The craggy, desolate Black Desert near the center of its map is completely devoid of non-playable characters and treasure chests.
While lesser open-world games have overburdened themselves with collectibles, quests, and things to do in their every nook and cranny, Origins has the confidence to let its world breathe. In its urban environments, its quaint villages, and its bucolic landscapes, Origins thrives on its excess of space, specifically because it understands the intricacies of emptiness. Origins is a prime example of how pacing is just as important in open-world games as it is in linear ones In Origins, dozens of individual settlements have their own discrete, fantastic stories to tell. But the Caribbean cities of Havana, Kingston, and Nassau felt like mere stepping stones in service to the central storyline. Assassin’s Creed 4: Black Flag was enormous, yes, and its connective ocean played host to no shortage of exciting sequences. It’s a portmanteau of deserts, oases, eerie caverns, and azure coastlines. While most previous Assassin’s Creed games hopped between a handful of cities, the settlements in Origins are connected by an actual nuanced countryside. I don’t mean massive in terms of scale - more in terms of scope. Set toward the end of the Ptolemaic period, Origins’ Egypt is massive.
I returned to Origins recently to play it on Xbox Game Pass, and it’s as astonishing as ever. The cynic in me recognizes these new design pillars as an effort to bring the series in line with “modern” open-world games the optimist in me can’t help but marvel at the result. Origins was nothing short of a tectonic shift: The series’ urban parkour and social stealth elements were stripped to the bone in favor of a sprawling world, a robust quest system, and a bona fide loot pool. Ubisoft released Assassin’s Creed Origins in 2017, two years after Assassin’s Creed Syndicate, marking the first break from annual releases since the gap between the original 2007 game and its sequel. The rest is just details as they both do their best to cope with the loss of their son. When protagonists Bayek and Aya set off on their interlaced revenge missions across Egypt, Libya, and the Sinai Peninsula, the unimaginable has already happened. With all of its courtly intrigue, geopolitical turmoil, and millennia-spanning time travel, it’s easy to forget that Assassin’s Creed Origins begins with the death of a child.
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