Assassin's Creed Origins - Is an RPG now

PC Gamer thinks Assassin's Creed Origins has enough RPG elents to call it an RPG now:

For better or worse, Assassin's Creed: Origins is an RPG now

Levelling up in ancient Egypt.

I always hoped that Assassin's Creed would top the silliness of the 'air assassinate an ocelot' quest at the start of AC4. Assassin's Creed: Origins delivers early when I unleash an adrenaline attack on a hippo's face. In a storm of slashes I bring to bear the martial expertise of a master assassin to take down a swamp animal that, minutes earlier, had been quietly getting on with its day.

It is a high level hippo, though, so the barrage of blade strikes only removes a portion of its health bar and I'm forced to dodge around its teeth to lay into its blubbery flank. At this point a crocodile gets involved so I retreat to use my warrior's bow to blast the animals at range. It fires a spread of arrows like a shotgun. A flashing indicator on the hippo's health bar lets me know that head shots do extra damage.

Game system contrivances have always sat uneasily inside Assassin's Creed's beautiful, authentic worlds. I'm used to futuristic UIs floating in front of dusty snapshots of ancient life, but there is a lot more game in Assassin's Creed: Origins, and more friction between the setting and your moment-to-moment behaviour. We left Assassin's Creed as an action series, now it emerges from its two-year hibernation as an RPG in The Witcher 3 mould, complete with levelling, skill trees, an extensive loot system, and crafting.

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Thanks henriquejr!

More information.

Wake me when it gets turn based combat.

Needs to be turn based and not affiliated with ubijunk. Then I might, might actually check it out.

Looks like a shoo-in for a 4/5 rating.

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It doesn't need to be turn-based, but for me to be truly interested, it needs to be free of the useless collectibles and mini-games that plague Ubisoft's other titles.

Also, please don't interrupt the gameplay with the stupid Animus story bullshit every 20 minutes like the other AC games.

nope.jpg

Never played any of this junk series. Had to watch videos in 2008 to study the graphics at our company, but that was it.

JDR13 said:

Also, please don't interrupt the gameplay with the stupid Animus story bullshit every 20 minutes like the other AC games.

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This.

Think about the typical 1st/3rd person game that with all sorts of tricks tries to fully immerse the player into the game world.
And then there's AC: Nope, get out now!

ACtually, the present time story was what kept the games fresh to me. I like the sci-fi parts of the game.

Maybe it's a coincidence or just saturation, but when that part of the game was excluded (since Ezio's story finished too), I stop caring about Assassin's Creed.

I'm looking forward this Assassin's Creed Origins. I always thought that this game series is at its best when the setting is in ancient history. Maybe because the more closer to our time, the more we notice inconsistencies with real history and human behaviour, killing a little bit the immersion.

JDR13 said:

please don't interrupt the gameplay with the stupid Animus story bullshit every 20 minutes like the other AC games.

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I need Animus bullshit story desperately - IMO they should cut out the "history" bullshit stories and allow people to play the modern times only.

[EDIT]
PCgamesN suspects that crapload of RPG elements that include levels, loot, skilltrees, etc mean that ACO is Ubi's attempt to make The Witcher 3: Egypt Adventure:
https://www.pcgamesn.com/assassins-creed-origins/assassins-creed-origins-rpg

after playing four hours of Assassin’s Creed Origins, I find myself surprised to discover that I apparently did not know what the sacred building blocks of this series actually are. When Ubisoft Montreal promised to reinvent the series with Origins I was not expecting them to build The Witcher: Egypt Adventure. Yet here we are.

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btw, no AC game had difficulty slider. ACO added it. Good thing IMO - if it's still a checkpoint based grinder, drop everything on easy and instakill annoying godlike reviving trashmobs.

JDR13 said:

It doesn't need to be turn-based, but for me to be truly interested, it needs to be free of the useless collectibles and mini-games that plague Ubisoft's other titles.

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I have read somewhere that Origins is less generic than previous AC, mostly because of a lot of side quests, not stupid generic activities. On the other hand you dont really expected Ubi title without collectibles, right? Of course some collectibles are there too.

