Friday, December 22, 2023, 10:28 AM CDT
Started playing this game right after midnight. It looks very good. I’m glad I got it on Steam. I hate that it still requires the terrible Ubisoft launcher. I wish Ubisoft would ditch it like Bethesda did. No one would miss it.
There are plenty of graphical options in the game. The controls are a little weird—it uses Alt to jump. I think this may be similar to Division 2. Not a fan.
Technically, the game works very well on PC. However, I’m finding it hard to get into. Having recently played RDR2, the inferior gameplay design is immediately apparent.
Friday, December 22, 2023, 1:34 PM CDT
They did away with the looting animations. This is excellent.
As I play more, I’m starting to like this game. It’s very beautiful. I’m going to make a quick video and tweet it at Ubisoft.
Friday, December 22, 2023, 8:50 PM CDT
While trying to finish a side quest, I somehow triggered a main quest and ended up completing it. I don’t even know how I managed that.
This was the first main quest. A lot of the map is still unexplored.
Saturday, December 23, 2023, 12:26 PM CDT
The quality of the open world is very iffy. It looks good, but everything else feels lacking—a bargain-bin open world experience. This is especially apparent after playing Red Dead Redemption 2.
If you like open-world games, play RDR2 first (preferably on PC). Once you’re done with that, and if you have nothing else to play and still want more, try Cyberpunk 2077 and The Witcher 3 (with its expansions) in that order. Then—and only then—pick up this game on sale.
There is no real sense of discovery. If there’s no marker on the map, there’s usually nothing to do in that location. It quickly becomes a race to the next question mark. Yes, RDR2 uses markers too, but Rockstar spent enormous effort creating a world that feels genuinely interesting. You discover unmarked treasures and loot chests, giving you a real reason to explore.
In Origins, there’s little incentive to visit a remote corner of the map because you know there’s probably nothing there. If something is remotely important, Ubisoft will mark it with a question mark anyway.
Treasure hunting involves summoning the bird to locate targets, which then appear as HUD markers (not just on the map). You simply go to the location and press E. Everything about the gameplay design feels inferior and cheap.
I paid $8.99 for this game. Honestly, I think it’s worth about $5. I also paid $11.99 for Odyssey.
Saturday, December 23, 2023, 3:48 PM CDT
The awful modern-day sections are back! This time you play as a girl trying to join Abstergo. Gosh… way to ruin the game for me.
Thankfully, the section wasn’t too long. The dialogue is cringe as usual. Most video game dialogue is terrible.
How can I ever appreciate open-world games again after Red Dead Redemption 2?
Sunday, December 24, 2023 3:48 PM CDT
Am I slowly starting to like this game? I wasn’t as irritated today as I was yesterday. Maybe that’s the secret to Ubisoft’s success: the slow drip of content, constantly unlocking things, and going from one question mark to another…
Monday, January 1, 2024, 4:13 PM CDT
I played more of the game over the last few days but neglected to update the diary.
I’m starting to enjoy it even more, but I still have mixed feelings. I’m struggling to articulate why it doesn’t measure up to RDR2 or The Witcher 3 in overall quality, even though I love what they did with the open world.
Egypt is beautiful. This game looks better than The Witcher 3. It even achieves visual fidelity close to RDR2 without sacrificing performance. It doesn’t have DLSS, yet I’m playing at the highest settings and getting over 120 FPS in many areas. The engine is very well optimized—much more so than RDR2, which struggles even on my 3080 Ti.
So what keeps the game from being great? It’s the Ubisoft formula. Everything is done by the numbers—hunting question marks on the map. You rarely discover anything organically. In RDR2, I remember the layout of areas like Beaver Hollow and Shady Belle because I actually had to learn them.
In this game, everything is displayed on the map. Designate a point of interest and you get a floating HUD icon. Why explore? Using the hawk to tag enemies is one of the worst and most obnoxious design choices I’ve seen. It’s basically wallhacks. If you don’t use it, the game constantly nags you.
That said, clearing forts can be a lot of fun—especially the one with two captains and a commander. Taking them all out, along with the guards, and looting the chests was genuinely enjoyable. This is where AC Origins shines: when it trusts you to solve problems intelligently. The stationary crossbows in forts are also a great addition.
The AI is not very good. Quest dialogue, especially for side quests, is poor. This is where Rockstar and CDPR excel. The side quests in Origins are fun but not great, and the bad dialogue combined with constant hand-holding removes any sense of adventure and stealth.
Saturday, February 24, 2024, 1:13 PM CDT
The dialogue is really bad. The modern-day section where the girl fights assassins is particularly cringeworthy. She implies that being in the memory of an assassin somehow makes her one too, and tries to justify killing them in a clumsy way.
This is the first game where the dialogue is so boring that I’ve started skipping cutscenes.
I’m now planning to traverse the map without fast travel. There’s a 7,000m trip ahead to speak with Cleopatra after killing the crocodile.