Assassin 39;s Creed Odyssey Ultimate Edition
Norine Wiltshire
Assassin's Creed Odyssey is a 2018 action role-playing video game developed by Ubisoft Quebec and published by Ubisoft. It is the eleventh major installment in the Assassin's Creed series and the successor to 2017's Assassin's Creed Origins. Like its predecessor, the game features a large open world and adopts many elements from the role-playing genre, putting more emphasis on combat and exploration than stealth. Naval combat from previous titles in the series also plays a prominent role in Odyssey. The game's plot tells a mythological history of the Peloponnesian War between Athens and Sparta from 431 to 422 BC. Players control a Spartan mercenary, who fights on both sides of the conflict as they attempt to find their family and eliminate the mysterious Cult of Kosmos. Odyssey also continues the story arc of Layla Hassan, a major character introduced in Origins, who relives the mercenary's memories through the Animus device to find a powerful artifact.
Development of the game commenced shortly following the release of Assassin's Creed Syndicate in 2015. Following in the footsteps of Origins, Odyssey facilitated the transition of Assassin's Creed into a series of action role-playing games by introducing player-choice mechanics. Compared with other games in the series, Odyssey has a larger focus on historical mythology, and a smaller focus on the conflict between the Assassins and Templars, which is the central narrative element present in most Assassin's Creed games. Throughout the game's development, the team was inspired by other contemporary RPG titles including The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt, The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim, and Fallout 4. The music of the game was composed by The Flight.
Assassin's Creed Odyssey is an action role-playing video game played from a third-person perspective. At the beginning of the game, the player can select to play as either Alexios or Kassandra,[1] Greek mercenaries and descendants of the Spartan king Leonidas I. In addition to completing the story campaign, players can freely explore a large open world set in Greece on foot or on horseback.[2] As the player explores the world, they will encounter various non-playable characters (NPCs) who give players side missions to complete.[3] They also discover locations of interests, clear out fortresses and camps, explore tombs and shipwrecks, and collect hidden treasures.[4][5] Synchronization points in various landmarks in Greece, which serve as fast travel points, can also be unlocked.[6] Players can also collect special collectibles and various crafting resources, such as iron ore, wood, leather, metal, and precious gems, through exploration and hunting wildlife.[7] Other side activities players can undertake include competing in a gladiatorial arena and completing time-limited bounties and contracts.[8][9] Unlike the previous games in the series, Odyssey offers two modes of gameplay: Guided mode shows the player the locations of their objects immediately using waypoints, while Exploration mode tasks players to find out the locations themselves after being given brief clues from other NPCs.[10][11]
While the main campaign missions follow the mercenary as they reunite their family and stop the Cult of Kosmos, additional questlines task the players to defeat mystical creatures from Atlantis and take down cultists.[12][13] As the game is set during the Peloponnesian War, Athens and Sparta control various parts of Greece. An area can be weakened if the player assassinates the nation leader, defeats members of their army, burns down war supplies, or pillages their nation chests.[14] When a region is weakened, players can join a conquest battle to aid either the attacking or the defending side. Winning a battle will earn the player valuable loot, gear and experience points.[15] Joining the attacking team is a more challenging experience but it will offer more gameplay benefits.[16] A bounty is placed on the player character if they commit a crime such as stealing or hurting an innocent bystander in public. NPCs called Mercenaries will then arrive to hunt the player character, who can either kill the mercenary, pay the bounty, or assassinate the character who placed the bounty on them.[17] Each area has a recommended level. The player may be easily overpowered if they venture into an area too early. However, the game's difficulty is scaled in accordance to the player's level.[18][19] When interacting with other NPCs, players can select various dialogue options, including the option to develop a romantic relationship with particular NPCs.[20] At key moments of the game's campaign, players make crucial decisions which can affect the course of the story and lead to several different endings.[21]
