be great, Origins was possibly the worst port performance wise of all time.

Unplayable on PC with double the amount of computational power than the console, that takes some doing.

Spiderman killed Tomb Raider. RDR2 will kill ACO. Why do you guys insist on defending this garbage?

These names are so interchangeable. I think last years ORIGINS was originally ODYSSEY until they saw the new mario had the title so they saved it for this years game.

That's possible, but Origins fits really well with Egypt and the early beginnings of Assassins, while Odyssey fits really well with Greece, The Odyssey by Homer and the story of Odysseus.

It arrives for me tomorrow. I always say I'm going to hold off on AC games, but I end up getting them every single year (sans years where they took breaks). With that said, I'm least excited about this game due to the fact that although I did enjoy Origins, I see this game taken further in a direction I don't want to see it. I don't want action games becoming RPGs because it ruins the pacing for me. One of the things that really bothered me with Origins was enemy camps and lairs were locked by level requirements. Sure, you could spend an hour killing a level 47 guy while you're only level 12, but that is a stupid way to structure gameplay in the scheme of Assassin's Creed. If I'm there, I should be able to kill someone because I'm a ****ing assassin. I shouldn't have to go wander off to the rest of the world playing for hours to level up just to go back to that camp provided I even remember or care enough to return. I feel Odyssey is going to be more of this. I actually groaned when I heard this is going to be 50+ hours long.... Action games don't need to be that long.

I had my fill with Origins. I don't need another game like that, so soon. They look like very similar games to me.

I feel like Odyssey will be better than Origins

I played Origins on PC and it worked fine for me, not sure what you are referring to. I did get it a couple months after launch so maybe they patched it by then.

I'll probably get Odyssey on sale later this year or early next year

LOL at PRO... Yuck!

Find it funny how reviewers are complaining about having to grind to earn rewards.

I hear the game is designed around MTX boosters towards the end? Can someone who plays it verify whether the game has any hints at all that it might be making the endgame more aggravating than its predecessors/than necessary?

Seems like the AC series just keeps going back in time. After Ptolemaic Egypt, they went back in time to Ancient Greece. And since they already did Ptolemaic Egypt, it wouldn't make sense to go back in time to ancient Dynastic Egypt. So if they were to go back in time to another civilization before 431 BC, that could take Assassin's Creed back in time to the Persian Empire... which could lead to a possible tie-in with the Prince of Persia series?

@Jag85: I suggested this years ago.

Sam Fisher(Splinter Cell) joins a hacker group(Watch Dogs), they break into a company building and Sam hooks himself into the Animus(Assassins Creed) and he finds out the true story of Persia(Prince Of Persia).

This hilariously makes perfect sense and should be done. Combine the universes and this could be Ubisofts version of Avengers.

Controversy over the quality? Quality is in the eye of the beholder, and I will judge this game once I play it which will be after I get done with FH4, which unlike cows 20hr games will be in about 200+hrs of game time lol.

Unfortunately due to the "Popular" youtubers(That like to bash everything EA,Konami,Ubisoft,MicroTransactions,loot boxes,online games) gamers are just becoming more and more whiny and complainers.

...And then the Prince of Persia goes on a journey to Rook Islands (Far Cry).

It should be called the Ubisoft Extended Universe (UEU).

@i_p_daily: There is such a thing as a general consensus. Which is not factual, but pretty well indicating of said experience. Consensus being here that there is a ton of unique content this game has to offer with one of the most beautiful big game maps to date. Yet people name it as a skin job and rehash without even touching the game.

So just because one game might be better than another, it makes the other garbage? There's nothing wrong with Tomb Raider or ACO. They aren't particularly special, but they are still good games. Not garbage.

And in my opinion, Spiderman is shallow and mediocre in every regard. Just because it's a decent or even good superhero game doesn't make it a great game. It certainly didn't "kill" anything.

RDR2 remains to be seen.

Tomb Raider and ACO are the same cookie cutter garbage that has been done a million times already. Just seeing the trailers made me want to throw up.

Spiderman was fresh. It was the first time we've ever gotten a true AAA Spidey game. The gameplay is incredible and the story telling is some of the best ever seen in a video game. Just a true work of art from Insomniac.

And RDR2 is a Rockstar game. It's a given that it will be a masterpiece like everything else they make.

