I've completed AC Origins in its entirety. It's been more than a year since the premiere, but I've completed the bulk of it (main campaign from Chapter 1 onwards and DLC) in the recent months.
Now I'm ready to talk the story.
And brace yourselves... I've said it sometime ago that Unity had the worst storyline and was, when it comes to the setting it used, a major letdown.
Now, I won't say that Origins is worse. It's not, but it's pretty close.
Due to the fact that I've completed the prologue in November 2018, I had to rewatch parts of it on YT to remember some stuff (since I've only remembered the fact that Bayek's son was dead and it happened because of the Order of the Ancients). And so: my thoughts were that it's going to be a simple revenge story.
Now, after beating the game, I know it's not, but damn I wish it WAS just a simple revenge story.
First thing's first: now I know why the game is stuffed with side stuff almost everywhere - and, I guess, for someone who's playing the game like a normal person it's tempting to do some quests, complete some of those "question marks" on their way to the main mission.
But since we've established in the past, I'm not playing AC games as a normal person - I always clear the side-stuff first and then play through the campaign. It allows me to enojoy the story without being distraught by aforementioned "question marks" popping up.
And here's the kicker - the story is almost criminally short. Not counting the prologue, I think I've beaten it in 5, maybe 6 hours tops.
The short story is also problematic because of another reason - the story, halfway through, completely loses its direction and stops making absolute sense. It also creates the problem with the development of the Assassin Brotherhood in general, but I'll get to that.
I assume that Ubisoft wanted to go back to the roots and make the story similar to AC1 - here are the targets, gradually uncover the conspiracy. And it' would've been at least passable if it went like that, but it doesn't.
The game starts implementing historical events, but is as incompetent at doing that as Unity. Egyptian civil war is mostly hinted at until halfway through the game, where it swaps places with Bayek's revenge as the main problem within the story. This sparks a major problem - inconsequence in characters motivations.
Ancients are supposedly on Ptolemy's side of the conflict. We're told that they're responsible for everything bad that happened to Egypt. Alright, that's the usual stuff in those games. Except one problem: in the past, their actions were somehow motivated that they're doing that for greater good and, even if their thinking was twisted, one could possibly understand their point of view.
Here they poison mummies, are somehow responsible for the lack of the flooding of the Nile (this actually goes unexplained in the game, so I can also assume that, in modern times, we can pin the blame on Templars for a lot of stuff, like Justin Bieber and Kim Kardashian existing. Makes exactly the same sense), storing the grain away and... I guess that's it, because I can't seem to recall anything else.
Worse thing! They kidnap Bayek and Khemu at the beginning to force them into opening the Vault with an Apple of Eden, since they don't know how to use PoE. Neither does Bayek... but, by the end of the game, Flavius (I assume it was him - or his second-in-command, forgot the name) opens it just like that, as if no knowledge was required. He also knows fully well how to use it in any other way. This makes the prologue of the game stupid and contrived to introduce Ancients into the game, as it has no relevance to the story other than to give Bayek motivation.
Nonetheless, we work with Cleopatra to work out a deal with Caesar (Pompey is killed off offscreen, despite the fact that alliance with him was made out as important earlier - another threat with a lack of payoff introduced only to shuffle us to another historical event, almost as if writers were checking out boxes).
And here's the most stupid part of the story - Cleopatra strikes a deal with Caesar, with Caesar aware that Septimus/Flavius being part of conspiracy (per information given by Aya and Bayek) who were supposedly working in favor of Ptolemy.
Caesar's people are kidnapped, some are brutally killed by Ptolemy's/Ancients' men. YET, during the battle of the Nile... Caesar, for reasons unknown, spares Septimus/Flavius and they become his second-in-command men. I was like, WHY? Not because of the betrayal itself, but because the betrayal made no sense. Why would Caesar let those two work for him if he saw how disloyal they are mere days earlier? Because he assumed that the Order is powerful? HOW? He JUST WITNESSED AND HEARD the story that Bayek/Aya killed off, like, 99% of them. Why would he trust the Order to aid his actions after he saw how easy it is to cripple their power? This was a twist for twist's sake and - as I believe - Ubi's way to force the story onto pre-existing rails (Caesar/Cleopatra were killed by assassins, as established by AC2 and ACB).
I mean, I knew they had to turn on us beacuse that's what we knew from earlier in the series, but I hoped it'll be logical. It wasn't. And Ubi shouldn't have bothered wth portraying them as allies-turned-villains if they didn't have any idea how to do that. They should've made them out as villains and that's that.
Now I'll get to the parts that iritated me more than they should.
The hidden blade - introduced just like that, no concept behind it. Here, Bayek, have it. Ohhhhkay? I mean, I hoped that the story behind it would be something actually like, "Hey, we should reconsider our approach. We need a stealthy weapon, be blades in the crowd. OOOOHH, blades in the crowd!".
I mean, I wanted something. SOMETHING! Not just a "well, here it is". ANY backstory would suffice.
The next thing - sacrificing the finger. At least, that's what AC1 made it out to be. And here, it turns out the tradition originated from Bayek making a sloppy kill, accidentally cutting off his finger. Seriously...? Ugh.
Aya. Oh, Aya.
Why can't, for once, Ubisoft write a female protagonist/sidekick that's LIKABLE? (didn't play Syndicate, so I don't know about Eve, but Underworld novel made her seem alright).
Bayek: Let's be together.
Aya: Egypt needs me.
