I recently finished my first playthrough of Assassin’s Creed Odyssey. I left with mixed feelings. It’s still an enormous game—sprawling, beautiful, and packed with things to break into, but I’m not so sure it’s an Assassin’s Creed game anymore. Ubisoft has pushed even more into the RPG territory that Origins started, and while there is a great deal to admire in that expansion, I feel like the essence of the series has been left behind.
Assassin’s Creed is supposed to be about precise stealth, fluid parkour, and calculated infiltration. Assassin's Creed Odyssey has those things, but they’re packed in with so many other systems that it struggles to be an action RPG, exploration simulator, and epic historical drama all at the same time. It’s an admirable attempt at reinvention, but one that loses the clarity and focus of the classics.### The World and Presentation
Most importantly, Greece is beautiful. Ubisoft has created yet another world, this time a real place with a world that is a living, breathing portrayal of actual fiction. The Aegean Sea, a vibrant blue, captivates attention, and every island, from the energetic streets of Athens to the tranquil olive groves of Kephallonia, is special and inhabited. The world coming to life as you sail from one coast to another is one of the best parts of the experience.
The artwork is exceptional. The temperatures have a warm tone and are much brighter and more saturated than those of Egypt, thus giving Greece its own distinct character. Each and every landscape has its own unique set of temples, statues, and other ancient obstructions, which encourage constant exploration. Each and every smaller village has its own fully alive world with musicians, merchants, and locals that are deeply connected to their environment.
Ubisoft's new approach has definitely captured scale. This world is too big. There is a distance between meaningful milestones, and I found myself fast-traveling just to stay engaged. I understand greed is a part of the problem, but the world doesn't so much give as it takes. There is a fatigue that sets in. This world asks a lot of your time to gain a sense of appreciation.
Story and Characters
This time, we get to pick between Alexios and Kassandra, which I think is a cool touch. I chose Kassandra, and I have to say, her performance is a highlight. Undoubtedly, Kassandra is one of the characters who drives the story forward. It’s her rhythm, humor, and charm that offset the massive runtime. The dialogue system, which is RPG-centric, gives you some agency in crafting her personalities, though it is fair to say the story has a more controlled and less flexible throbbing.
The narrative is sprawling and, for the most part, well-crafted. It is a grand journey—domestic saga, political intrigues, a myth, and a hint of the whodunit. It captures genuine emotional moments, especially in Kassandra’s family scenes. However, the narrative stretches, and in the end, there is a loss of momentum. There is simply too much, and the pacing is suffering the same issues that Origins had: a large middle portion that is mostly filler and repetitive tasks.
With Ubisoft, there’s a clear desire to tell a larger-than-life epic. It puts Ubisoft in a position of having created a game that feels like a fantasy RPG more than a stealth-focused narrative of assassins. The ties to the Brotherhood are faint, at best. With long-time players like me, who buy PS5 adventure games, and for whom the emotional storytelling is commendable, there is disappointment that the series is losing its identity.
The Fight Mechanics
In Odyssey, combat is an improvement from Origins but still relies heavily on RPG elements. As an assassin, you do not need to focus on precision and timing; as a warrior, you are now tasked to manage cooldowns, abilities, and your gear upgrades. There is a skill tree you can choose from, but no matter what you choose, the fights will still feel the same.
As for the combat mechanics, the stealth identity that made the earlier games great is missing, and I do not feel any combat. I do not feel the satisfaction of preparing a perfect strike from the shadows. Most confrontations spell skirmishes that are drawn out and where gear and stats trump skill. Overall, combat is fine, and from time to time, it’s even enjoyable, but far too impersonal.
The broken Spear of Leonidas has replaced the hidden blade, and while it is a cool story element, it further illustrates the movement away from traditional assassination approaches. In fact, game mechanics place a level on opponents, and your stealth takedowns often don’t work. This is frustrating for people who value pure stealth gameplay. I found myself questioning whether I could silence a target. This is not the kind of tension I want.
