Assassin's Creed Origins

Assassin's Creed Origins is a deep-dive into a truly stunning realization of ancient Egypt, with a rich series of cultures, genuine characters, and more mission variety than any other game in the series. The combat is challenging and thoughtful, and while the loot system doesn't match up to games like Destiny 2, there are enough different weapon types and enough enemy variety to keep you swapping between weapons, catered to the situation. The RPG elements encourage challenges of their own, and even despite a handful of bugs, I desperately wanted to keep playing.

In charting out a new storyline and the largest setting for the series yet, Assassin's Creed Origins makes a few stumbles along the way.

Assassin's Creed returns and its vast and evocative Egypt inspires wonder - even if much in the game remains familiar.

A brilliant setting, new systems, and familiar features blend together for a strong prequel to the Assassin's Creed series.

In essence, Assassin's Creed Origins is much the same game as the original Assassin's Creed, which came out a decade ago. It's a formula that people like to play, and it's certainly been honed and improved over the years. Origins is, then, undoubtedly the best iteration of this formula yet. But I yearn for a fresh approach and new ideas, something that astounds the senses as much as the wondrous world this game inhabits.

As beautiful as it is deadly, Origins' Egyptian playground is finally everything you wanted the Creed to be.

Expanded progression, open-world freedom, and a fascinating backdrop make for an enticing origin story

In "Assassin's Creed Origins," history and the amusement park intermix and the result is thoroughly transporting.

Origins handles its creative inheritance more elegantly than some open worlders, not least because unlike, say, the first game's Altair, its protagonist actually feels like he is of this realm rather than merely in it. And if the levelling and to-do list grate, the series has never offered a society and a landscape so worthy of close attention.

Assassin's Creed Origins is a triumphant return for a franchise that was tottering about with fatigue just two years ago.