@NathanDrakeSwag: but we got lots of AAA SM games in PS2/GC/Xbox days.

That's like comparing pre-Arkham Batman games to Asylum.

@NathanDrakeSwag: And yet Insomaniac copied a lot of elements from those games.

A lot of games copied elements from AC. It's an insanely good selling series.

@R4gn4r0k: Yeah. The first one with much less budget and development time compared to MGS 4 managed to sell even better.

AC Origins was a good change in direction for the series which badly needed refreshing. The story was pretty good the recreation of egypt and size of the world were great the missions were of good variety if a little repetitive towards the end. 8/10 game

what is fresh about Spiderman other than the web swinging?

I still enjoy it but the world is too big and it's just....idunno, too much of an okay thing?

Idunno I think Ubisoft sees their games selling and thinks that big huge game worlds are the reason why but they're not really hearing what a lot of people are saying, they just see the numbers *shrug* hard to argue against that, though.

It is imo. Greece is, surprisingly, a more enjoyable setting than Egypt (though tbh I really enjoyed Egypt, love their history, culture) which is arguably 60% of why I play any AC game.

Unfortunately, the open-world dilution is starting to set in. Too many quests, too big of a world, too little satisfaction from doing things. It goes from play...to work...and now toil. Toil is not good, and I don't mind working for my games a bit (even a lot), but ideally you stay in that "play" area.

It's still a great decent game, but right now all I kind of want to do is finish the main story and call it good. That's not good after only ~10 hours of playing, given they stated there are dozens of hours to play in this game.

It doesn't help that the leveling system is pretty slow and you need to grind a bit. Oh and btw Ubisoft is selling a permanent XP booster for like 10 dollars WTF UBISOFT!?!?! just make the rate of gaining levels acceptable.

1. One video game critic out of the literally thousands that exist in the professional-amateur realm has a problem with the game.

2. Looks online and finds five people with the same problem. Because it's the internet, and you can find anything you want, even if it doesn't exist.

3. Comes to the conclusion that all people are having this problem, and tells the world it is a problem.

That's how it works. I believe we call that "blowing things out of proportion". I had no problems with the game and so did many others. Usually when there is a problem, there's a workaround, a setting I need to change, or you just need to wait for a patch.

Good call on waiting for it; it's a fun game, and I don't regret paying full price, it's just something I probably could have waited for.

Not quite fresh

I don't think it did anything original, but it polished the parts it "borrowed" to a high sheen and put them together really well.

yea thats the impression I had, and thats fine, but calling it "fresh" seems kinda weird to me if its not doing anything new or unique.

at this point I'm more interested in Odyssey than Spider Man, neither seem at all original, but the setting and premise of Odyssey appeals to me a lot more.

Too bad the guy that played it didn't show webswinging of SM 2000 in it's full potential. Press jump when swinging and then press the swinging button for swinging in further distance/changing directions.

People are suckers for Ubisoft PR. I remember when they claimed they were going for an SP focused game with Syndicate and critics ate it up praising it for the change in direction even though it was clearly a co-op game abandoned mid development, they probably didn't have time to work on MP before release ao they abandoned it, put thwir "for the player" spin on it, plus it still featured a broken wonky combat system of Unity, basically, gimping players to add difficulty. Origins too, people at up the "reboot" or the idea they took time to get it right... no, just another padded grind fest but less fulfilling than previous AC games. It has turned into a shallow padded open world game with shit story, but exceptional production values.

Sure, I have no experience with Odyssey to be raging about it with them rest of the degenerates on gaming forums across the internet, but I learned my lesson with these games last few years. Like the Call of Duty games, I learned my lesson well enough to be comfortable knowing they aren't for me anymore, and probably never will be, and I might not bother to second guess myself about it ever again. And I am fine with that, so no need to waste effort condemning them for flushing series' potential down the toilet and opting instead for milking it to death.

I think the game is great so far, and I'm only moving on to my 3rd territory.

My issue is that the game is piss poor optimized. a GTX 1070 can do 70fps at 1080p but a GTX 980 ti barely does 50fps? I don't know if this is ubisoft being lazy or nvidia scheming this to get people to upgrade their GPUs, either way I don't like it, I'll be skipping this game until this issue is sorted, besides I'm far more interested in Soul Calibur 6 and Darksiders 3.