It is a fact, some great things need their time. Even if the concepts are fantastic, it can take a long time that it is so great as it should be. This means, the perfection of a formula needs also its time. And Assassin’s Creed is the best example that a game need its time, too.

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Ubisoft releases now his open world adventure with its formula since ten years now. Some of them been really fantastic, some of them been criticised. The formula celebrates with Assassin’s Creed: Origins his new milestone. But is this game as good as we think? Let’s find out.

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Unfortunately, we have to start with some bad new, microtransactions. The are many ways to spend your money in the game. At first, the is a regular DLC-Shop for upcoming expansions. Second, there is also a Item-Shop which offers legendary armor and weapons. Third, there is an arsenal that is called time savings. I  this shop you can buy experience points, ingame-money, overview-maps about  secrets, ressources and much much more to challenge the game faster.  Great news are, that we can kill this feature in seconds. It is totally useless to spend some money for the normal game. Been our 30 hours test we even did not think for a second about the shops. It is even possible to buy the Heka-Cases with ingame-money. These boxes are filled with random loot. Long talk short: We think that the In-Game-Shop is totally unnecessary. The reason: Origins offers are great and balanced Unlock-System that only looks very unfair at the first glance.

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We think, that Bayek’s trip is a little bit too short, because the truth is, that the game’s whole story is about couple like in the previous game Assassin’s Creed Syndicate. The most of the you play Bayek, in some Story-Missions you play as Aya. The different to Syndicate is, that they are not brothers and sisters, they are a couple. Because of tragic experiences both of them are on a vendetta in the ancient egypt. The country is under control of the powerful greece nation and Julius Caesar will have a part of egypt, too. Aya and Bayek are hunting for conspirator under this few nation. And there is also Bayek’s special job. As a so called “Medjai” you could compare him to the Captain America of the desert. Officially he is working for the Pharaoh, unofficially he is the protector of the egypt.

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Everything we are doing is motivated by revenge or a do to from the job as a Medjai. Great is, that because of the the game creates a believable connection between the avatar, the game’s world, the daily doings in egypt and the political events that happened. The different to this game and Assassin’s Creed 3 is, that this game focuses on the main characters. Unfortunately, we have to confirm that this game tells us a story of revenge like in Assassin’s Creed 2. This is not an invitation, but  this plot contacts a lot of exciting figures which hits us much more emotional than previous games. The result is the most consistent story compared to all Assassin’s-Creed games before.

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The huge number of side-quests helps us to unlock great things we can use and are also a great addition to the main story. For example, we can get back to place of the first assassination to fight the rest of the family of the killed person. This is the beginning of a second storyline. In this we help our main characters to find the their way back to live.

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We can confirm that Assassin’s Creed: Origins’ open world is one the most impressive we have seen ever. Fact is, that the game’s world is filled with great secrets you can find. This is the biggest and most varied world Ubisoft has created in this franchise. This is not a that should be taken for granted. We are talking about a world in the desert. It was more secondary to explore the world in AC Unity and Syndicate. In AC Origins we could not wait to see what is behind the next sand dune. There are a lot of magic moments hidden in the world of AC Origins. We love the panorama-view and the game’s graphics are fantastic. We also love the game’s soundtrack that supports the game’s atmosphere. Especially the PC version of the game is graphical blockbuster. The game is then filled with vegetations, particles, sand and fog-effects, lower Pop-Ups and a graphic menu that offers a unbelievable huge number of option to set the graphics. There is also a Live-Benchmark test that analyses the performance. This all features should make every PC player very happy.

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Unfortunately, AC Origins has not a multiplayer-mode, but some “Shared-Experience-Features”. This means that some of the players actions could have effects on the single player open world we play. It could be that you find dead bodies of other players. If you find one it is possible to start a side quest. In this you have to fight against the people that killed the other multiplayer. All multiplayer-features are just optionally.

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At the first glance it looks like the gameplay would be the same like in the previous game. We run through the open world to the next quest which is marked on the map and start main or side-quests. In this missions we have to run through the world, use our parkour-skills, fight against guardians or kill them with our hidden blade. We can confirm, that if you do not look at all these sneaking and fighting, you will notice quickly that the missions are very varied. There are great boss-fights which are totally different if you compare them all. Fact is, you will remember all main missions, because they are different in how to play it or the storyline. The gameplay-mechanics are different to previous AC games. Important place are not marked on the map anymore. There are now shown as a question mark on the map. The know what you can find at this place you have to travel there. This seems like it would be just a small thing, but this kind of new mark-system supports the motivation to explore the world very much. You can use your eagle Senu to mark enemies and treasures from the top-view. This is very useful if you have to infiltrate a forts. Everybody who do not use this feature will have to handle bad surprises. Unfortunately, we have to talk about the parkour-system. This is on the low level like in Black Flag. You only have to use one button and it is from time to time very imprecisely. Arno was in Unity much faster by running on the buildings. We also liked the animation if you jumped over small fences or boxes. But fact is also, that you do not have to use the parkour-feature so often like in other AC games.

