The Problem with Origins - Plot

Alright, welcome back everyone. Good to have you here, and I'm excited to be continuing. Before we get started, a couple things to point out. First and foremost, there are massive SPOILERS ahead, so if you don't want to know the plot of the game, stop here. And if you want to know the plot better, go on the wiki and search for Bayek. It's what I did.

What? It's been a while, and I needed a refresher.

Second off, this is part two of these posts, and I'd advise you to read the first bit first (Maps). You don't have to, but there'll probably be a could call backs.

So, without further adieu...

The plot. Very roughly... Bayek is a Medjay, which for the purposes of the story is sorta like a sheriff. During an attempt by the Order of Ancients (proto Templars) to open a Precursor vault, Bayek's son is killed. He swears revenge on the five men who were present, but since they wore maks he's a bit less sure who they are. After a bit of tutorial, four of them are dead, and you discover that the last is in Alexandria. You travel there, meet up with your wife (Aya), make friends with a guy called Apollodorus, and kill the last member... except, it's the wrong man.
So, you go with Aya and Apollodorus to meet their benefactor - Cleopatra. She tells you that the Pharaoh is a puppet of the Order of Ancients, and if you work together you can get revenge, and replace Ptolemy. So, she gives you two pseudonyms to hunt, and leaves you to it.
So, you head upriver, do some sidequests, explore Giza, and kill your targets. But, neither of them are the one you're looking for! Such shock. Considering that one of the targets was a woman, and there were only men in the Vault. But, never mind, Cleopatra is Walkin' in Memphis, so you go to join her.
You meet up, complain, and she says 'no, but for serious, it's one of these two people. Honest'. You moan about it to Aya, but she is busy fangirling, and basically ignores you. You kill one of them in Memphis - wasn't him - and set off.
So, you head further south, make friends with a bloke called Hotephres, accidentally get his daughter killed (I'm brushing over it, but actually it's bloody heartwrenching), become a gladiator, and finally kill the last target... who is also a woman.
So, understandably annoyed, Bayek heads back to the mouth of the Nile to have a word with Cleopatra. And, lo and behond, she has two more names, and it is totally one of them. So, you meet Aya, go to find an ally, and then the 'Are you sure you want to continue?' bit happens. If you say yes, you cross the Nile, and introduce Cleopatra to Julius Caesar. Then a whole civil war happens, you kill one of the targets (still not found your son's killer), almost kill the other, but then Caesar turns up and says 'nah, I like him, we're good'. So, you win the Civil War, but Cleopatra ditches you, they both join the Order, you and Aya sorta discuss founding a Brotherhood, Apollodorus gets shanked and tells you who actually killed your son, you run home to Siwa to catch him. You don't, and he raids the Vault and steals a couple artifacts, and kills your best friend for good measure.
After the funeral, it becomes open world again. So, you're back in Siwa, and the big bad is in Kyrenaika, and you've not much else to do. So, you head north, find him, kill him, and decide that maybe actually founding the Brotherhood is a good idea. Then Aya shanks Caesar, changes her name, and threatens to shank Cleopatra... and that's basically it.

... I mean, that's really simplifying it, and I could go into a lot more detail. But I don't have to, because I'm sure that you can already see where I'm going here...

It's 20 hours worth of "the Princess is in another Castle!". You go to get revenge and, whoops, wrong person. So you try again and, whoops, still not right. The first time it happens is fine - Bayek is working entirely off a masked face and a nickname from something that happened a year ago. It's entirely possible that the individual has put on or lost weight, developed a new accent, got a tan... but when it happens nine times, you know something went wrong.
And, worse, it became predictable. When you reached Memphis and Cleopatra said 'um, actually...' I knew that was how the rest of the game would go. And, more to the point, I knew that Cleopatra would string you along and then reveal herself as an antagonist. And then the actual reveal of the big bad? It's a bloke you've seen three times, all in the past half hour, in the background of cutscenes. The only one with the same accent as the guy from the start.
But, whatever. That could perhaps be forgiven - you can do great things with the basics, after all - but Origins is also let down by the subplots. For, each area without a primary target has a subplot, generally about the oppression of the local populace, and frequently a mini-boss who is doing bad things, that is just asking for a shanking. And, on the whole, they're quite forgettable. There's one guy who has been burning farms because of rebels, and in another area there's a traitor with a vendetta against you, but they're kinda forgettable. Even the main villains are ephemeral - some make an impression, most don't. Which, I think, is partly due to not knowing who any of them are, and partly because the quests are so long.

