Assassin’s Creed Odyssey Needed These 4 Changes to Be Perfect

Assassin’s Creed Odyssey Needed These 4 Changes to Be Perfect

Make Player Choice Actually Matter

Now, don’t get me wrong. Ubisoft did a phenomenal job with branching narratives and story progression in Assassin’s Creed Odyssey, especially for a first real attempt. Your choices and dialogue options during the main quests actually do matter, and they play a large part in determining the kind of ending you’ll get. However, Ubisoft really dropped the ball when it came to choosing your player character at the start of the game.

In Assassin’s Creed Odyssey, you get to pick between Alexios and Kassandra as your main character. They’re siblings who got separated at a young age, and they both exist within the game world at the same time. That said, aside from the different character models and voice actors, there’s virtually no difference between these characters at all, which is a huge shame.

Deciding who you should play as really just comes down to whether you’d like to play as a male or female (though Kassandra’s the only right choice here, really) and it’s not a very meaningful addition to the game.

It would’ve been nice if there were some key differences between the characters, whether it’s a difference in personality or gameplay styles. Kind of similar to how Ubisoft handled Jacob and Evie back in Syndicate.

Assassin’s Creed Odyssey Needed These 4 Changes to Be Perfect

Better Variety in Side Quests

One of my biggest complaints while playing through Assassin’s Creed Odyssey was the lack of variety when it came to main and side quests. Odyssey is a large open world game, but when you take on quests for NPCs, you’re always doing the same thing over and over again.

Most missions require you to travel to a specific area, and then kill a bunch of dudes. Sometimes you’ll get a bit of variation —maybe you’ll need to steal an item from a chest in a well-guarded fort, or rescue an NPC and get them out of there. But it’s always the same formula. Go to a guarded area, get something, get out.

Usually, you’ll have to kill some people. The stories told through the side quests are usually quite fleshed out and interesting, but they’re just not that interesting to actually play.

Past games in the series were better at trying to provide a bit more variety. Love them or hate them, at least the stealth and pickpocketing/ eavesdropping missions served as a nice break from all the assassinating. It would’ve also been nice to see a return of the epic chase sequences that used to be commonplace in the Assassin’s Creed series. For all the things that Odyssey got right, it really messed up when it came to mission variety.

Assassin’s Creed Odyssey Needed These 4 Changes to Be Perfect

A Solid Modern-Day Story Arc

This is probably one of the most divisive elements of the Assassin’s Creed series. With Assassin’s Creed Odyssey, Ubisoft opted to take a slightly different route with the modern-day story. Aside from the opening cutscene that helps to establish exactly why you’re going to Ancient Greece with Alexios and Kassandra, Layla Hassan is barely in the game at all. That is, unless you choose to pursue an optional side quest that fleshes out that story arc further.

The interesting thing about this quest is that it’s so integral and so important to Assassin’s Creed lore, but it’s completely optional. The Assassin’s Creed games have always shined when it came to the ‘historical’ parts of the game, but ever since good ol’ Desmond Miles’ story arc ended a few games back, the modern-day arc has just felt like a mess. However, with Layla Hassan as the new modern-day protagonist to root for, the series has the potential to bring it back in a big way yet again.

Odyssey did a pretty good job of establishing what Layla’s end goal is, but it needs to be taken further. Maybe in the next game.

Assassin’s Creed Odyssey Needed These 4 Changes to Be Perfect

More Fleshed Out Romance Options

As mentioned before, Ubisoft really hit it out of the park when it came to story branches in Assassin’s Creed Odyssey. The RPG elements work well in this game, and I’d love to see how the company develops them further. However, the romance options are easily one of the biggest disappointments of this game.

Here’s how romance works in Assassin’s Creed Odyssey. You’ll do a side quest or two for an NPC. Whenever you talk to them, just keep picking the dialogue option with the heart symbol next to it, and eventually you’ll bang. After that, if you see another NPC you like, you can romance them if the option is available. There are no repercussions or follow-ups with whoever you choose to romance, and it feels tacked-on for the sake of ticking a checkbox.

If Assassin’s Creed is going to take a page out of BioWare’s book, why not go all the way? Let’s get some loyalty missions in here, and actually have our romance options play a more integral role in the main story.