Half a year ago, Ubisoft released Assassin’s Creed Origins. It was in some ways the most ambitious Assassin’s Creed game ever made, and in other ways noticeably less ambitious than its predecessors. In the months since then, Origins has become considerably more interesting.



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Join me now as we climb into the Animus and travel back in time to the world inhabited by our distant ancestors, those people who lived in the fabled era of October, 2017. From there, we’ll embark on a journey through our unusually exciting first six months with Assassin’s Creed Origins.

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The game also proved shockingly large , earning some praise as players discovered more of its vast expanse. Its sheer scale somewhat made up for the fact that the game leaned so hard on its straightforward numbers-based RPG leveling system and dropped many of the interesting gameplay experiments (support assassins, grappling hooks, city takeover, pirate ships) of past games.

earning some praise as players discovered more of its vast expanse. Its sheer scale somewhat made up for the fact that the game leaned so hard on its straightforward numbers-based RPG leveling system and dropped many of the interesting gameplay experiments (support assassins, grappling hooks, city takeover, pirate ships) of past games. There was also a fascinating story behind the explorable tomb

The developers were clear up front that there’d be a lot of stuff coming to Origins after release. A couple weeks before the game came out, Ubisoft launched a trailer

A couple weeks before the game came out, Ubisoft The Trial of the Gods consisted of a series of limited-time boss fights that would pop up on players’ maps. Go to the spot on the map, and an Animus glitch would crack open and a massive boss would emerge, fashioned after one of the Egyptian pantheon. They started hitting the game in November, but as Stephen pointed out at the time


Screenshot : Cince09

In December, Origins got an extremely important patch

In a December “Developer Q&A” blog post seemingly written with an awareness that some fans found the amount of the game dedicated to the franchise’s modern-day storyline lacking, Ubisoft wrote that “The main story in each game is the one set in the past.” That frustrated some fans who’ve wanted more from the game’s present-day storylines, and reinforced the series’ clear trend toward minimizing the present-day stuff compared with the first few games. Sorry, present-day-lore junkies.



seemingly written with an awareness that some fans found the amount of the game dedicated to the franchise’s modern-day storyline lacking, Ubisoft wrote that “The main story in each game is the one set in the past.” That frustrated some fans who’ve wanted more from the game’s present-day storylines, and reinforced the series’ clear trend toward minimizing the present-day stuff compared with the first few games. Sorry, present-day-lore junkies. The 1.1.0 patch also brought a couple of other notable new features, including a new Nightmare difficulty mode, enemy level scaling to keep low-level areas engaging for high-level players, and a more intuitive way to customize Bayek’s look in the “gear” menu. That last option made it much easier to make sure Bayek was always rocking a beard, a shaved head, and no hood, which is objectively his best look and I will hear no arguments to the contrary.


It’s just true.


At the Game Developers Conference in March, Ubisoft developers shared how they managed to make a game as vast and full of stuff as Origins. The answer, as it turned out, was to have not one but several full studios working on the game, a practice they’ve been refining over the years

Ubisoft developers shared how they managed to make a game as vast and full of stuff as Origins. The answer, as it turned out, was to have not one but several full studios working on the game, In April, Ubisoft put out the “Animus Control Panel” for PC players, which lets you tweak all sorts of parameters for the game like enemy awareness, maximum number of tamed animals, and even enemy hitboxes and attack speeds. It’s a nifty bonus, and it’d be nice if console players will eventually get it. That was the last thing added to the game, and no further additions, features, or expansions have been announced.


As you can tell just by reading through this post, Origins has gotten an unusually large amount of post-release support, even for a game from a major-label publisher like Ubisoft. Like Ghost Recon: Wildlands before it, Origins demonstrates how Ubisoft is testing and recalibrating their approach to converting their most well-known series into service games. In the case of Origins, it also demonstrates how an entirely single-player game can still function like a service game, keeping players engaged and coming back months after they ordinarily would’ve stopped.


I’ve grown fonder of Origins over the six months since I first played it. That’s been at least in part because Ubisoft has done such a good job of refining, expanding, and deepening the game. Origins will never be as varied, experimental, or interesting as some other Assassin’s Creed games, but it’s beautiful and relaxing, and makes for a pretty splendid way to spend an evening unwinding after a long day.

It is a testament to Origins’ ambitious scope that after dozens and dozens of hours, I’ve still so many more things to do. It’s a testament to its quality that even after all that time, I’m still glad I’m not finished.