Ubisoft's Assassin's Creed has become the company's biggest selling franchise since the game was first released a decade ago. The action-adventure series weaves elements of historical fiction with real-world events and figures as players take control of an assassin from a secret society fighting for world peace and free will against those who want to control humanity through nefarious means. The serie🧸s focused on parkour movement and stealth missions as players go about assassinating key figures in the fictional historical story. The game has continued to evolve over the years, being set in various time periods and adding new combat elements, customisable options, naval batt♛les, and multi-player modes.
After a couple years break the franchise has returned with the long-awaited Assassin's Creed Origins. The tenth major installment in the series takes place in Ancient Egypt and explores the origins of the centuries-old conflict between the Brotherhood of Assassins and The Order of the Ancients (later known as the Templar Order). Visually stunning and with a vastly improved open-world to explore, Assassin's Creed Origins falls short of being a critical success due to some unfortunate issues. The major story is a convoluted mess, the new combat system a drag, and having to repeatedly upgrade your weapons, armour and skills is a nightmare. Then there's the amount of glitches and bugs in the game that's been a reoccurring problem for recent Assassin's Creed releases. For anyone unsure whether or not Assassin's Creed Origins is with a punt, we've listed the 20 worst things about the game to help you deꦆc𓃲ide if it's worth your cold hard earned cash.
20 ✱ Bayek Is A Boring Protagonist
It's never a good sign for a game when the main character you are in control of is as boring as watching paint dry. Bayek, the protagonist of Origins should be a welcome shot in the arm for the franchise, but I failed to generate any emotional connection with him despite a great backstory. Bayek is on a quest to find the masked men who murdered his son, resulting in him getting mixed up with all manner of secret societies and government higher-ups💫, but you rarely feel anything for him. He also isn't an assassin, which seems slightly strange considering the game's title.
Bayek is fairly one dimension🍰al and comes across as way too serious. He is eclipsed by his wife Aya who would have made an even better lead. Not only is she also out for revenge but is involved with mysterious alliances and behind the scenes plots, giving her much more of a personality and involvement in the game world tha🐬n her poor husband.
19 RPG Disguised As An Action-Adventure Game 𒈔
Assassin's Creed games have been firmly planted in the action-adventure world. Each game has been driven by stealth combat, parkour movement, and adventurous campaigns, but Origins has taken the series in another direction. A huge focus of the game is leveling up your skills and upgrading your weapons, armor and health. Combine this with the large open on offer and Origins has more in common ⛎with an RPG than an action-adventure game.
This is a strange choice by Ubisoft and one that doesn't make a great deal of sense considering the success of the series. While they have no doubt put some thought into the changes and are trying to give Assassin's Creed a fresh feel, turning the game into an RPG just doesn't work. Hopefu♍lly, this will be rectified in the next installment of the game with more focus on stealth and cunning.
18 Levelling Up Is A Pain ꧙
Another sign Origins is more of an RPG than an action-adventure game is the process of leveling up your skills as the game progresses. You have to be continually leveling up not only your skills, but also your weapons, health, and armour, so you can effectively take on the enemy. Similar games often let you complete missions above your skill level, but not Origins. You will be decimated by opponents with higher skills and it makes stealth mission all that more harder to complete. Even animals with a higher level will make mincemeat out of you. Because of this, you spend an insane amount oಞf time completing boring tasks to level up, taking away from the whole game experience.
17 Micro-Transactions Are A Waste Of Time ♊
If there's one thing Ubisoft love it's micro-transactions. Now a staple of the Assassin's Creed series the games real-money currency is starting to become something of an annoyance. Sure, it allows you to purchase a wide range of weapons, armour, potions, outfits, and skill points, but these are all things you can acquire in the game over time. If you're someone who needs to have everything from the get-go, great, but for most players who want to progress through the game and earn rewards micro-transactions are a total waste of time. While not as intrusive or controversial as those used in Middle-Earth: Shadow of War and the upcoming Star Wars: Battlefront II, micro-transactions are best left for online multiplayer games and not stand alone single player epics such as the Assassin's Creed series.
