Presentation
With Assassin's Creed Origins, Ubisoft Montreal undertakes a major transformation of the series. Egypt is no longer simply a collection of cities connected to one another, but a vast continuous territory combining urban centers, villages, temples, deserts, oases and wilderness. Travel takes on a new importance: riding toward a pyramid visible in the distance, crossing the Nile by boat or discovering a tomb lost in the desert become as much a part of the experience as the missions themselves.
This openness is accompanied by a shift toward role-playing. Bayek gains experience, develops different abilities and uses weapons whose characteristics directly influence combat. Encounters largely abandon the older system built around synchronized animations in favor of a freer approach based on distance, dodging, shields and different weapon types. Stealth remains important, but it becomes one of several options available to the player rather than the sole center of the system.
Exploration also benefits from Senu, Bayek’s eagle. From the air, she can observe an area, locate enemies or help reveal the layout of a location before Bayek enters it. This ability naturally complements Bayek’s role as a Medjay: he does not simply travel across the country as a warrior, but also investigates, searches for people and intervenes in the problems faced by local communities.
It is precisely this character who gives the episode much of its identity. Bayek can be brutal when hunting those he holds responsible for his suffering, but his relationship with children, families and communities constantly reveals his role as a protector. Revenge never completely erases this human dimension. Instead, it creates tension between the anger of a wounded man and his broader desire to defend those who have no power.
The historical setting supports this journey without replacing it. Cleopatra, Julius Caesar and the struggles surrounding the Egyptian throne exist alongside the fiction of Assassin's Creed, while architecture, beliefs and everyday life enrich the world Bayek travels through. The game naturally takes liberties with history, but it uses this transitional period to portray the gradual disappearance of an old order and the rise of new political forces.
Origins therefore lives up to its title. It does not merely move chronologically before the other installments: it seeks to show how the experiences of Bayek and Aya gradually lead to the formulation of the principles behind an organization created to fight those who exercise power from the shadows.
What to remember
- An open-world adventure set in Ptolemaic Egypt at the end of the 1st century BCE.
- Bayek of Siwa, a Medjay whose quest for revenge evolves into a struggle that goes beyond his personal story.
- A major transformation of the series toward action RPG design, with levels, abilities, equipment and a new combat system.
- A vast world where exploration, navigation, tombs and the discovery of landscapes play an essential role.
- Senu, Bayek’s eagle, who allows players to observe environments and prepare certain approaches.
- A story that connects the political upheavals of Ancient Egypt with the birth of the founding principles of the future Assassins.
Conclusion
Assassin's Creed Origins represents a genuine turning point in the history of the series. By greatly expanding its world and giving more importance to progression, equipment and combat, Ubisoft transforms a familiar formula into an adventure much closer to a role-playing game.
This new scale also comes with certain trade-offs. Level-based progression and the sheer number of activities can sometimes slow down a story that works best when it stays close to Bayek, while the repetition of certain objectives reveals the limits of such a vast world. Stealth, long central to the series, now shares space with a much broader range of systems.
Yet the installment retains strong coherence thanks to its main character. Behind the pyramids, battles and historical figures, Origins first and foremost tells the story of a man trying to give meaning to an irreparable loss. Because the birth of a collective ideal grows out of this intimate story, the game succeeds in giving a human dimension to the “origins” promised by its title.
Good to know
- Assassin's Creed Origins was primarily developed by Ubisoft Montreal.
- The game was released in 2017.
- The adventure takes place mainly in Egypt in 49 BCE, during the rivalry between Cleopatra and Ptolemy XIII.
- Bayek belongs to the Medjay, an ancient protective role that the game reinterprets within the context of its period.
- Aya plays an essential role in the story and in the formation of the movement that would eventually give rise to the future Assassins.
- Origins marks a major shift in the series toward an action RPG structure, an approach later continued in Assassin's Creed Odyssey and Assassin's Creed Valhalla.
