Fluffyhotep
Watchdog
It actually seems to be a decent game, though 'RPG' is probably a bit too grand a term. It looks like an action game that had an RPG system slapped on it because, hey, it works with Witcher III, so why not?
I've been looking at this game for some time now (historian here and, while not an Egyptologist - I'm more into late Roman stuff - Pharaonic Egypt is a hobby of mine), trying to decide whether to buy it. I've got a troubled history with Ubi open world games however (I buy them, play them and then quickly get bored), so in this case I ended up just viewing a complete walkthrough on Youtube (fast-forwarding boring combat bits).
Now, for any judgments on the gameplay I'll point towards the reviews on the Metacritic and Open Critic sites. So far there are no really bad reviews, but quite a few ones that are fairly critical (bugs, combat system, repetitive gameplay, not-so-great story and characters etc). Still, the game's rating hovers a bit above 80, which is around AC IV Black Flag's level. A game I personally found boring, but quite a few people liked it.
Anyway, from what I've seen of the game, I came away with the following impressions:
1. The story is pretty utilitarian but mostly works; the hero, Bayek of Siwa (which wasn't part of Egypt, although culturally under Egyptian influence, ah well…), and his wife Aya (a modern Arab name, again ah well…) has a simple motivation (reveeeeeenge!). The cutscenes that flesh out this basic story are reasonably well done with mostly good voice acting.
The rest? Not so good. Sidemissions sometimes have serviceable stories, think Horizon Zero Dawn level, sometimes not that great. Minor NPC voice acting and animations are often pretty horrid. Quite a few of these sidemissions (and some of the main path missions) are also rather questionable from a historical point of view.
However, if you see them simply as semi-believable excuses for the player to go out and kill NPC extras, loot their corpses and get XP, they do their job. They do have a bit more narrative flesh on them than the usual Ubi busyjob tasks.
2. The game has two cultural 'styles' in it - native Egyptian and Hellenistic (Graeco-Roman) - that determine how people and buildings look. This is historical, as Egypt was the center of the empire of the Graeco-Macedonian Ptolemaic dynasty and was therefore a land of two cultures. These styles are rather well-realized. However, after about an hour I started to notice that the 'Egyptian' style was beginning to suffer from 'Art Asset Repetitis Syndrome'. Basically, there are a lot of temples, houses, villas and ruins in the native Egyptian style, but Ubi made a limited number of art assets that are repeated ad nauseam: the same wall textures, tables, statues etc. As a result, the 'native' part of Egypt starts to look pretty samey really quickly.
The Hellenistic style actually appears to be more varied and subsequently doesn't feel as repetitive as the Egyptian one. I suspect there are two reasons for this: first, the information needed to create these assets quickly and relatively accurately is much easier to get than for Egyptian stuff. Second, I strongly suspect Ubi deliberately invested far more effort in these assets because the inevitable sequel will take place someplace Hellenistic - Greece itself, Roman Italy etc. The bulk of the assets created can be lifted to Italy, Greece, Asia Minor or western Syria with few or no modifications. That's great for Ubi, but has clearly come at the expense of the depiction of 'native' old Egypt in the game.
But in a nutshell: Hellenistic stuff looks great and is fairly varied, Egyptian stuff is beautiful but suffers very heavily from asset cloning.
3. The use of an RPG system with levels has some weird consequences. Because the game is 'historical' (and some sizeable bits are just that), visual enemy variety is pretty limited: a handful of animals (hyenas, hippos, crocodiles, big cats, pure prey like gazelles etc.), bandits, Ptolemaic soldiers, Roman soldiers, some 'gladiators' (one of the bigger historical inaccuracies in the game BTW). These enemies are recycled constantly but are tied to the level range of the specific area on the map. I've seen level 23 hyenas, for instance. Nasty as they are, in most RPG's they would be low-level enemies. Not in AC:O. The same applies to ordinary unarmoured Ptolemaic infantry, cavalry, epic hippos and crocodiles etc.
4. Finally, there are a lot of weird, avoidable inaccuracies that probably derive from a variety of causes. Several of the weapons are either 1,000 to 2,000 years out of date, others are around 1,500 years too early. Some of these may be models from earlier AC games. Sailing boats, dovecotes and probably several other things are contemporary Egyptian rather than ancient Egyptian. The galleys in the game really look weird, which is a bit strange because, anachronistic or not, most stuff in the game looks pretty accurate. Perhaps it's a quirk of Ubisoft Singapore, which I think was responsible for the naval stuff.
Anyway, these inaccuracies are just annoying from a historical point of view - they don't have an impact on the game per se.
I think that, on the whole, this is a good AC game and looks like an above average action game. It's a really good way of exploring Hellenistic architecture (although there quite a few good 3D reconstruction videos on the Internet, try for instance the Altair 4 Multimedia Youtube Channel). As for the older, native Egypt, that looks good too but suffers way too much from a limited range of assets. It's a pity Ubi did not go all-out for, say, New Kingdom Egypt in the time of Ramses II and devoted 100% of their resources to it.
