Review: Assassin’s Creed Origins (PlayStation 4)

Ancient Egypt, a land of majesty and intrigue, is disappearing in a ruthless fight for power.

Pros:

• Outstanding graphics. I mean what they have achieved with this game is just jaw-droppingly beautiful.
• 45.97GB Download size.
• Platinum trophy.
• Familiar controls.
• Opening and ongoing tutorial support.
• Three difficulties- Easy, Normal and hard. (Can be changed at any time)
• Uplay club support offering bonus loot.
• Living breathing open world. Watch as animals attack NPC or how fights will break out among the people. Even animals start fighting each other.
• Clean UI. In the game, it is barely there but the pause menu and map is all slick and fluid allowing quick button presses.
• Activities aplenty. From scuba expeditions into shipwrecks to tomb raiding, You get cave systems, forts, embattlements, racing, hunting, rescue missions. In short, there is always something to do.
• Senu- Your bird companion. Simple call him in and use him to see ahead, Mark enemies or stun them. Can even tell you what they are doing ie eating, sleeping or working. Scanning animals will show what resource they give you.
• Loot levels from common to rare to legendary. Rare and above add buffs and abilities to gear.
• Massive skill tree broken into 3 main parts called hunter, Warrior, and seer, Spend your ability points from upgrading here to unlock many new abilities like smoke bombs, Sleep darts or even the ability to tame animals.
• Earn EXP from kills, discovering new places, helping NPC, missions, tomb raiding and clearing out areas.
• Craft- Increase the stats of your gear and you can upgrade your health, Melee damage, range damage and assassin blade. All crafting is done in the menu and is just a case of holding down X.
• Loadout- unlock the ability to have two ranged weapons, 2 melee weapons, a shield, and 2 tools. Doing this allows you to have choices when fighting as you can hot-swap between the equipped gear. Especially helpful with ranged as all bows are different like the hunter or warrior types allowing different uses or buffs. You can get fast firing bow and arrows or ones that cause bleeding for example.
• Daily mission to earn extra loot.
• Fast travel points. The staple of Assassin Creed games. Synchronize at the top of towers to uncover the map and enable fast travel. But this time doing so also increases the flight range of your bird Senu.
• Mount- Only way to travel. You can now have your mount follow the path by holding down X or set your own marker and press triangle to have it follow it. Basically, allows you some hands-off time.
• Full underwater exploration.
• Kill animals for crafting materials. Break down any unwanted gear for materials or find them in loot pickups.
• An enchanting soundtrack that captures the atmosphere perfectly.
• Rogue animals and enemies roam the land.
• So much to do in the world and you can play it how you want and do what you want.
• Flowing fluid combat. Light, Heavy and charged attacks as well as roll and block. Build up your adrenaline meter to unleash a powerful attack or combo depending on your equipped weapon.
• Constantly chased by an elite group of soldiers, They show on the map so you can plan around them but they can take you out easily and quickly.
• Strong decent story incorporating major names form the Egyptian history.
• Animus pulse- Hold up to scan the area around you and show up any interactions or loot nearby.
• Hideouts and strongholds all around and have Captains and Commanders in charge as well as some treasure.
• Strong voice acting work.
• Autosaves regularly.
• Blacksmith-By/sell and upgrade gear from here.
• Photo mode- Filters, Focus and offset camera options. I mean you will be using this a lot and the images are saved straight into your capture gallery on the PS4.
• Online interaction- You can avenge players who have died to earn bonus EXP.
• Marked improvements in all areas of the game.
• More variety.
• Just so much fun to play.
• Satisfying progression.
• Star circles- align the constellations to learn about them and earn EXP.
• Shortcut button for assigning quests or equipping new gear.
• Weather day/night cycle and sand storms can happen.
• If swimming a guy in a boat will always offer you a lift. If you “borrow” the boat he will sit down and watch you then take over.
• Tombs are labyrinths with a lot of treasure and mystique. Finishing a tomb grants an ability point.
• A wide variety of animals from snakes to rhinos to vultures lions and tigers or wild hyena packs.
• Gear uses a red-green system to show if it is better or worse than your currently equipped.
• Log detailing how many collectibles and progression in missions you have done.
• Allows you to scale Pyramids and slide down them!

Cons:

• A lot of loading screens and incredibly annoying when you die and have to wait for ages for it to load.
• The path your mount takes can be longer.
• The slowdown in many places.
• Some cutscenes do not play very well almost like they are buffering.
• People/mission markers have a habit of just straight up disappearing or not registering.
• Animal fights can easily break, Two attacking at once turns into you cant move or attack so just be patient and wait to die effect which is super annoying.
• Hit detection can be a bit iffy.
• A lot of the same old fetch quests fill the side mission quota.
• Weird having no mini map.
• In-app purchases.
• Some bad checkpointing.
• Quite a bit of empty space.