JDR13 said:

Also, please don't interrupt the gameplay with the stupid Animus story bullshit every 20 minutes like the other AC games.

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Interesting is that they refused to show anything about Animus and modern time. It seems it will be the same crap as ever, similar to Animus in AC: Black Flag.

I really don't consider crafting and inventory Tetris to be the makings of an RPG, rather than the bane of them. If the next game lets you create your own character with important choices and a conversation system with dialogue options that let you show a sense of personality as well as incorporating your skills and background, then I'll be interested. Adding the annoying busywork that plagues most RPG's (apparently including an abundance of mind numbing fetch quests that should have gone the way of the dodo by now) isn't impressive.

Marketing Person A: Hey what genre label can we add to our game that can attract another profile of buyers without alienating anyone else.

Marketing Person B: hmmmm Action? Survival? Horror? Procedurally Generated?

Marketing Person A: No no. Too narrowing, to offensive, too dividing. Need something more generic that can bring unity but nobody really can define.

Marketing Person C: How about RPG.. that fits.

*moment of awed silence*

*room bursts into applause*

Marketing Person A: .. wow, just... wow. You are amazing!

Sounds very promising to me. Borrowing elements from the Witcher 3, and making the game more rpg oriented, well, that's right up my alley.

This game has been number one on my wish list for awhile now. That said, I don't like pre-order schemes, to say the least. The idea that the bonus mission "secret of the first pyramids" has to be pre-ordered and won't be available in another form post-release -- utterly absurd, and I'm hoping that won't be the case.

That said, there is also supposed to be a DLC next year that is really cool, for people like me who are "Egyptophiles", it will allow you to explore the setting as if you were a tourist there, without having to deal with enemies or the story-line, but kind of like a virtual tour of the architecture, landmarks and so on, and at the same time teach the rich and fascinating history of the region. That is absolutely awesome.

Just that DLC alone is enough to make me want to buy this game.

What are the PC Specs for Assassin's Creed Origins?


The minimum and recommended specs for Assassin's Creed Origins are the following:

MINIMUM CONFIGURATION
OS: Windows 7 SP1, Windows 8.1, Windows 10 (64-bit versions only)
PROCESSOR: Intel Core i5-2400s @ 2.5 GHz or AMD FX-6350 @ 3.9 GHz or equivalent
VIDEO CARD: NVIDIA GeForce GTX660 or AMD R9 270 (2048 MB VRAM with Shader Model 5.0 or better)
SYSTEM RAM: 6GB
Resolution: 720p
Video Preset: Lowest

RECOMMENDED CONFIGURATION
OS: Windows 7 SP1, Windows 8.1, Windows 10 (64-bit versions only)
PROCESSOR: Intel Core i7- 3770 @ 3.5 GHz or AMD FX-8350 @ 4.0 GHz
VIDEO CARD: NVIDIA GeForce GTX760 or AMD R9 280X (3GB VRAM with Shader Model 5.0 or better)
SYSTEM RAM: 8GB
Resolution: 1080p
Video Preset: High

What are the supported graphics cards?
The supported graphics cards at the time of the release are the following:

*Supported NVIDIA cards at time of release:
• GeForce GTX600 series: (Recommended) GeForce 680 or better
• GeForce GTX700 series: (Recommended) GeForce GTX780 or better
• GeForce GTX900 series: (Recommended) GeForce GTX970 or better
• GeForce GTX10-Series: (Recommended) GeForce GTX1050 or better

**Supported AMD cards at time of release:
• Radeon 200 series: (minimum) Radeon R7 270 or better
• Radeon 300/Fury X series: (Recommended) Radeon R7 370 or better
• Radeon 400 series: (Recommended) Radeon 460 or better

Gamepad Support
• Microsoft Xbox 360
• Microsoft Xbox One (Original/Elite)

What is the download size?
The size of the installed files is around 45 Gigabytes.

Will there be a Day 1 update? What will be its size?
Yes, there will be a Day 1 update, exact size is still to be defined.