Next stop for the franchise? Almost certainly somewhere Graeco-Roman!
I've been looking at this game for some time now (historian here and, while not an Egyptologist - I'm more into late Roman stuff - Pharaonic Egypt is a hobby of mine), trying to decide whether to buy it. I've got a troubled history with Ubi open world games however (I buy them, play them and then quickly get bored), so in this case I ended up just viewing a complete walkthrough on Youtube (fast-forwarding boring combat bits).
Now, for any judgments on the gameplay I'll point towards the reviews on the Metacritic and Open Critic sites. So far there are no really bad reviews, but quite a few ones that are fairly critical (bugs, combat system, repetitive gameplay, not-so-great story and characters etc). Still, the game's rating hovers a bit above 80, which is around AC IV Black Flag's level. A game I personally found boring, but quite a few people liked it.
Anyway, from what I've seen of the game, I came away with the following impressions:
1. The story is pretty utilitarian but mostly works; the hero, Bayek of Siwa (which wasn't part of Egypt, although culturally under Egyptian influence, ah well…), and his wife Aya (a modern Arab name, again ah well…) has a simple motivation (reveeeeeenge!). The cutscenes that flesh out this basic story are reasonably well done with mostly good voice acting.
The rest? Not so good. Sidemissions sometimes have serviceable stories, think Horizon Zero Dawn level, sometimes not that great. Minor NPC voice acting and animations are often pretty horrid. Quite a few of these sidemissions (and some of the main path missions) are also rather questionable from a historical point of view.
However, if you see them simply as semi-believable excuses for the player to go out and kill NPC extras, loot their corpses and get XP, they do their job. They do have a bit more narrative flesh on them than the usual Ubi busyjob tasks.
2. The game has two cultural 'styles' in it - native Egyptian and Hellenistic (Graeco-Roman) - that determine how people and buildings look. This is historical, as Egypt was the center of the empire of the Graeco-Macedonian Ptolemaic dynasty and was therefore a land of two cultures. These styles are rather well-realized. However, after about an hour I started to notice that the 'Egyptian' style was beginning to suffer from 'Art Asset Repetitis Syndrome'. Basically, there are a lot of temples, houses, villas and ruins in the native Egyptian style, but Ubi made a limited number of art assets that are repeated ad nauseam: the same wall textures, tables, statues etc. As a result, the 'native' part of Egypt starts to look pretty samey really quickly.
The Hellenistic style actually appears to be more varied and subsequently doesn't feel as repetitive as the Egyptian one. I suspect there are two reasons for this: first, the information needed to create these assets quickly and relatively accurately is much easier to get than for Egyptian stuff. Second, I strongly suspect Ubi deliberately invested far more effort in these assets because the inevitable sequel will take place someplace Hellenistic - Greece itself, Roman Italy etc. The bulk of the assets created can be lifted to Italy, Greece, Asia Minor or western Syria with few or no modifications. That's great for Ubi, but has clearly come at the expense of the depiction of 'native' old Egypt in the game.
But in a nutshell: Hellenistic stuff looks great and is fairly varied, Egyptian stuff is beautiful but suffers very heavily from asset cloning.
3. The use of an RPG system with levels has some weird consequences. Because the game is 'historical' (and some sizeable bits are just that), visual enemy variety is pretty limited: a handful of animals (hyenas, hippos, crocodiles, big cats, pure prey like gazelles etc.), bandits, Ptolemaic soldiers, Roman soldiers, some 'gladiators' (one of the bigger historical inaccuracies in the game BTW). These enemies are recycled constantly but are tied to the level range of the specific area on the map. I've seen level 23 hyenas, for instance. Nasty as they are, in most RPG's they would be low-level enemies. Not in AC:O. The same applies to ordinary unarmoured Ptolemaic infantry, cavalry, epic hippos and crocodiles etc.
4. Finally, there are a lot of weird, avoidable inaccuracies that probably derive from a variety of causes. Several of the weapons are either 1,000 to 2,000 years out of date, others are around 1,500 years too early. Some of these may be models from earlier AC games. Sailing boats, dovecotes and probably several other things are contemporary Egyptian rather than ancient Egyptian. The galleys in the game really look weird, which is a bit strange because, anachronistic or not, most stuff in the game looks pretty accurate. Perhaps it's a quirk of Ubisoft Singapore, which I think was responsible for the naval stuff.
Anyway, these inaccuracies are just annoying from a historical point of view - they don't have an impact on the game per se.
I think that, on the whole, this is a good AC game and looks like an above average action game. It's a really good way of exploring Hellenistic architecture (although there quite a few good 3D reconstruction videos on the Internet, try for instance the Altair 4 Multimedia Youtube Channel). As for the older, native Egypt, that looks good too but suffers way too much from a limited range of assets. It's a pity Ubi did not go all-out for, say, New Kingdom Egypt in the time of Ramses II and devoted 100% of their resources to it.
Next stop for the franchise? Almost certainly somewhere Graeco-Roman!
