Assassins Creed Odyssey is an open world third person RPGish game, about either Alexios or Kassandra, a Spartan mercenary, who (spoiler warning) was thrown off a mountain by your father because you tried to save a baby. This baby is the opposite character to you (Alexios –> Kassandra, etc.) Basically this is the reason for your hatred of oracles (oh yeah, you hate oracles).
The scenery in this game is beautiful. From the giant stone statues to the glittering oceans, the Greek islands and its mainland create one of the most stunning backdrops to the stealth and action that create the perfect Assassins Creed game. Another thing to talk about is the sheer size of the map. It’s so large that the game has more riding around on Phobos, your horse, than it does combat, Thankfully, Ubisoft realized this and created the ability to just press one button, and have your horse follow the road. There is also the ability to choose to go to a map marker, an objective, or just see where the road takes you, and you can always count on the fact that wherever you decide to go, there will always be something to do.
Now I know what you might be thinking, if the maps so large and there’s not just one landmass, how do you get around to all the islands? The answer is simple, Barnabas. Barnabas is the captain of a ship, who you save during the first few missions of your odyssey. His ship becomes your ship, and that allows for a rather fun type of combat, ship to ship. There are pirates, that attack on sight, or the warships of the two factions in the main story, the Athenians, and the Spartans. These two factions are embroiled in an all-out war, for control of Greece, and while you’re forced to fight for the Spartans when you leave Kephallonia, the starting island, if you prefer class and democracy to the warlike ways of the Spartans, feel free to fight for the Athenians. Of course, no matter which side you fight for, if you enter a restricted area, you’re going to get targeted. Unless your stealthy, in which case, you can just walk around while making sure you’re not seen. The stealth element in this game is quite like other Assassin’s Creed games which is not to say that’s a bad thing.
As for the gameplay style, Odyssey is more of an RPG than other Assassin’s Creed games. With three skill trees, Hunter, Warrior, and Assassin. Each of these trees allows you to get various skills, for instance on the warrior tree you have the ability to set your weapons on fire, or the ability to do a massively powerful attack, called overpower attacks, The other RPG style element is the ability to interchange weapons and armor, each set having different bonus’ and appearances. You also have the spear of Leonidas, a spear that you always have on you, and you upgrade in the forge of the ancients with artefact pieces, which you get from killing members of the Cult of Kosmos. The cult of Kosmos (Or just The Cult.) an evil cult led by your sister\brother and a mysterious person named the Ghost of Kosmos.
The campaign, or your Odyssey is an adventure that carries you around the Greek world, meeting people of various historical standing, such as Hippocrates, Herodotus, and even playing as Leonidas himself in the tutorial. The game takes place inside the animus, after Layla finds the spear of Leonidas and a book by Herodotus. The campaign starts on a small island in the middle of nowhere, Kephallonia, an island where you are raised by Marcus. Who owes you money, and is hunted by the cyclops, who both you and Marcus owe money. You only get off Kephallonia when you are hired to kill the Wolf of Sparta (who is your father, but you don’t know that at this stage) a spartan general named Nikolaos. This is why you head to Megaris, a small country controlled by Athenians, that the Spartans want for some reason.
After doing some missions in Megaris and murdering the nation leader, you must report to the spartan commander to start what is called a conquest battle. This is a battle between Athens and Sparta of which both sides hire a mercenary and basically just duke it out till one side wins. To win you need to kill enemy commanders, however, eventually the mercenary will appear and try and attack you, and no more enemy commanders will spawn until the mercenary has been defeated. Which can take different amounts of time depending on your level.
In conclusion, Assassins Creed Odyssey is a very fun game although the levelling system is a bit grindy, there is no shortage of missions and opportunities for you to level up. The combat system is more complex than earlier Assassins Creed games, and the stealth element is slightly less prominent. Moving around the map at the start of the game is annoying, but once you’ve unlocked fast travel points in each region, it’s so much easier. About fast travel points, you must synchronize locations to unlock them by climbing onto of the locations and pressing Y on Xbox, and triangle on PS4. After syncing locations, you simply must hover over the location you want to go and press the button it tells you to.