There’s a new cinematic trailer to enjoy.
Assassin’s Creed has become a familiar gaming franchise, with a new mainline installment appearing just about every year since Assassin’s Creed 2 was released all the way back in 2009.
Just as Assassin’s Creed was becoming one of the old faithfuls of the gaming world, though, Ubisoft surprised us in 2016 by taking a year out. There was still a film and two Assassin’s Creed Chronicles titles in the meantime but no sprawling mainline game.
You don’t realize what you have until it’s gone and after just one year of being away people are clamoring to hear about what the next game will bring. After this break, though, expectations are raised.
In 2015 Assassin’s Creed Syndicate barely managed to pull the series back from the precipice Assassin’s Creed Unity had pushed it towards. Ubisoft wasn’t exactly firing on all cylinders.
With an extra year to refocus and get things right, though, fans are expecting the series to return bigger and better than ever.
With Assassin’s Creed Origins now confirmed to be on its way and seeking to bring new RPG elements as well as take the series back to its roots it’ll be interesting to see whether Ubisoft achieves its goals
A brand new cinematic trailer has been released for the game. Simply titled Sand, this trailer is a melancholy and quietly beautiful look at the game world. It doesn’t give much away but it certainly sets a tone and you can watch it for yourself below:
A recent trailer has cleared up some of the mystery around which evil order would be replacing The Templars in Origins, given that the game is set long before their formation. Called The Order of the Ancients, these villains appear to be big fans of masks, murder and power and according to Ubisoft it’s their mission to “tear Egypt apart.”
At this year’s Gamescom during the Microsoft conference a brand new CG trailer for Assassin’s Creed Origins was revealed. The visually stunning trailer sets up the atmosphere for the game; an Egypt where order is built upon slavery before Bayek comes in, dismantling the inequality and bringing necessary chaos.
That wasn’t the only trailer released at Gamescom, though. Following Microsoft’s CGI reveal, Ubisoft released another trailer titled Game of Power. This trailer features in-game footage and shows some of the historical characters you’ll cross paths with in the game. Look out for Cleopatra, Julius Caesar and Ptolemy XIII.
Where Gamescom brought the cinematics, back in June E3 was heavy on the gameplay with two trailers, one 4K and one on the mysteries of Egypt .
Assassin’s Creed Origins has been confirmed to be coming to consoles on October 27 this year.
The game will star an assassin called Bayek and will take players back to before the formation of the assassin’s order. As a Medjay, it’s Bayek’s responsibility to protect the people of Egypt and he’s up against the power hungry Order of the Ancients. This order is the Templars before the Templars and the game will revolve around Bayek’s fight to stop them taking over the country and using the people for their own gains.
We know the game will also have a modern day storyline but details on this are much less clear. The game’s director told Game Informer that the reason for this is that he wants players to be surprised when they play. He did, however, say “I think people will be happy.”
After seeing the game’s trailer and trying it out for ourselves we know that there will be a few ways to travel across the game world. As well as the usual running on foot, it’ll be possible to cover ground more quickly on horseback (or camelback), use chariots and commandeer ships and boats to travel across bodies of water.
Being from the developers of Assassin’s Creed Black Flag, the sailing mechanics in Origins are very satisfying and extremely well constructed.
It’s essential that there be faster means of travel in Origins as this is the largest Assassin’s Creed map we’ve seen yet. Even more significantly, it’s open to the player from the very beginning to explore. Though certain areas will be dedicated to certain parts of the story, after a short introductory sequence players will be able to head off in any direction they like, rather than find themselves blocked off from certain areas because they’ve not reached a particular part of the story.
The map is made even larger by the fact that underwater is now an explorable area. Players can dive under the surface of the water to explore, finding shipwrecks and loot all around.
In an interview with Game Informer, the game’s director said that though it’s hard to compare as each game is very different, he thinks that the Assassin’s Creed Origins map is larger than the map of Black Flag, though he’s not certain of exact numbers. “I would say that it’s at least twice the size of Havana from Black Flag,“ he said. ”At least.“
After this, he added that he thinks its the content of the map rather than its size that matters, something which will please players who feel that sometimes large maps aren’t filled with enough interesting quests to justify their scope.
According to Ismail each location on the map will be filled with quests and these quests have been developed with the aim of “making each city feel unique to itself, why was it important to Egypt.“
Assassin’s Creed Origins is introducing many RPG elements this time around and of course that means crafting. You’ll be able to improve your armor, weapons and tools through your crafting ability and to collect the items you need you’ll have to explore the game world for loot and hunt the diverse range of wildlife that now populate Assassin’s Creed world, from hippos to crocodiles.
Crafting and upgrading will be essential in the new Assassin’s Creed games as leveling up will be key to surviving. You won’t be able to instant kill an enemy of a much higher level, for example, if your weapons aren’t up to scratch.
Rather than Eagle Vision, players will now have access to an actual eagle in Assassins Creed Origins called Senu. Calling on Senu, players will be able to scout ahead of where they are in a top-down view to identify where enemies are in order to plan the best route of attack and find hidden items for quests. Senu can even be used to attack and distract enemies.
This time around, the combat in Assassin’s Creed is different. Rather than being based mostly on parrying and well-time attacks it forces players to move and dodge more, building up adrenaline to score big hits.
As well as this bows and shields have been added to combat. Players can parry attacks from enemies using their shield and even pull out their bow and arrow in close combat. Naturally, the bow and arrow will also be useful for ranged attacks and it’ll be possible for players to fire it from horseback. Fans of the hidden blade will be glad to know this is still an option.
More RPG elements will feature in Assassin’s Creed Origins. In the E3 gameplay trailer we spied a leveling system based on experience points. Weapons will also be more like RPG-like, with different characteristics, rarities and points attached.
The new RPG elements also extend to a skill tree which has been added to help you tailor your play in a way that suits you. The skill tree is split into three sections: warrior, archer, and a rogue-type category called Seer that revolves around improving skills like crafting.
You won’t have to focus on just one area; in fact, they overlap in a way that almost encourages blending skills together. This means that you can develop a combat style that suits you, whether you prefer to take down enemies from afar, trick them with crafty traps, or charge straight in like a battlefield warrior.
Discovery Tour is a new game mode that’s coming to Assassin’s Creed Origins. This mode essentially turns the game world into an open museum. Stripping out all combat and narrative and replacing it with guided tours and historical information, this mode is designed to appeal to those who want to know more about the real history behind the world they’re playing in.
Discovery Tour will come to the game as a free downloadable update in early 2018.
At this year’s E3 we managed to get hands on with Assassin’s Creed Origins on the new Xbox One X for 30 minutes, during which time we were able to play in the game’s open world and attempt to complete a mission.
Our first impression was that this is undoubtedly a beautiful game world, particularly when viewed in 4K.
The demo started off with Bayek travelling into a city on horseback, which you’re going to be doing a lot of since the map is by far one of the largest we’ve seen created by Ubisoft before. It’s convenient, then, that there’s a quick call button on the D-Pad which allows you to summon your horse at any time.
As soon as we were in the city, we dismounted our horse and got straight into trying out the game’s signature free running.
