I picked up the game with Christmas money — all praise to the Amazon Gift Card, which allows my relatives to no longer play that fun What the Hell does Moe actually like, anyway? game — and I’m having some trouble getting ‘into’ Assassin’s Creed: Origins. It’s not the gameplay or even the basic plot; I’m cool with both. My problem here is that I’m not really checked out yet as to the larger point of it all. I know, yes, this is the start of the Assassins and everything. But right now I’m kind of just murder-hoboing, with no real justification for it.
Which is how Black Flag started, sure. But I was a PIRATE in Black Flag. I had a pirate ship and a pirate crew and whenever I was bored I’d go take a prize or two. And then listen to the crew sing. So… not the same thing, really?
I’m pretty sure that being a murder hobo is most of the series’ appeal.
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Eh, I liked the first one.
The second was great, except for the alien/forerunners bit.
After that…
OK, there’s an exception for Black Flag, because I spent WAY too many hours playing Sid Meier’s Pirates! in my younger years. But I had a *lot* more fun being a pirate than being an assassin. I really didn’t care much for the Assassin’s Creed portion of the game at all. (Some of which might have been mood whiplash from jumping into it directly from Dishonored.)
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The main thing,I think, is that there’s not much to the game’s underlying philosophy beyond Will to Power.
Nothing matters.
If you ghost a level without being seen or killing anyone but your target, you have exactly the same outcome as if you had murdered everybody.
That gets old quickly.
Besides, it’s really hard to have an emotional attachment to a murderhobo. I’m trying hard to remember the names of the various protagonists from the series, and am failing badly.