Stealth and open combat are equally viable choices for completing objectives. The player can use Leonidas' spear to silently assassinate enemies, or knock them out in order to recruit them to join the player's crew.[29] The bodies of incapacitated enemies can be hidden to avoid alerting other enemies.[30] The player can also call Ikaros, a golden eagle companion, to scout an area by highlighting enemies and objects.[31] The player character also has the ability to draw an enemy's attention by whistling.[32] As with other Assassin's Creed games, the player character is an expert in free running and can climb nearly all structures. As the player completes quests, they earn additional experience points (XP), which allows the player to unlock new skills and abilities.[33] The three skill trees are "hunter," which focuses on ranged attacks through the use of a bow & arrow, "warrior," which focuses on weapons-based combat, and "assassin," which focuses on stealth and silent take-downs. Examples of the skills the player can unlock include "Spartan Kick", which can knock an enemy back, and "Rush Assassination", which allows the mercenary to throw Leonidas' spear from afar against enemies.[34] Some skills have a cooldown time, and others can only be used when the player's adrenaline bar fills up. This can be achieved by inflicting damage or dodging and parring attacks.[35]
The game's main storyline follows the player character, the elder of two siblings known as the Eagle Bearer, a legendary mercenary with Ikaros as a constant companion. As a child, the Eagle Bearer was exiled from Spartan society after they attempted to stop a Spartan elder from throwing their younger, infant sibling from Mount Taygetos at the urging of the Pythia, who determined that the child, if allowed to live, would be responsible for the potential glory or downfall of Sparta.[37] As punishment for inadvertently sending the Spartan elder falling to his death, they were thrown off the mountain by their father Nikolaos, who was compelled to do so by the Spartan leadership. They survived the fall and ended up in the care of a con man named Markos, based in Kephallonia, where they work various odd jobs under his direction. As a wandering mercenary or misthios, the Eagle Bearer has opportunities to fight for both the Delian League, led by Athens, and the Peloponnesian League, led by Sparta.[37] In conjunction with the Eagle Bearer's attempts to reunite their fractured family, parallel quest lines deal with the destruction of the Cult of Kosmos (a secret organization spanning the Greek world) and the discovery of artifacts and monsters from Atlantean times.
The game features a number of historical personages players can encounter and interact with, including Alkibiades, Aristophanes, Euripides, Democritus, Sokrates and many others.[38][39][40] It also includes historical and mythical Greek locations such as the Agora of Athens, the statue of Zeus at Olympia, Lesbos, and Macedonia.[41] The game features several creatures from Greek mythology, such as Medusa, the Cyclops, the Sphinx, and the Minotaur, depicted here as experiments of the Isu, the same race that created humanity and most of the artifacts encountered throughout the series.[42]
Odyssey's story begins in 480 BC, where King Leonidas leads the Spartan army against a Persian charge during the Battle of Thermopylae. The skirmish is won, but Leonidas is informed by a captured enemy that the Persian army has learned of the mountain path and will surround the Spartans by morning. Nevertheless, Leonidas resolves to hold off the Persian advance. In 2018, Layla Hassan recovers Leonidas' spear and extracts from it the DNA of his grandchildren, Alexios and Kassandra, to be used for her Animus to find the location of the Staff of Hermes Trismegistus. Whichever sibling is selected by the player is designated as the Eagle Bearer.[a]
In 431 BC, at the onset of the Peloponnesian War, the Eagle Bearer is hired by a mysterious merchant named Elpenor. The plot is to assassinate the "Wolf of Sparta" in the city of Megaris. After befriending a naval captain named Barnabas, the Eagle Bearer leaves Kephallonia having been given command of his ship, the Adrestia. In Megaris, the Eagle Bearer learns that Nikolaos is not their biological father and has another adopted son, Stentor. They also learn that their mother Myrinne left Nikolaos and Sparta shortly after the incident at Mount Taygetos. The Eagle Bearer travels to Phokis to confront Elpenor, who reveals himself to be a member of the Cult of Kosmos, who are aware of their lineage. Disguised in Elpenor's mask and robes after killing him, the Eagle Bearer infiltrates a secret Cult meeting in Delphi. Where they discover that not only is the Cult targeting their family, that their younger sibling had survived the fall from Mount Taygetos and had been manipulated by the Cult into becoming their champion known as Deimos. Accompanied by Barnabas and Herodotos, the Eagle Bearer embarks on an extended journey across the Greek world. Eventually they reunite with Myrinne, who had assumed the alias of Phoenix, the oligarch of the polis of Naxos. Myrinne persuades her eldest child to convince the Spartan regime to reinstate their citizenship and ancestral estate while they continue undermining the Cult's activities in the Greek world together.
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