Assassin’s Creed Odyssey Review

The Assassin’s Creed series is finally back again with a new major release just one year after Origins. Assassin’s Creed Odyssey takes us back to ancient Greece during the period of the famous Peloponnesian war between Athens and Sparta. This time around we get to choose between Kassandra and Alexios to be our main protagonist. While this doesn’t make much of a difference, it is a great idea to include this feature since it gives players a sense of freedom. It also serves to foreshadow the many choices you will have to make throughout the long journey that awaits.

To start off, saying that this game is massive would be an understatement.  There are thirty seven different regions to explore, each containing side missions, discoverable locations, activities and much more. And if that wasn’t enough, there always is the Aegean Sea ready to be ventured with your crew aboard the “Adrestia”, which is upgradeable and almost entirely customizable. While many games fail to produce quality content at such a large scale, Odyssey somehow manages to provide an exceptional experience that is extremely rare to find nowadays. It would take around 60 hours to complete the main story and around an additional 50 to fully complete the game. Not only is the game huge but it’s visuals are also breathtaking thanks to the vivid colors and the beauty of 400 BC Greece. The land varies from cities filled with delicately designed landmarks such as the “Pantheon”  to  forests and mountains that continue to amaze me time and time again. The game really knows how to fully immerse the player into it without seeming like it’s trying too hard.

In terms of story, Odyssey takes a different approach than previous Assassin’s Creed titles. Instead of just focusing about the ongoing conflict between the assassins and templars, we get an entirely new story that feels fresh and unique. The main missions were really fun and does what is necessary for a game at such a scale. I also loved how the game makes players feel engaged by giving them the ability to choose the outcome of some missions and see the consequences later on.

The combat system is a massive improvement over the initial that Origins first introduced last year and I believe is the right way to go for the game in the future. For the first time in a long time, the game encourages you to take a stealthy approach when infiltrating enemy bases instead of rushing in wildly hoping to take on everyone at once. There is a wide variety of methods to assassinate enemies thanks to the way the game was made. Tall grass and bushes are strategically placed all over the area in order to trespass unnoticed and the game encourages scanning the area using your eagle “Ikaros” before engaging. When compromised, groups of enemies will give you a hard time if you haven’t learnt the basics of fighting yet, but fortunately you can use the abilities you unlocked to save you when you need it the most. My personal favorite would be the Sparta Kick which sends unsuspecting enemies flying and always has me laughing when enemies fall of a ledge. While you are constantly leveling up and trying to improve your character, you also get new gear and weapons that have higher damage per second and also boost your stats. This grants a whole new level of customization and gives players the choice of which areas to focus on. The same applies to naval combat as well.

Overall, Assassin’s Creed Odyssey is arguably the best game of the series and definitely deserves a try not only from fans of the series but also all gamers that are fond of open-world roleplaying games. I also fully support the direction in which the game is headed. The visuals are phenomenal, the gameplay is fun and engaging, and the combat is solid… There really isn’t much more to ask for in a game.

GameRev was provided with a digital download code for the purpose of this review.