Assassin's Creed Origins

Assassin's Creed Origins reshaped, after a year-long break for the series, Ubisoft Montreal's action-adventure with cover and counterattacks into a full-fledged action RPG with enemy levels, a skill tree, and loot, laying the foundation for the franchise's modern direction. Bayek, an Egyptian Medjay serving the pharaoh, sets out for revenge in Ptolemaic Egypt under Cleopatra's rule against a mysterious organization whose roots ultimately explain the very origin of the Assassin brotherhood, making the game function as the mythological beginning of the whole series. The new combat system with distinct weapon types, a bow, and blocks instead of automatic counters brought the game closer to the Souls genre and The Witcher.

The vast, meticulously reconstructed map of ancient Egypt, from Alexandria to desert oases, is one of the series' most impressive settings; the player traverses it on horseback and camel, sails the Nile, and exploration is aided by the eagle Senu, which replaced the classic synchronization towers as a tool for marking targets. The reconstruction of the Lighthouse of Alexandria, the Great Library, and the pyramids of Giza was created in collaboration with historians and Egyptologists, which is why the educational Discovery Tour mode, exploring the world entirely without violence, is still used in school history classes today.

Bayek's discovery of his own role in an ancient conflict between the Order of the Ancients and the future Assassins gave meaning to a decade's worth of previously disjointed hints about the series' ancient origins, and his relationship with his wife Aya is among the best-written threads in the entire brand. Critics praised the strong revival of a stagnating series, the scope of the world, and the depth of the systems; the game became commercially very successful and launched a new RPG era continued by Odyssey and Valhalla. On PlayStation 4, the sprawling Egypt took a toll on the frame rate, but the views from pyramid tops at sunrise remain among the visually best that generation had to offer.