The Assassin's Creed series has been on-ice for a year. The last game, Syndicate was released in 2015. It was a step up from the previous title, Assassin's Creed Unity, for sure, but Unity did ultimately impact its sequel's success. As such, Ubisoft is taking extra care to further improve the franchise with Assassin's Creed Origins.
One of the biggest issues with Assassin's Creed Unity, besides everything, was the monotonous and downright boring side quests. Ubisoft seemed to get too comfortable with the idea of padding the game with "content" that was simply a rinse-and-repeat process of fetch quests. Go to the dot on the map. Kill/collect/search for the dot. Win arbitrary money. Simply put, they weren't fun and ultimately skippable. To compare, Assassin's Creed II had side quests that were fully voiced and even had their own arcs.
In Assassin's Creed Origins, apparently, the team is reacting to this. In an interview with GameReactor, game director Ashraf Ismail of Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag fame made some comments on how Ubisoft Montreal really gave it their all in Origins.
"We’re about a thousand years before the first Assassin’s Creed. For sure, we play with that and we wanted not only to create a big world but also to make sure that the world is constantly fulfilling your needs, constantly rewarding your discovery. We want people that go off the beaten path to be rewarded by a discovery, a meaning, and so we fill the world with this kind of stuff.
We have a lot of surprises in there, a lot of it is optional content, we put a lot of effort into having really high quality optional content. The idea that ancient Egypt is mysterious, that it invokes this awe feeling, we wanted to feel that in the game.
So, we’ve gone overboard into making sure that there’s a lot of optional content that will constantly surprise the player, show quality, show a narrative value, show the meaning of why this is the place the Brotherhood came to be. We definitely play with that, I want people to be lost in this world and to be in awe with the majesty of ancient Egypt."
Most of Assassin's Creed's negative commentary has been about side quests and the simple fact that it's released too often without enough new features. If this statement turns out to be more than just PR speak, we could be looking at a deeper Assassin's Creed experience that we haven't seen since the days of Ezio. We're not counting Black Flag, as Edwards story was more about pirates than assassins, although Ubisoft is also taking that route with Skull and Bones.
Assassin's Creed Origins will launch on October 27 for PC, PlayStation 4 and Xbox One.
