Assassin’s Creed Odyssey is a role-playing game and a major release in the Assassin’s Creed series. Although the first version of the series seemed unoriginal and dull, the different additions and updates over the previous years are tempting enough to try it.
The story of the game starts with the Battle of 300, in which a massively outnumbered troop of Greeks resists the attacking Persian army. The gamer acts as the Spartan King Leonidas and attempts to defeat the Persians with his surviving soldiers. The player possesses a wide range of activated skills in the trees of abilities and wins a point whenever they upgrade. These skills can then be added to the player’s gear to access them easily. They can also be modified anytime for some drachmae.
There are three skill trees, each conforming to a particular aspect of gameplay: hunter, warrior, and assassin. In the beginning, the player is equipped with some basic skills, but these consume the adrenaline segment, which limits their usage. Whether the player intends to be a warrior, a hunter, or an assassin, it is effective to activate and enhance skills as soon as possible to improve the gameplay.
The player then traverses the ruined battlefield, cutting and striking their way in search of the general. After a confrontation, the player learns about the general’s unpleasant plans regarding the Spartan kids and kills him.
By the end of the war, the Spartan warriors bring in the notorious betrayer Ephialtes who revealed a hidden road behind the Greeks, causes them to be surrounded. Leonidas kills Ephialtes and gets his men ready to move on. The part where Leonidas dismisses most of his men and keeps only 300 Spartans and 700 Thespians to defeat the Persians is skipped. The story moves on to the present day when a team of scientists discovers an item with two DNA strands on it attributed to male Alexios and female Kassandra. The player must choose to act like one of them.
The player can now choose between exploration and guided mode. The first mode is advisable, although it does not provide specific signs for the next mission and only offers some hints. All the same, it is possible to switch to the guided mode anytime to have clear instructions.
In my experience, I picked the exploration mode. The game moves next to the Peloponnesian War. I am cleaning my weapon when a crowd of savages suddenly starts yelling at me about someone named Cyclops, who had lent me money, and a fight begins. I manage to defeat them, but when I decide to spare them and send them back to Cyclops in order not to bother me, they soon surround me again on the road. This urges me to try resolving the problem by heading toward Markos, who, in turn, owes me. I learn from my friend, Phoebe, that Markos has bought a vineyard lately, and I make my way there. When I come close to my direction, I get to locate Markos using the eagle Okaros’ ability that allows me to detect opponents, indicators, and treasures from the sky.
When confronting him, Markos is unable to pay me back since he has purchased the vineyard, and I have to get my money from a trader called Druis in Sami. To compensate me for the trouble, I ask him for a horse, and he offers me to pick one of his three horses. The exploration mode offers many missions when I arrive in Sami, including examining catching criminals, skinning animals, searching for items, and many more.
Moreover, some thugs have abducted my friend, Phoebe, whom I save after assassinating the whole group. Afterward, I go reach the trader to give me the money. Yet, I learn about the interests Markos has imposed on the poor guy and his family, so I let him keep the money. As an act of gratitude, Druis gifts me a beautiful weapon and informs me that Markos borrowed the vineyard’s money from Cyclops. Now both of us owe Cyclops, and to pay him back, we decide to steal his obsidian eye, sell it, and then give him his money back.
I send Ikaros first to explore the region and find the whereabouts of the eye after pursuing the hints to Cyclops’ base. After we get the eye, we realize we cannot just sell it; otherwise, we will be exposed. Markos suggests murdering and robbing a few rich people in an empty mansion. However, one person survives our burglary and proposes to me getting him the Shroud of Phoebe from the temple of Odysseus for some money, so I accept and take off to the temple.
A man named Talos has been chasing me this whole journey since my fight with Cyclops. Now that my level is high enough, I can take him down before getting the shroud, since there is no other way to get rid of him. The map shows me his whereabouts and informs me whenever he gets too close, allowing me to hide or run away when I am not ready to fight him. In my experience, I shot arrows first, but he responded with continuous slow attacks that I was barely able to avoid. Then I used the Sparta Kicking move and charged at him until he dropped his defense, and I could kill him.
I go back to my mission, steal a small boat using the Sparta Kick, which is perfect for such a task, to cross the sea and reach the temple. I arrive at my destination and find a group of bandits there imprisoning a woman, so I kill them, rescue her, retrieve the shroud, and head back to the man who asked for it. However, the shroud was just a test, and the actual task is to murder the Wolf of Sparta, which would require a ship with a crew for the journey.
Since ships are far from affordable, I have to steal Cyclops’ ship and kill him at once. Before starting the mission, I decided to explore the available engravings, which are enhancements that add advantages to equipment. It is also possible to improve arms and equipment and sell or purchase items according to your liking. After getting my equipment ready, I moved to Cyclops’ location and found him trying to kill his captain for calling him “Cyclops” as he does not like that nickname. I managed to save the captain after fighting Cyclops and his men, and the captain offers his ship along with the team to express his gratitude.
It is quite difficult to control a ship crew, particularly if you have no clue where you are heading in aggressive waters. The commander can control the speed of the ship and order the crew to attack opponent boats. It is also feasible to decorate as well as improve the ship’s strength, weapons damage, and equipment. The captain then recommends adding extra crewmembers, so we head to the Pirate Island. However, the exploration mode is starting to become frustrating at this point, and the enormous challenge of ever completing the game starts to be intimidating.
Nevertheless, I keep moving on while defeating the enemy boats and collecting their loot. We arrive at Megaris and find the Sparta Wolf partying his recent victory. The Spartan soldiers are fascinated by my achievements so far, and Wolf’s assistant guarantees an encounter with his mysterious leader if I support Sparta in ruling Megaris. This mission can be accomplished by wearing out Megaris’ strength and invoking a conquest war, which in turn can be achieved by assassinating their leaders, building forts, killing their soldiers, seizing, or destroying military supplies.
Although this may sound like a tough mission, it was quite easy and unchallenging. In the conquest war, however, the player must kill the maximum possible of opponent soldiers and leaders to exhaust their power, which is an entertaining challenge in addition to the exciting battleground experience.
Sparta wins the war, and I finally get to meet with the famous Wolf, which reveals an overload of dramatical plot-twists. In fact, they were too many that it felt rushed and shallow. This is, however, the point where the real Odyssey begins. The game also features Ancient Greek historical and mythological aspects.
Even though the massive content alone in Odyssey can be incredibly challenging and sometimes frightening, the game is remarkable as it catches the stormy, mythical, yet mesmerizing periods of ancient Greece, together with a discreet action, which is to be anticipated from the Assassin’s Creed series.
