Assassin's Creed Odyssey does not have its own sandbox yet – TechCrunch

It's hard to imagine a better demonstration of the state of the game AAA today that Assassin's Creed Odyssey, a game in which all of the dark Classic Eegean is at your disposal to handle your oars – but which operates according to a ridiculous and caricatural video game logic that seems, if possible, even more anachronistic. Should you play it? Absolutely.

(Very small spoilers to come.)

In case you do not follow the Assassin's Creed… Well, odyssey, the last few years, the game has taken a bit of rest after the generously produced but ambivalently hosted games, organized in the revolutionary neighborhoods of Paris and Victorian London. Critics said the series was wearing a bit thin despite the fabulous decor.

You can imagine everyone's surprise when AC returned in The origins, located in a huge band of ancient Egypt. New systems have pushed the game of stealth action from its roots to the expansive RPG and open world currently in vogue. It was a little hard on the edges, but the scale was welcome, as was the abandonment of the rush behind the secret Assassins vs. Templars society, becoming increasingly deafening.

The news that the next match would take place in ancient Greece at the time of the Peloponnesian War delighted me greatly. I have always been a fan of the classical era, Homer, Herodotus and Periclane, Athens, etc. I also admit an ironic love of 300 and the story of Leonidas' latest fight – the graphic novel, not the film, which was awful.

It is here that this world was created with all the fidelity that hundreds of artists and modellers could create, with a story combining secret societies, classic wars, historical figures and high seas adventures (I loved the theme pirates. Black flag ca). On paper, it's the biggest game ever made on the screen.

And in a sense, that's it. The rendering of the classic world by Ubisoft is so beautiful, so massive, so obviously like a work of love, a skill and an intensive research that I've spent a lot of my time in the game, just cutting the breath.

The costumes! Statues! The landscapes! The light! It is a feast of details on all the sites, from the idyllic lands of Kephallonia, where your hero begins his story, to the vast and lively Athens which is approaching the zenith of his glory. I am (that is to say, my character) past the theater of Dionysus in its construction, which I visited in person (now ruined and restored, of course), and to the Acropolis, where I have climbed the Parthenon on the tile roofs under which, as far as I know, I can find Plato sitting and writing the Symposium.

Then I head for the port, board my black boat and divide the sea to explore one of the Aegean islands – one of them. All the Aegean Sea! Well, most of all, anyway. Enough so that you do not ask for more. Here are mythical creatures, political machinations, stormy seas and sunny songs.

The world that Assassin's Creed: Odyssey I usually say that my habits are the largest and most impressive I have encountered, and that we must recognize in particular the fact of having to reflect reality in to some extent, which is not a limitation shared by his eminent competition in the open world genre. , as Horizon: Zero Dawn and Breath of nature.

In my opinion, as a player and lover of antiquity, it is worth paying the price of entry to be able to experience this world, see and hear the ancient Greece of 39 a way that was until then impossible, and simply reveling in this almost inconceivable level craft that was so obviously placed in this bewildering world.

And now, after making this judgment, I will empty the game I have just recommended for about two thousand words.

The game itself

Assassin's Creed: Odyssey, the Thu himself, is embarrassing to play. The characters you interact with and the minute-by-minute gameplay are so irregular that I really believe Ubisoft just does not have the time to test it. It feels like the game was just too big to be executed once they did, so they were just delivered. If anyone from Ubisoft was sitting next to me while I was playing, I would expect that they would be constantly angry.

It's an incredibly unbalanced collection of old and new ideas, balanced and unbalanced systems, good and bad user interfaces, intuitive and confusing fights, gorgeous and disgusting graphics, as well as excellent and ludicrous voices. I have not finished the game, not to mention all the side quests, but although I expect to meet other good things as and when, the bad things have apparently been done from the first minutes and n have not decreased.

The artificial intelligence of the players in this game seems to have dwindled by ten years to reach a simpler age. They are really idiots, from street people to elite soldiers.

