Things Have Changed

Assassin’s Creed Odyssey has transformed the series from a open-world adventure, to a full on RPG, full of dialogue choices, branching narrative, and a character select screen. While this is may be good news for many players, especially the casual observer, many of the long-time fans of the franchise see it as a detriment, as well as a contradiction to the franchise’s core concepts.

Assassin’s Creed has always followed a present day protagonist (both in the first and third person) that recreates events in history within a simulation, created in part by the memories of the individual that lived these events. While the user of the animus maintains a certain level of autonomy, events generally play out in the way that the historical individual remembers it. Deviating too far from the memories leads to desynchronization, where the simulation and memory sequence must shut down and restart.

This is not necessarily the case with Odyssey. With new RPG mechanics, the player is able to choose between two seperate protagonists, who share the same potential narratives. You cannot alter well known historical events within the simulation (for example: you can’t change the outcome of the Peloponnesian War), but you can alter other narrative arcs, who your allies are, who you date, who you kill, and who you let live. While it’s hard to understand how this will be justified within the constraints of the narrative set by previous entries, it’s delivering an experience many long-time fans have little to no interest in. Many fans want to see how the historical individual remembers those events, they want to see how history “really happened”, not “how it might have happened”.

While offering player choice was Odyssey’s largest goal, it’s left out those who want the choice to see the narrative in its canonical existence. While game guides and novels may be ways to help guide the player through a canonical experience, it’s an inferior way to experience the game for those who just want to be told a story, rather than create one.

While it may be too late for Odyssey to implement features to allow for more linear and canonical playthrough there is potential to give fans looking for the canon what they want, while maintaining a RPG experience for those who want it in future titles.

A Compromise: Narrative Modes

One potentional solution is to provide two narrative modes.

Image (before alterations) courtesy of Access the Animus

Role-playing Mode. This mode allows the player to make dialogue choices, which affect the outcomes of the narrative. This could also create a narrative experience that is considered non-canonical. This is for those who want the RPG experience, and aren’t that concerned about seeing the canonical version, but could still achieve it.

Image (before alterations) courtesy of Access the Animus

Linear Mode. This mode does not allow for dialogue choice, and delivers a more linear narrative. This mode provides the player with a canonical experience, and takes away the risk of making choices that are not considered canonical. While each player’s playthrough still varies, the story itself does not.

Removing alternate options still maintains the dialogue system, but does not allow the player deviate from the canon.

This may not be the solution some fans want, and may deviate from the dev team’s vision, but Assassin’s Creed is likely to stay a RPG experience for the foreseeable future, and giving fans an experience that they want is still important. The narrative already has a canonical version, which can be achieved in game, and is included within the novel, so implementing a feature like this doesn’t seem out of the realm of possibility. There are many other design decisions to be made, and a lot development work to be done to create these separate modes, so I’m not suggesting this is a flippant or easy task, but one I think Ubisoft should consider adding to Odyssey in later updates, and included in future Assassin’s Creed titles.

P.S. (Developers would have to figure out a way to make some side content required in the Linear mode, if those quests affect the main questline)