Bayek: ...
(Aya disappears from the game and we don't know how she actually helps Egypt except following Cleopatra)
Bayek: It's over, let's be together.
Aya: We can't, there's more people in the conspiracy and Cleopatra needs me.
Bayek: ...
(Aya disappears from the game, save for an occasional show-up here and there, a DLC mission establishes she had some sea adventures that ultimately lead to nothing)
Bayek: We've killed everybody, now we can be together.
Aya: I...
Guard: Palace under siege!
Aya: EGYPT & CLEOPATRA NEED ME!!!
Bayek:...
I mean, for fuck's sake. Bayek even tells her they can hunt down Order members together and she says no, leaving it all to him (except for the final kill). She keeps pushing him away for no fucking reason at all, saying she needs to do this "saving" stuff, while, until final sequences of the game, it's Bayek who does everything.
It wouldn't irritate me this much but, because of her behavior, Bayek finally rejects his past life. Everyone who enrolls in the Brotherhood does. All that fucking Aya talking "no love, no nothing between us", which has no foundation at all, BECAME PART OF THE PHILOSOPHY OF THE BROTHERHOOD UNTIL THE END OF AC1. Remember as Altair put it? Parents who can't love their kids, everyone trained to kill and not to feel, having no relationships and bounds between people. That's what caused his fallout with Abbas and problems of Masyaf in general. It was ALTAIR who fucking BANISHED this riddiculous notion from the Brotherhood, stating finally: "WE WILL BE ALLOWED TO LOVE OUR CHILDREN".
And this strikes me as awful, because all those problems that originated from that notion were caused by Aya who simply refused to be a wife to her husband when he needed her. Great. Just... do better, Ubisoft, because this is simply awful.
It would be bearable if we could at least KNOW that Aya did something in the meantime, but other than killing two Ancients in the beginning there is nothing. She becomes playable in the finale, but then we're only picking up the pieces from the Egyptian civil war and that's it.
And those fragments actually irritated me beyond belief. I'm not a person arguing for cutting parts of the game for the purposes of DLC (especially since Origins story is short) but Aya sequences should've been cut and released as DLC.
We're building Bayek throughout the entire game and, by the end, we lose control of him to control a character with shitty equipment and lower level. I know, I've played lvl 55 from the start, but I assume that most players had at least lvl 35 or higher before starting final battles.
How on Earth is it good to make the character our own, develop his skills and our own playing style only for Ubi to wrestle him away for us for, like, 90% of the ending and make us stick with a character who plays differently? (because she does, at least to me)
Generally, I think the game should've ended with Bayek and Aya on the beach, with that Assassin symbol on the sand. The rest seems tacked on for no apparent reason other than to - I assume - give closure to Aya/Bayek's story (since I guess they won't appear again) and somehow retcon Aya into Amunet. I mean, the head of the Order was slain by Bayek and the final boss is a guy who was working for him and was tied to the events in Siwa DURING HIS BATTLE WITH AYA (he says something about Khemu's screams).
Anyway, the villains - I have no idea where they came from and why should I care. The opening to the game makes Ptolemy out as a main villain - he's gone the minute the scene ends and later shows up only to be thrown aside during negotiations and get eaten by crocodiles. WHAT WAS THE POINT of setting him up as a villain?
Worse - wouldn't it hurt Ubi to do as I've mentioned earlier and start the game with Cleopatra and Caesar striking a deal and her becoming Pharoh? Then the story could center around Bayek/Aya seeking revenge AND taking down two supposed tyrants who tried to unite the world under their thumbs. Wouldn't that be better? Maybe. I know it would be more logical.
I'd say more, but I can't seem to recall more details right now. I will when I remember, you can be sure of that.
Modern story is just stupid. It brings AC movie into canon (Sophia Rikkin is now main villain. Huh. I want to see how Ubi will make Marion Cotillard to provide her likeness for the game. Or they can't, that's why she doesn't show up). It introduces us to Layla who apparently built an Animus herself without Abstergo knowing that (
) and after they do find out, they send a squad to kill her (
) but when she eliminates them, they don't intervene again (
). However, modern story was tacked on in recent entries to the series, so I'm at least relieved that they created SOMETHING this time instead of cutscenes and there's a possibility that they're actually going to develop the series in this direction after dropping ball hard with Desmond in AC3.
As for the game - my points from the past still stand, it's a nice game with (often) interesting sidequests (that's funny - some of them are more interesting than the main scenario). The problem is, though, at around 60-70% Egypt covered, I've had enough. Enough of the enemy forts and all that. It becomes tiring - even if played in small chuncks.
Oh, and DLCs have better stories than main game too. (altough "The Curse..." makes barely any sense within the lore. Oh, I just remembered - Khemu told Bayek that they'll meet in the Afterlife. Screw me if I'm wrong, but they didn't, even after Bayek literally visited Afterlife...)
(if it weren't for the story and the truly horrible finale, it would've been 8/10)
To be honest... I can't fully recommend the game to anyone outside AC fanbase (for us it's a must). For the outsiders... it'll be good if you don't fully commit to clearing the game in its entirety. Do an occasional sidequest and finish the main storyline with that cutscene the beach, ignore the rest (or play the DLCs). Otherwise you'll end up with a feeling of major irritation after completing it.
And now... onto Odyssey. Now, after completing Origins, I have some reservations for it, but I know that it's built by a different team and, hopefully, it has a better story. We'll see.