16 New Combat System Fails To Deliver 🐬
One of the biggest changes with Origins is what Ubisoft have done with the combat system. More focused on one-on-one fights, they've ditched the old melee combat that relied heavily on repeated button bashing combinations for a hit-box system, providing you with a sword and a shield and an emphasis on dodge and parry fighting. It's a much more skillful combat system similar to those used in Dark Souls and Bloodbourne but without the fun.
Bayek moves sluggishly and while this doesn't detract from fighting standard enemies, when attacked by a boss it often makes it harder to block their attacks. This requires you to keep your distance and attack at the right intervals, a rather tedious method of combat. It's commendable ꦚUbisoft are trying something different but they have a long way to go before ironing out a swift and smooth combat system.
15 𓄧 Can This Be An Assassin's Creed Game Without An Assassin? ♏
As this list has already addressed, the Assassin's Creed series follows the historic endeavors of a centuries old society known as the Brotherhood of Assassins. In each game, the assassin you play fulfill a number of missions and assassinations during different time periods to help keep the peace amongst humans worldwide. The only thing is the protagonist in Origins, Bayek, isn't an assassin. He's a medjay, something like a cross between a social worker and a problem solver who strives to help people in his village. His involvement in the feud between the two fractions comes about as he searches for the murderers of his son. Of course, he is highly trained in combat and something of a killing machine, but he's not really an assassin. If anything this game should be called Medjay's Creed, but I guess that wouldn't go down we𝄹ll with the hardcore fan base.
14 A Conv🅠oluted Plot Misses The Mark
The Egyptian setting for Origins is the ideal location for the latest entry in the series. The lush locations are pleasing on the eye and the ancient buildings suit the parkour movement of the original games. Unfortunately, this is brought down by a convoluted plot that quickly becomes tedious and secondary to the beautiful scenery. On the surface you are trying to find the people responsible for Bayek's son's death, but as you progress you become intertwined with conspiracies stretching across Egypt, Rome, and Greece involving secret societies and real-life historical figures. It gets to a point whereby you lose track of who is doing what and why and become more enamored with exploring the gorgeous world before you. There's also very little reference to the present day, so if you're a big believer in the evil modern-day corporation theory✅ that's proposed throughout the series you'll be doubly disappointed.
13 Eagle Eye View N🦂ot So Satisfying 🐲
U♔bisoft have ditched the "eagle vision" mode that's become a staple of the series and replaced it with an actual eagle. Bayek has a companion named Senu who just so happens to be an eagle. ꩲActing very much like a drone, players can take control of Senu and scout an area ahead and discover what enemies or missions lay ahead.
No doubt many of you think this is a great idea, and in theory, it is, but one of the most enjoyable things about previous games was discovering new locations and enemies for yourself. Senu takes away from this experience as you can literally see the entire layout of what🔯 lies ahead instead of scouting yourself and finding the right pathway or number of guards on patrol. Using Senu certainly saves time and makes you less stressed but is something I could do without.
12 Been 🌠T⛎here Done That
The main plot of Origins follows Bayek as he tries to track down and kill the men responsible for his son's death. As this is marketed as an Assassin's Creed game most of the main storyline mission involve you murdering a list of peo🌳ple. As each main mission requires you to be at a certain skill level you must complete a heap of side quests to attain the correct skill level. The thing about these missions is that the majority are just variations on "go to this place and fetch that thing," or "go to this place and kill this guy," over and over again. There's a real lack of creativity with most of these side quests and it feels like you're covering the same ground over and over trying to level up. It's both exhausting and rather boring and any joy you might have had completing these missions quickly evaporates.
11 Stealth 💖Mode Isn't All That Stealthy
The ability to sneak up on players and slit their throats without them ever knowing has been an integral part of the Assassin's Creed franchise. The original game was built on stealth kills and this has been implemented and improved to varying degrees over the entires series. Origins is probably the one game stealth kills are not up to scratch. As enemies are now given different levels of skills, if your stealth skill is lower than your opponent then they can escape your attack and force you into a one-on-one fight. This renders stealth kills as fairly pointless, as in other games in the series you can sneak up behind almost anyone and kill them no matter their skill level. It does fit in with the leveling up process Origins has introduced but I for one prefer the good old days of stabbing people in the back and disappearing into the shadows before the alarm can be ꧃raised.