One of the first things that happened when I had my horse and learned to take it on a road was that it dropped some workers. I thought it would happen wherever I went: every character in the game walked down the middle of the road and plunged wildly out of your way as you went to the ground screaming and cursing. Wild animals encumbered the road and reacted in a confused way when I approached and threw themselves under the hooves of my courier, Phobos.

It was my first glimpse of what was going to become a theme. Why, I wondered, would not these people just walk along the side of the road? The developers clearly explained the behavior of the horses, and had behaviors and barking when that happens. But it's so weird, so unrealistic, so much video game. Certainly, in this world lovingly interpreted, it is not uncommon for a horse to descend a mountain road? Why then do they behave this way? Because people have not been created intelligently – it's as simple as that. None of them.

Once, I emptied a military camp of guards then I began to loot the place. A woman was held captive in a cage – which is not unusual to find – so I let her out. As she escaped, thanking me, I turned to take the items out of a nearby safe. The woman, halfway through, screamed with rage because of this robbery, grabbing a spear and rushing into a righteous anger. What?

Maybe I can not hope that every peasant is a genius, but the guards (of all ranks) are incredibly dense. They will cross the corpses of their fellows to go to their post and will not say a word. They will not hear the shock of the swords, or notice that a guy is violently knocked down and disemboweled, a few feet away. They will follow you one by one in the corners where you can send them individually and will not be able to see or worry about the increasing amount of blood. They are as stupid as the stupidest guards of the games that came out 10 years ago.

Not much better are the mercenaries, who do a lot of harm, who attack you if you do too much bad things. You do not really know what the bad things are, but you will eventually see a red helmet icon on your card and you'll know you've been mean. These are mainly guards with special weapons and features such as "low to shoot" or "20% less damage from a distance". Technically, they have a history, but you have to specify their description to find them, then you make sure that you probably have already killed them. You can recruit them for your ship, as you can recruit anyone, but they usually make up static bonuses with fun names like Demos the Drunk. He did not act drunk, he just had a spear that I wanted, so I took it out. I mean, variation is welcome, but it's nothing, for example, the nemesis system in the Mordor series.

The fight is a real mix. You are no longer a fragile assassin who can be killed after a few good shots, but a powerful warrior with supernatural skills, such as instant combat and teleportation. It's a fight between equals, but your equals are usually stiff guys with two or three attacks that they repeat over and over again, glowing red or gold before doing it.

A slippery dodging system sends you through these attacks, or you can parry some, and then reduce your attacker. Some guards or targets, especially if they have a level or two above you, will take a few minutes of patients before they collapse. I was sent on a hunt to kill a legendary boar, which I gave up after a few minutes because I had only three times less health than I did not have. been touched by my health.

Compared to other RPG action, it's a rather apathetic thing. Stealth is more appealing, which fools of guards are obviously there to encourage, because you can systematically empty a camp or a fort of its occupants, which can be very satisfying. But with the perfect knowledge of exploring such a place with the X-ray vision of your eagle, it's more like intimidation than anything else.

The Peloponnesian War is taking place around you, even if you have trouble realizing it most of the time. You do not quite take part, because whatever your field, it is your enemies who control. You can weaken the ruling faction by various means and force a battle (a melee in which the fight, now against dozens, feels frustrated to be neglected), but in the end, the guards and the camps are very much alike. – The Spartans have different Athenian helmets.

I thought at first that it would be deeper than it is. I had looted a variety of armor pieces, many of which suggested that I could use them to melt among the Athenians I was trying to undermine at that time. So I put them on and I headed for the nearest camp, hoping to walk unexpectedly, Hitman– style, sowing chaos by releasing animals in cages and setting fire to supplies. Nope: I was immediately attacked as I approached the gate, even before I came or did anything suspicious. The guard who had never seen me before apparently recognized me as the bloodthirsty mercenary who had destroyed a camp a few miles away, a few minutes earlier. No spying for me.