For an example, in Assassin's Creed 2, a sequence was about avenging your father's death. That involved finding an ally, learning how to hide, acquiring a weapon, the actual assassination, and then escaping the city. Each was a self-contained 'memory' that you started, completed, and then were given a hook for the next. That made the memories easily digestible, memorable, and something to do in a single sitting. And, to help, you had encountered the target in a prior sequence, and knew who they were, what they were doing, and why you were killing them.
On the other hand, we have Origins. At each meeting with Cleopatra you are given two to three targets - generally several levels apart - and the primary goal of killing them. For example, one target (the scarab) is rumoured to bury people alive and is in the Sapi-Res Nome. That's all we know to start. We go to Sapi-Res, meet an informant, help him out,  rescue a guy, meet his daughter, move to the city of Letopolis, help out her husband, get betrayed, recover our equipment, and kill the Scarab. That's about two hours worht of content (more if you sidequest, and that's encouraged) in a single memory, spread out across a huge area, several separate missions, and most likely something people will do between other tasks over the course of two-three sittings. Admitedly, it does give you sub-missions for particular objectives, but they blur easily into one another.

And that's basically the problem. The plot is simple, kinda forgettable, and repetetive. And, I fear the last two are linked - since each area, or sequence, essentially boils down to 'go to place, help rebels, kill person, damn; wrong person' few of them really have a chance to stand out.

And, from a gameplay perspective, I understand that greater freedom is something we've been clamouring for - recent iterations of the franchise offer very little choice within memories - I feel that a bit more structure would have been beneficial. More, shorter memories, introduce us to an antagonist before the final showdown, and give them some personality. And for the love of Amun, don't copy Mario.

Anyway, with this extended rant out of the way, I can round this off with my third article - which ought to be about the setting, and my issues therein. If you've made it this far, congratulations or apologies as is appropriate, but mostly thank you.

Volodanti out.

The Problem with Origins - Map

Sup.

So, before we get into it, just want ot say - I enjoyed Origins. On the whole, I think that it's a good game, and I'm looking forward to playing Odyssey. Bayek was an interesting character, and his interactions with Aya and a host of other characters, and his quest - even if a little generic - was engaging enough that I wanted to follow through with it.

Plus, it had Romans, and you know that I love me some Romans.

However, that doesn't forgive it for a number of faults. First off, the Map.

And just so everyone is aware, from here on out, there will be SPOILERS, so don't read on if that's a problem.

Alright, now that that's out of the way...

The Map. I actually really like the map - it's an interesting mix of urban and rural, wet and dry, thriving and dead. The banks of the Nile are lush and thriving, the delta is a humid swamp, the north coast is the only spot it rains, and the mountains around Kyrenaika feel more like southern Greece or Italy than Egypt. To say nothing of the deserts that alternate between rocky, sandy and Mountainous. In all honesty, it's a beautifully put together map, and I really can't give it enough credit, nor can the aerial view here really do it justice.

So, why am I complaining about it?

Well, making a good map is one thing. Not easy, obviously, but it's a skill you can learn. What's harder though, is to use it well. And this is something that I feel the Origins team stumbled at.

So, for your viewing pleasure, I present the route you follow:

As you can see, it's a mess. To quickly surmise the plot; your son has been killed by the Pharaos' advisors, and you want revenge. You ally with Cleopatra, who is trying to overthrow him, and agrees to help you if you help her. Now, with that out the way...

I've broken it down into Sequences - the in-game equivalent to Acts. To go through it quickly, Sequence 1 starts you off in Siwa, and is mostly just a tutorial. Then, it skips through the Qatar Depression during a loading screen so Sequence 2 takes place around Lake Mareotis and into Alexandria. Sequence 3 and 4 lead you up the Nile to Memphis, and Sequence 5 and 6 roughly follow the coast of the Faiyum. After this, you have to make your way back to the Mouth of the Nile to Herakleion, and then something strange happens.
Basically, and I'll get more into it next time, you have the pre-ending conversation - you know the one, "After we start, you'll not be able to go back. Are you sure you're ready, or do you have any tasks you need to finish?" followed by the only Yes/No prompt in the game. And, if you agree, it begins the Battle of the Nile. Then, after that finishes, you find out that your arch-nemesis has fled to Siwa, and you teleport there in a cutscene. You ride through your home, ravaged by war, and into an ancient temple, where you find your best friend has been murdered. And then you bury him, and the game goes 'okay, he's in Kyrenaika, you know the drill' and hands over the reigns. So, then there's another couple hours worth of free-roaming travel to the final boss fight.
I hope you can see why this is so weird. I'll talk more about it next time, but... yeah.
Anyway, so that explains the map - and why just one section is blue. That's the 'Endgame' part, that doesn't come at the end. But even ignoring that, it's just very weirdly put together.
Why does it skip over the Qatar Depression? Why are three adjacent areas meant to be done several hours apart - Mareotis, Sap-Meh and Herakleion? Why is Atef-Pehu Nome higher level than Faiyum, but lower than Faiyum Oasis? And why on earth does it loop back on itself so often? It's just not clean design. And why are several completely unrelated areas completely untouched? None of the Desert areas, and even weirder Marmarica, are ever visited in spite of some very interesting sites. A giant Citadel, and a huge Precursor complex, for example.
To be honest, I actually very much know the reason for it. It's because they wanted to show Alexandria and the Pyramids as soon as possible, and then worked around that.