The combat animations are a level above everything else. The variety of weapons is good, and the combat system as a whole feels smoother in dodging, parrying, and striking compared to Assassin's Creed Origins. The system is competent- but that’s the problem. Competent is not inspired, and I don’t want to engage it more than is absolutely necessary.
Stealth and Exploration
Yet again, there seems to be less focus on stealth in this game. The options for sneaking around are limited, and the mechanics feel overly simplistic: crouch and hide in the bushes until you can ‘mark’ enemies with your eagle. Ikaros can be useful, but scanning enemies and using the map to locate enemies takes away the excitement of providing your own solutions. There is no more social stealth, no more blending into crowds, and no more disguises to distract enemies in hostile areas. The absence of these components is what gave earlier titles their character. It's as if the designers did the bare minimum for stealth in this game.
The other mechanics around exploration, however, are hard to resist. There are tons of temples, caves, forts, and question marks to discover across the world. While there is a satisfying feeling of uncovering new territories, the game becomes repetitive quickly when you start clearing forts in a predictable pattern: loot, save prisoners, and move on. Reaching the tenth floor starts to feel more like a chore than an accomplishment, and this fatigue from checklist-style gameplay is something I still experience as I continue playing.
Traveling through Greece is astonishing. I appreciate naval exploration being brought back. I find the ship battles to be a nice change of pace. I specifically enjoyed customizing my ship, recruiting my crews, and sailing from island to island. I find it a nice breath of fresh air when the land activities start to become a little tedious.
Technical Aspects and Performance
Visually, Odyssey is phenomenal. The lighting is natural and warm, the textures are sharp, and the environments are varied and beautiful. I especially love how weather patterns change the mood—fog rolling over the sea, rainstorms in the mountains, sunsets that bathe everything in gold. It’s a beautiful game, but it comes at a cost. The performance is demanding, and even on solid hardware, the framerate dips in crowded areas. It’s impressive tech, but not always optimized as well as it could be.
The user interface is still slow and clumsy. Going through the menus, inventory, and the map is cumbersome. There is a lag between the actions, which can be irritating when you are often updating the abilities and gear management. This issue persists from Origins and still hasn't been resolved.
The accessibility options are a great addition, though. Customizing HUD elements, adjusting the exploration mode, and having the option to change the difficulty all help in creating a personalized experience. The exploration mode is great as it removes the exact quest markers, allowing players who buy cheap PS4 games to focus on the clues and dialogue and truly think about the task at hand. The mechanic is proof of the game developers respecting the players’ intelligence, as it encourages players to think, pay attention, and interact.
The Overall Experience
Having spent more than seventy hours in Assassin's Creed Odyssey, I can say it is an enormous game. The RPG systems are extensive, the story is ambitious, and the world is beautiful. Still, in the end, I miss the soul of the game. It feels as if it is detached from the series. It has enormous confidence and succeeds on many technical levels, yet it still doesn't feel like a part of the series it belongs to. The world is gorgeous, but it all comes at the expense of stealth purity, pacing, and cohesion. Having enjoyed the stealth mechanics and parkour precision in previous Assassin’s Creed titles, I can understand how some fans might think Odyssey’s focus lies elsewhere. After all, Odyssey highlights the importance of exploration and the vastness of its narrative. Quiet infiltration and the precision of an assassin are not its calling cards. Odyssey is very much the Odyssey of Ancient Greece.
Not that this is a drawback—it’s a polished, and often exhilarating experience, just not the kind of Assassin's Creed I grew up loving. It is a great RPG in the Assassin's Creed universe, but it doesn’t quite hit the mark as an Assassin's Creed title.
I can appreciate how the game is set up to be memorable. Everyone can enjoy the beauty of the world they created and the charms of Kassandra. There really is a sense of freedom that can make a person lose their focus. It really is a world to be explored, even if Ubisoft’s goal is to create a massive open-world adventure that appeals to a broader audience.
Odyssey is the most dramatic departure in that it is a massive leap of genre creation and experience. It is an exhilarating addition to the game collection. I miss the sense of simplicity and focus that resides in the earlier titles. The intricacy of the rooftops and the shadows is, most of all, the most engaging portion of the game to me.
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