It's never really clear who you're fighting with or why, because places and people are just names. It does not matter whether they are Athenian or Spartan, it is those who separate you from the treasure chest. I guess it's a mercenary's life, but it does not worry you a lot.

It was a quest?

RPG elements, from hardware to abilities, have hardly been integrated into the game itself. From the beginning, you can see all your skill tree, including everything about the magic spear that you do not know yet is magic. You gain new skills and improve your ship, not by interesting quests or interesting encounters, but simply by spending points and resources.

When the captain of your ship says that the hull needs to be improved, this is not the beginning of a quest to find big fresh trees or to visit his hometown where he left his shipbuilding tools and his friends. It's literally a reminder to refuel wood and iron and press the button to go to the pause screen.

When you meet a talented carpenter whose brother is held by bandits, it is not a question of trying to bring these guys together to form a powerful team that allows the superpower of ship repair. It turns out to be an ordinary guy who increases the strength of your hull by a few percentage points.

The quests, announced before the release as fully expressed and emerging, as if you were receiving a request for help from a needy merchant or otherwise, are not the type. All I've seen so far is a variation of: Kill these five wolves specifically. Kill these three Spartan elite guards specifically. Kill those bandits. Sink these ships.

Everyone has a fragile justification (they block the road, they steal money from me) and are often acted upon. In one, I found the quest donor asleep; he kindly woke me up to say that he wanted to fight against bandits who were asking him for money. As soon as I accepted, these bandits appeared within ten meters and immediately ran across it. The quest failed.

There are deeper side quests, of course. But the hundreds of quests you'll see on the quest or randomly appearing in nature are like that and rarely give more than a spritz of XP and gold. Sometimes you can recruit the quest giver, although it may or may not be useful for your crew.

I would have liked that they took the time and effort needed to create 20 or 30 of these quests and that they created only one quest with several stages, characters that mattered a bit and offering substantial rewards, such as a new ability of your ship.

Even the main quests, such as the targets you are going to tackle, can be disappointing. You are supposed to follow threads and clues, but many are just handed to you: here is a lady. Here is its exact location. Go kill her. No dialogue, no leg work, no alternatives. Hit that person and take his shiny object. Should not I at least try to get information from her? Why is there not even a death cutscene like in so many other games?

The writing is a failure. The main story and its immediate side quests are going well – I may have 25 hours and I'm interested to see where it goes, even if it's not particularly surprising. And it is useful that the writing and the voices of the main characters exceed the others.

I've chosen to play as Kassandra, as opposed to Alexios, for many reasons. And I like it. She acted well, her writing is funny and sometimes realistic, and I like the fact that she stands out in every respect from her masculine alternative. Your companions, especially Herodotos and your exuberant Captain Barnabas, are great.

Yet, other characters are ridiculous: poorly written, worse played. Even the most important. I remember an exchange with a near future that was pressuring me to torture a poor sap. His voice was so bad, especially in relation to his interlocutor Kassandra, that I laughed aloud. He was far from the only example of this.

Games like The witcher 3 have spoiled us on the quality of writing and quests, but this should be a new bar to meet, not a high water point. It's a pity that Ubisoft has not improved its game here, so to speak; I think that 90% of the game I've played so far is purely mechanical, and even at best, it's like a layer of butter scattered over a huge piece of Greek toast. But what a toast!

It's tempting to see how good a game like this is, but let it go over and over again with elements that would feel overwhelmed ten years ago. I spend a good time when I do not shake my head and enjoy the scenery when I'm not attacked by one of the 50,000 protesters for my blood in the classical world.

As I wrote earlier, it is worth buying for good parts. But as a person who loves games and loves the idea of ​​it, I can not help but observe how outdated and disconcerting it is at a time. It is not up to the world in which it was created, but this world is practically a complete game in itself and that I immediately liked.