And so, as promised, I present my alternative:

First off, before I even start, you can see a much cleaner shape for it. You start in Siwa, loop the whole map, and end up back in Siwa. It looks like a single progressive journey, rather than my footfall when I can't remember where I left my keys.
Now, admittedly, there are still areas I have left out, and some switchbacks, but it is a lot less blatant. And, importantly, it follows a narrative progression; you begin in the south, where the ancient ways hold true, and work your way north through the Hellenisation of Egypt until you reach the capital - Alexandria. A city completly alien to everything you have seen thus far. And from there, westward, into the land of the Romans, before returning home for a final showdown. Which plays into a minor subplot for Bayek - throughout, he is shown to resent the treatment of his people by the foreign aristocracy. Here, we could see this in stages - first, he sees how the poor are mistreated by the rich in Faiyum. Then, moving north, he realises that even rich Egyptians are second class to the Greeks. And, when he reaches Kyrenaika, he sees that the Romans do the same.
It would, of course, require some changes. But I don't think any would be that hard. Re-order your targets, change the context for some meetings - in Mareotis you meet an old friend who is now a High Priest. That could be less a meeting with an old friend, more gathering the support of the Priesthood for you coming war. Memphis becomes where you meet Cleopatra, and Kyrenaika could be where you finally catch your foe, but he slips through your fingers, forcing a final battle in the temple where it all began. Symmetry.

I don't know that there is much else to say really, without going into the plot. And, believe me, I'll be going into the plot next time. But, for now, I'll leave you here. And, I get to say something that I haven't in over a year. So, thank you for sticking with me, and I'll see you all next time.

Here it comes.

Volodanti out.

After a Year

So, hey everyone. Been a while. A year, in fact. I'd like to say that was intentional, but that would be a complete lie. I just fluked into it. And strictly speaking, I'm not back. Not properly anyway - I don't know that this is going to be a regular thing. It's just that, well... about two months ago, I got engaged. And I'm still very excited over it. Oh, it's Andrew talking, by the way, so there's not nerdy stuff going on. Well, not at the moment.

So, yeah - you've missed a lot. And, admittedly, that's my fault, but I'll try to fill you in on the details.

A year ago, I moved in with my then-girlfriend, which involved relocating to Hartlepool. It's fine, by the way - has a very nice nerd cafe called Tea-at-Hart, so if you're ever in the area, that's worth visiting. Unfortunately, the flat is less nice, so I'll be moving again soon.

Then in April - April? ish - we went on a family holiday to Spain and I basically realised that, yeah, this is the one. So, got everything set up, bought a ring, got permission, and popped the question on our anniversary.

She cried, threw it down, and slapped me.

But, she also said yes, so that's good.

So, yeah. I did manage to get a transfer, which made things easier, but also made cash a bit tight. Which kinda explains why I haven't really added to my collections. Except for Magic. My fiance plays too, so we're actually struggling to find room for our collection. Part of why we need to move.

But, essentially, that's been my life since last we spoke. Which might lead you to question why I posted here, just to let everyone know about the non-nerdy side of my life? Well, basically, because I've had something rattling around up there for a while now, and I want to get it out.

It's a bit of a change of pace, but... I was rather disappointed by certain elements of Assassin's Creed Origins, and I want to discuss that. So, to the best of my ability, I'm going to. As I say, it's different, so I can't promise anything will come of it, but over the next couple of weeks, I'm going to do a couple articles about where I think they went wrong, and perhaps what they could have done.

If it works, maybe I'll keep going. I do have some new models that I've just painted, and the prerelease is coming up next month, so who knows - you might have me til the move. Or even beyond. I don't know for certain, but we'll find out together.

Cheers,

Andrew.