Assassin's Creed Origins preview | Not the Assassin's Creed you remember

Assassin’s Creed’s celebrates its tenth birthday this year. That’s a whole decade since we met Alta?r, and a lot has changed since then. It’s quite apt, then, that Assassin’s Creed Origins (the 19th game in the franchise, if you include the spinoffs) is trying to change things up. Many of the defining features of the game --the hidden blade, the stealth, the historical fiction-- are returning, but much of what makes up the bulk of the game is different to what you might expect.

Origins is coming out after a year break, which Creative Director Jean Guesdon says was needed “to really reinvent the experience of Assassin's Creed on both gameplay and the world.” That reinvention is coming via Bayek of Siwa and Ancient Egypt, the origin to the Brotherhood of Assassins that we’ve seen across the series.

Bayek is the last of the Medjay, a group that swore their lives to protecting the Pharaoh and acting in their interests. It takes place in 49 BC, with Cleopatra forced from her throne. You, as the last Medjay, must reinstate Cleopatra and fight the Order of the Ancients, who can be described as “proto-Templars”.

To do that, you will go through Ancient Egypt to hunt down baddies, kill them, and generally be a good egg. Unlike previous games in the series, which set its linear narrative to an open-world backdrop, the quest and pacing is built around the open world. On top of progressing the main story, you can take on side quests at any point, and complete them whenever you choose. They can range from hunting animals for their hide to taking out a tax collector, very much a typical questing affair.

This is just the start of many changes that are making Assassin’s Creed Origins much more of an role-playing game. The gear and equipment you use is upgradeable and craftable, abilities are firmly locked to skill trees, and level progression is a key part to the experience.

These are also changing how the game’s staple stealth works. The hidden blade, an iconic weapon from the franchise, is no longer a perfect weapon. If you are not upgrading the hidden blade, or if you try to assassinate someone who is a higher level than you, it won’t kill them, and you’ll be forced into more traditional swordplay.

You could get by without much sword-fighting in previous Assassin’s Creed games, but here it’s a key part to the experience. While it has been changed, it’s a dry kind of sword-fighting: dodge an attack, swing, watch numbers pop up based on the amount of damage you deal, repeat. Different weapons offer new ways to fight, but the primary differences are really just how slowly you want to swing your weapon.

There are some fascinating new systems at work. In the desert, for example, Bayek can begin to hallucinate, seeing visions of enemies or an oasis or something else entirely. Guesdon describes this sort of system as being Assassin’s Creed Origins’ way of making the desert not feel “punitive.”

“It's more an invitation to visit,” Guesdon reassures, “ and we have other surprises that I will let you discover when the game is out. We always pay attention to make them fit and have a purpose in the global experience. There is nothing in the game that is just here because ‘Oh let's do that, for no other reason than it's a cool thing’, it needs to have a reason, a raison d'être, and to have a purpose in the game.”

When these sorts of systems come out of Assassin’s Creed Origins, it becomes impressive, and another example of that is in a new addition to its stealth. Bayek has an eagle, Senu, that acts as his scout - call for Senu, and you can get a literal bird’s eye view of the area, tagging enemies or marking locations. It’s a smart way to offer a new perspective when moving around.

But you are also at threat when doing this: Bayek will stay still, possibly in the open if you so choose. Senu offers a way to see around every corner, but at the risk of your safety. These tense moments, when you’re using Senu to scout before moving on, are by far the best part of Assassin’s Creed Origins’ stealth.

Some of its RPG-like changes initially feel less successful. Being forced into hand-to-hand combat because you can’t assassinate a target makes stealth much less viable, at least at lower levels, and starts to quickly degrade the assassin fantasy. In Origins, you are perhaps the least assassin-like you’ve ever been in an Assassin’s Creed game.

When you’re not progressing the story, the game does little to make you feel like you’re the Pharaoh’s glorious and strong assassin, either. Quests where you’re hunting for alligator hide undermine the story and oomph of what’s going on with Bayek, Cleopatra, and the Order of the Ancients.

We are also looking at a likely return to the series’ present-day stories. When you die in Assassin’s Creed Origins, you are “desynchronised”, the same wording used in previous games as a reference to the Animus (Assassin’s Creed’s plot gizmo, in which someone in the modern era can experience the memories of their ancestors). We asked Guesdon about this, and if we’ll see Abstergo (the modern day Templars) return: he just teased us by telling us to “draw the line between the dots” and that “anything is possible”.

One thing is certain; there’s a whole lot to unpack in Assassin’s Creed Origins. We never got to see the return of the exploratory tombs that Guesdon promises hide “mysteries, revelations and interesting messages,” for instance.  If there is a concern, it's that perhaps Assassin’s Creed Origins’ changes aren't committed to strongly enough.  On the one hand, it has some of the stealth that made the series popular in the first place, with some new innovation to improve that, but on the other hand, will it go far enough to create new, fun systems based around the swordplay it so clearly wants you to take part in?

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