Assassin’s Creed hasn’t looked this fresh since Origins. Odyssey builds on that foundation with a huge game world and innovative additions like a skill tree where you can unlock moves like the Spartan Kick, Shield Breaker, and Rush Assassination.
The game offers a great mix of exploring, fighting, and getting epic loot. Despite some missteps, such as its dialogue system and romantic pursuits, it’s an exhilarating depiction of Ancient Greece.
Story
As usual, Assassin’s Creed Odyssey is set in a massive open world. However, it lacks the sense of connectedness that made Origins so distinct. The world feels too big, and the new additions — large-scale battles, more mercenaries and cultists to hunt, a Conquest system — only make it feel less unified.
Rather than placing the Assassin’s Order at the center of its story, Odyssey centers on family. Layla has discovered the spear of Leonidas, a legendary artifact that contains DNA traces from her sibling (as determined by which sibling you play as).
She extracts the DNA and uses the Animus to see the memory of Alexios or Kassandra. As a result, she becomes the Eagle Bearer and fights against the Templars. However, the story isn’t without its hiccups.
Combat
Assassin’s Creed Odyssey reverts to the full-on combat of the franchise, with an expanded arsenal and a new ability system. The game also introduces bounties and contracts, which are timed missions that reward a player for completing specific goals.
Players can map up to four different abilities to their controller’s face buttons, encouraging them to pick a playstyle and stick with it. A new engraving system rewards players for focusing how they play by adding weapon perks that fit the kind of action they do.
Enemy levels in Odyssey range from bandits and mercenaries to captains and polemarchs. Elite enemies have a gold border around them and hit harder, but they can be taken down without alerting the entire army. The mercenary system lets Kassandra or Alexios take on dozens of soldiers at once in large battles that test their endurance.
Mercenaries
Much like the Phylakes in Origins, mercenaries are in Odyssey as a constant threat and can be a real pain, especially in the early game. They hunt the player based on their bounties and are tougher than regular soldiers.
Mercenaries aren’t always actively hunting, but they will become increasingly aggressive as their bounty rises. Players can avoid their attention by knocking them out instead of killing them. This is possible by using abilities like Spartan Kick and equipment such as paralysing arrows.
Mercenaries also carry some pretty good loot. Defeating them will raise your mercenary rank, which unlocks financial benefits. Some of them will even give you unique engravings.
RPG elements
Assassin’s Creed fans had seen RPG elements in the series before, but Origins took it to a whole new level. Enemies bear a level, gear was a major part of progression and the combat was now as much of an RPG as it was an action game.
Odyssey takes all these features and stretches them out to fill the huge open world. While some may find the RPG gimmick annoying, others will enjoy having more options to make combat more fun and challenging.
Another new addition is the ability to recruit mercenaries who can help you on missions or fight alongside you in battles. Ship combat is also back, though it has some issues to iron out. The inventory screen has been pushed into a subscreen, making it less of an issue for players.
Audio
Assassin’s Creed Odyssey is a fantastically entertaining game that should be enjoyed by all fans of the series and anyone looking for a well-rounded action-adventure. The graphics are stunning and the gameplay is smooth. However, some players may experience audio issues during gameplay.
Some players have reported that the audio in the game is muffled and mixed with lower volume. Others have reported that the sound in the game is cut out or skipping during gameplay.
There are some steps that players can take to resolve the problem of a faulty audio system in the game. First, they should ensure that their computer is running the latest updates and drivers. Then they should check that their speakers and headset are properly connected and plugged into a valid port.