It’s history. It’s set in stone. What’s done is done. These are all ways we have of saying that you can’t change the past - and while it’s true that the wheels of time grind ever forward, the team at Ubisoft Quebec is working incredibly hard to make sure that rigid line a lot more flexible in Assassin’s Creed Odyssey than it’s been in previous adventures.

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“ It's a beautiful spaghetti.

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Player choice is baked into the core of every aspect of Odyssey’s massive rendition of ancient Greece, furthering the series’ transformation into a full-fledged role-playing game after the initial introduction of RPG progression elements in Assassin’s Creed Origins. “We are really embracing the role-playing aspect of RPGs,” says Odyssey’s Creative Director Jonathan Dumont. “We are continuing that transformation. [We] wanted to give a deeper, richer, and more personal experience so that you feel that this is truly me expressing myself through Alexios or Kassandra.” adding in a few romance options - the Quebec team wants to redefine their entire approach to how players interact with Assassin’s Creed. Previously, the focus of the series was rigid: even though we could take Bayek and the Fryes (and all the rest) on a bunch of optional missions, they - and the outcome of the overarching story - were already set in stone. Narrative Director Mel MacCoubrey explains that this put a lot of pressure on cinematics to not just push the story forward, introduce all of the characters, but also squeeze in tutorials and tell you what you're going to do on your next mission. With Odyssey, says MacCoubrey, “we wanted to create a relationship between a player and the game, where the player has inputs in moments of action, of course, but also in moments of story.”She brought up slides depicting traditional linear story development, essentially a straight line between a cutscene, a mission, and another cutscene; then proceeded to add new options branching off of the first cutscene. Some were choices that could be made during each mission, or character interactions that led to other objectives, different cutscenes and sometimes even entirely new quests, until there were so many story and dialogue options that it looked more like what I imagine would happen if John Madden tried to diagram a shotgun play during a seizure. “It's a beautiful spaghetti,” MacCoubrey laughs.It’s clear from what we’ve seen and played so far that the team is investing a lot in how you insert yourself into this world and how you’ll choose to interact with it. Small choices in relationships can, much like in real life, have big consequences depending on who’s affected. During my demo at E3 2018, I made what I thought was an off-the-cuff comment to an NPC that ended up costing them their lives. On a smaller scale, while on a quest to find Hippocrates (the “father of modern medicine,” for those of you who, like me, aren’t big ancient history buffs), his attendant suggested I avoid talking about his considerable bald spot. Being a right and proper ass, naturally it was the first thing I brought up, and it was clear that while the physician wasn’t in a position to turn me away, the slight would likely cost me something further down the road. We’re told there will also be larger choices that affect major story beats as well, though the team has been fairly clandestine about what sort of decisions we may face. As MacCoubrey says, “You can have long-term choices where you know you are making a big choice up front, and it could very well have a long-term consequence. And I wish I could give you an example for that,” she says with a grin, “... but I won’t.” The world of Odyssey is much more reactive in this new iteration, too. Gone, for example, is the old Assassins Creed trope of “Ezio does not kill civilians,” followed by a fail screen. Who knows? Maybe Kassandra was a murderous psychopath? Perhaps Alexios really, really loved stealing those big clay pots? If you choose to play the role of a criminal, or a mercenary more comfortable with violence than most, you may find yourself the target of a bounty, or even an angry mob (some foolish villagers in Odyssey will try to turn vigilante, seeking out sticks or spades to try and bring you down instead of just shrieking and fleeing as they once did).If you should find yourself the target of a bounty, other mercenaries (one or more, depending on the severity of your crimes) will begin hunting you across Greece, like the Phylakes did in Origins. These mercenaries each have their unique backstory and skill set, which may be at your skill level or far higher - some we saw had severe weaknesses to several damage types, others were accompanied by guards or even a bear. While some of the hunters are unique creations of the Quebec team, others are randomly generated from a bank of skills, traits and backstories (similar to the Nemesis system from the Mordor series), which offers the potential for both unending waves of enemies or mercenary work, since you can also accept contracts to hunt other troublemakers like yourself. Each hunter (along with high-ranking military officers) also have their own unique perks that they can bring to your crew, offering a valuable alternative to slaying any who may try to claim the price on your head, or who has one on their own.These decisions are meant to push us beyond the idea of “is a perk or new gear more important right now?” While the Quebec team knows that rewarding players for their actions - regardless of the morality of their choice - is important, they’re more interested in drawing us into the story and investing us in the world they’ve created. “It's important to us that when we're presenting you with choices,” MacCoubrey says, “that we're not telling you there's a right or a wrong way to do it, that our choices are overall grey.”While it will certainly be a very different experience from what we’re used to in the series, I’m eager to see what a full-fledged Assassin’s Creed RPG looks like. As Dumont said near the end of our talk, “It’s really a new way to experience Assassin’s Creed. About really making history your playground, and not just ours.”

JR is an editor at IGN. When he's not scrambling to find all of a games secrets for our wikis , you can usually find him on Twitter