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The biggest difference to other AC game is the battle-system. The times you can win a fight with only one hit and one defense button are over. Assassin’s Creed Origins leaves the world of set choreographies and uses dynamic hitboxes. Bayek has to move around coverings, do combos, break through a block by doing a fast slam and load special attacks. This type of battle system is much more exciting than the others before. It is also the first time in this franchise that it is important which weapon you choose. Each type of weapon is made for a different style of gameplay and has it’s own advantages and disadvantages. But all type of weapons have one thing in common: It is a lot of fun to fight with them. But there is one thing we recommend to you. If you play the game on the PC, use a gamepad for it. The controls with a keyboard and the mouse are working great, but you can use such many buttons in the close combat, that it could be hard not to push the wrong one. Great is Bayek’s bow. With this weapon is very useful if you want to kill your enemy from a safe distance. We recommend not to use the bow too often. Munition is rare. We also think the the best close combat weapon for a silence kill is still the hidden blade. There is also the option to wait until it is night. At this time you can surprise the commander and kill him while he sleeps. Very sophisticated are battles against enemies that have a higher level than our character. The reason is that Assassin’s Creed: Origins uses a level-system that is similar to a role-playing-game. You get experience points for a lot of actions. With them your character get a new level and you can unlock new skills. But your enemies can raise in their levels, too. We noticed, that if you for example attack with a level of 20 enemies that have a level of 30, you will even not have many luck with your silence skills. But great is that is possible to travel to a level 30 area and search for loot. The freedom of the game allows to sneak in such places and to steal treasures. Thanks to the kampagne you will see the whole map. And if you do some sidequests, too, you will have no problem to get the level you need to succeed in the final battle. What we like is that is very simple to distribute the skillpoints. It is not such overloaded like in a role-playing-game, especially to choose the right build. Great is also, that even if you reach the maximum possible level you still get skillpoints to complete the skill-tree. But is not necessary. It is possible to accomplish the boss-fights and other endgame-content with a level of 40 and high skilled weapons.

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Assassin’s Creed: Origins’ skill-tree is splitted in fight-, sneak-, and gadget-skills. It possible to fill up all skill trees if you like to. We recommend to you to skill Bayek’s War-Skills at the beginning of the game, because it happens very often that you get into a fight. At the edge of each of all three skill-areas is an addition skill which increases the damage of the bow, strike-weapon or of a gadget. You can invest as much points as you want to. Great is how many possibilities we have to increase the power of our equipment. You can find a lot of weapons with rare equipped items on the map and in the inventory of many killed enemies. This legendary items have certain perks. For example, we had the opportunity to fight with a burning-sword and a shield, that puts our enemies into sleep by doing a right block. This is not very realistic, but supports the hunt for great stuff. We noticed very quickly that we have not to search specially for such a great things. You will get many great weapons automatically by playing the campaign. But everybody who invest the time to search in enemy camps, explore ancient tombs or climb very high to reach a vulture nest will be reasonably rewarded.

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It is not possible to craft weapons in AC Origins but there are things to do for everybody who dismantle objects and hunt animals to get some materials. By using them you can improve the level of your gadget pockets, arrow quivers, armor plates and some other parts. It is even possible to increase the level of the hidden blade. By the way, compared to previous games we had much more fun to hunt animals.

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Sure, not every missions is something new in the AC-Universe. Even a perfect formula is just a formula. Assassin’s Creed: Origins has not so many problems like the AC games before, but unfortunately, it has some. We also have to say that games like The Witcher 3 with their gameplay and their open world are in a different league. But fact is, that AC Origins is much better than similar like Far Cry Primal or Ghost Recon: Wildlands. They especially moved the gameplay features from Black Flag for only three missions. And even not necessary sidequest include cutscenes and a interesting story. What we want to say with this is, that we noticed how many work Ubisoft put into this game. And this is great. The game has very believable characters, a motivating gameplay-mechanics and a fantastic open world thank to the small and large stories. If you can remember so many great things you did in such a huge world, it shows how great this game is. It is nothing bad that AC Origins do not offer many opportunities to use the character’s parkour-skills. We accept this price if we get instead a great open world. It not happens often that we use our time to explore the world. And even the other characters, the fights and the hunting been a pleasure for us. Fantastic is how great Bayek’s story is and how Ubisoft tells us this. We love it how great the PC Version of this game is. The setting opportunities, comfort functions and technical improvements should be obligation for every AAA-Developer, especially if they port a game from or to the PC. Team-Ubisoft, you made a fantastic job. Thank you for the great time with Assassin’s Creed: Origins.

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