Assassin’s Creed: Odyssey | PS4 Review

I used to worship the Assassin’s Creed series. I’d read all the books, comics, playing the spin-offs, pouring over wikis. I was obsessed with this universe and its many mysteries. That all changed after Assassin’s Creed III. Now, I love AC3 (It’s the best one, I promise), so my problem wasn’t with Connor’s story or Desmond’s finale. It was with the complete dropping of those grander mysteries in subsequent entries. Ubisoft seemed so intent on distancing themselves from their own lore, they burned fans in the process.

Returning After A Break

So I’ve skipped several years of these games, including the quasi-reboot that was Assassin’s Creed: Origins. But after hearing that the modern-day stuff was back in a bigger way, as well as the wackier lore aspects, I entered Assassin’s Creed: Odyssey with excitement. It seemed like the series was on the right track, but it turns out it was on a boring one.

Though the modern-day story and wacky lore did excite me, it’s overshadowed by the sheer quantity of story inside of the Animus. The time period this time around is Ancient Greece, the furthest back the franchise has ever gone. This is a time that even predates the Assassins themselves. You’ll find no hidden blades here. There’s a major conflict between that Athenians and Spartans, and you’ll play as a mercenary using both sides to further your agenda. The setting itself didn’t particularly grab me, but I wouldn’t have thought Renaissance Italy would have before that. If nothing else, Assassin’s Creed has always been good at crafting a time period. So I entered with excitement.

Choose Your Destiny

This time you’re given the choice of either Kassandra or Alexios to play as, and I went with Kassandra. The voice actor just seemed like she was having more fun with it. Giving the choice of character is pretty important because this game is a straight-up RPG. Dialogue choices, meaningful skill trees, and systems abound. Assassin’s Creed has always flirted with RPG mechanics, but this game could have just been called Odyssey and made into its own franchise.

That’s not a knock against the game, long standing series need the occasional shakeup. The problem is beyond those skill trees and dialogue choices, the games just isn’t very fun. Don’t get me wrong, there are aspects to enjoy. The political intrigue of Greece is compelling, as is the modern-day and Isu (aliens/Roman Gods – Assassin’s Creed is weird) storylines. Even the side quests are made more entertaining by Kassandra’s unstoppable charisma. The quests, climbing, and plot are all good stuff. Even the aforementioned side quests are more involved than I’d have thought.

For every good side quest or Kassandra moment, there’s two dozen checklist items. If you’re the type of gamer that likes to zone out, focus on a task, and take enjoyment away from that Assassin’s Creed: Odyssey is the game for you. I like my content to have a little more weight than that. I’m not going to infiltrate my 16th Spartan fort just for gear. I need a narrative reason, or at the very least a smaller game map.

An Exercise In Tedium

Due to the game’s archaic insistence on level gating, plenty of this side stuff you will do. See, if an enemy is two or three levels above you, you’ll barely do any damage at all, whereas they can kill you in a hit or two. Gain that one level, though, and suddenly you’re on even ground. It feels silly, and exists seemingly to only prolong an already massive game. It’s frustrating how little your skill comes into play. Just to prove I could, I took down an enemy four levels above me through patience alone. Fight as Kassandra might, she could barely hurt the enemy. His number was simply too big.

Which leads into the even more egregious boring aspects of Assassin’s Creed: Odyssey. The combat in the game in unabashedly awful. I can not see who this combat is for. It’s obviously taking inspiration from the Soulslike genre, but not nearly hard enough to mimic that intensity. You can mash light attack on most enemies and barely see a rebuttal of any kind. Not that it would matter, as enemies telegraph their moves so slowly and obviously that they’re never a threat. Once you level up and introduce more skills, it becomes even easier. Simply spam your skills, and watch as all your enemies fall.

Tried as I might, I couldn’t make the combat fun for me. Difficulty sliders, different weapons, nothing was working for me. So in my time with the game I tried using the stealth as much as possible. Even here, the game fails to impress. The stealth gets the job done, sure, but it’s not great. There’s not enough feedback for when you’re about to get spotted, and Kassandra doesn’t have the fine control one would want from a stealth protagonist. Assassin’s Creed has always faltered on stealth outside of crowds, but I was surprised to see that remained the case this many years later. Again, it’s not terrible, but rarely did getting caught feel like my fault.

Returning to the High Seas

Another huge component is the return of naval combat and exploration. It doesn’t play quite the role here that it did in Black Flag, but it’s a decent chunk of the game. It does feel like more a method of travel than anything else, which is fine for me because the ship stuff never grabbed me in this series. The fights are as simple as they used to be, and that’s a good thing. This isn’t a navy simulator. Without the bombast of cannons and rifles, however, the battles don’t quite impress as much as they used to.

Assassin’s Creed: Odyssey is, more than anything else, a game of excess. On top of the general map barf of every island Kassandra visits in her journey, there are systems on systems. The mercenary system is this ladder of boss-type enemies that will track you as you become more active in the world. These enemies effectively act as random droplets of chaos. You’ll know they’re tracking you, but never know when they could show up. They could assault you in the middle of side quests, or start hunting you down in the fort you’re sleuthing about in. In theory, it could work to add tension to almost any scene. In practice, it’s intrusive and cumbersome. As you kill these foes, you work your way up the mercenary ladder, encountering tougher foes as you climb.

Too Many Cooks in the Kitchen

Speaking of systems that could have been removed entirely and made no difference on the final product, there’s also the tug-of-war in every district of the map. Every region is controlled by either the Athenians or Spartans, and by attacking various resources you can open up a final Conquest battle. Choose to assist either the attacking or defending side for differing rewards. These battles impress with the amount of enemy combatants on screen, but with how awful the combat is there’s little drive to play them. Odyssey is constantly showering you with loot and money, so there’s never a real reason to do these. They are entirely superfluous.

The only interesting side system has to do with the Cult of Kosmos. These proto-Templars enter the picture about a dozen hours or so into the game, and thereafter appear on the map. Kassandra wants to murder them all, but the player will have to make it happen. The game starts you off with a few members’ locations, but only by playing the game and learning more about these enemies will you find their locations. These people could be anywhere, and you might find yourself destroying a random ship only to discover you’ve crossed a name off the hit list. It’s compelling, and make you feel like an actual Assassin in ways only the first game ever did.

This was a game in desperate need of an editor. There’s a plethora of things to do, sure, but so little of it feels worth doing. Even the surprisingly involved side quests get bogged down by the sluggish gameplay. Assassin’s Creed: Odyssey is going to be an amazing game for some people; people that love grand scope or checklist gameplay. Other people won’t get past the awful combat, the myriad unnecessary systems, or god-awful menus. I think Assassin’s Creed is a series that could return to greatness, but Odyssey is not it. Nowhere near it.

This review is based on a PS4 copy of the game, and it is also available on Xbox One, Windows, and Switch.