What is the maximum framerate of Assassin's Creed Origins on PC?
As on other platforms, Assassin's Creed Origins on PC uses a technology called Dynamic Resolution Rendering that adjusts the resolution on the fly to ensure a framerate as close as possible to the targeted one - in most cases it's totally invisible for the user. On PC, On PC, players can actually choose what baseline framerate they want to target: 30, 45, or 60 fps. They can also select their maximum framerate between 30, 45, 60, or 90 fps, or decide to completely uncap it.

Is it possible to turn off Dynamic Resolution Rendering?
Yes, by turning off the "Adaptive Quality" option in the menus - this will in fact deactivate Dynamic Resolution Rendering.

Is it possible to play Assassin's Creed Origins in 4K on PC?
If you have a powerful enough PC, yes.

What are the new features of Assassin's Creed Origins on PC?
Assassin's Creed Origins PC introduces features that are brand new for the Assassin's Creed franchise:

- Performance Benchmark
For the first time in Assassin’s Creed, we have a benchmark built-in to help our players to validate their tweaked settings.
In-game performance analysis Our engine constantly monitors and tracks the performance on PC (FPS, CPU & GPU usage) to allow our players to profile how their hardware is performing. They can then leverage this information to tweak the game options and improve performance.

- Dynamic Resolution rendering
Dynamic resolution is a technique we use to keep the framerate as close as possible to our targeted max at all times by adjusting the frame resolution on the fly, which in most cases will be invisible to the player.

- In game resolution multiplier (up to 4K for 1080 displays)
If your hardware is powerful enough to render in ultra high resolution (like 4K) but you don’t have a 4K screen then this is for you! You can tell the engine to render the game in higher resolution so that you can benefit from Oversampling or Supersampling. You can also decide to do the opposite: force the game to render in a smaller resolution and always upscale it to your screen resolution. The choice is yours.

In addition to those new features, Assassin's Creed Origins PC supports the customization of Mouse and Keyboard and Gamepad configurations, as well as multi-monitor set-ups.

Does Assassin's Creed Origins support multi-monitor set-ups?
Yes.

Does Assassin's Creed Origins supports the customization of Mouse and Keyboard and Gamepad configurations?
Yes.

Does the game require a permanent online connection to be played?
No. The game will require a one-time connection to the servers for activation but once that one-time check has been made the game can be played offline. Still a daily connection to the servers will be required to get access to some online features that will be detailed at a later date.

Is there any support for Ultra-Wide monitors (21:9 resolution)?
Yes.

Will Assassin's Creed Origins support SLI/CrossfireX configurations?
This will not supported at launch but might come in a post-launch update.

Will the game feature Direct X12?
No.

Will it be possible to adjust the Field Of View?
Yes.
What are the preload dates and times for the PC version?
We'll communicate those times at a later date, stay tuned.

Will there be other features post-launch?
Yes, the development team is already working on PC updates that will be announced and detailed at a later date.

Will Assassin's Creed Origins PC version require a uPlay account?
Yes.

Will Assassin's Creed Origins PC be available on Steam?
Yes, the digital PC version of Assassin's Creed Origins will be available on the uPlay Store and on Steam.

When will Assassin's Creed Origins on PC be released?
Assassin's Creed Origins PC will be released on October 27th, 2017.

Note that recommended CPU requirement is probably minimum requirement - Ubi tends to hammer one CPU core while other cores are idling in their pisspoor ports.

Farflame said:

Interesting is that they refused to show anything about Animus and modern time. It seems it will be the same crap as ever, similar to Animus in AC: Black Flag.

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Yeah, according to the AC Wiki…

The game will include modern day elements, which will run along their own storyline.

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How prevalent that is will determine if I end up giving this game a shot. If it's constantly pulling you out of the main setting, I won't be playing long if at all.

JDR13 said:

I won't be playing long if at all.

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I have the same thought, but my reasoning is the release versions difference where content got chopped out to confuse (and rip off) the buyer, not Animus.

Oh my gawd.

In the late 80s and early 90s maybe even to the mid 90s. A lot of new games when released on the market would stress that they were RPGS. I bought so many strategy games at the time that only had a hint of RPGness.

So now with 3 weeks till release . . .
Ill let my fellow gametesting RPGWatch folk report back to me about the RPG thing.

Manure is a semi-classy name for something that really isn't. You could say the same thing about most items that are affiliated with ubijunk.