Ubisoft taking a year off making Assassin Creed games was one of the smartest decisions in gaming a few years ago. Assassin’s Creed: Origins came out and it was almost a soft reboot that the series desperately needed. It changed the way the game played and focused more on RPG mechanics with gear drops and everything. It was one of my favorite games last year and the follow-up, Assassin’s Creed: Odyssey, is one of my favorite games of 2018.
I have been playing these games since the first one came out in 2007 and I’ll defend that first game, it was good! I don’t consider myself an expert on the series or anything but I have played them all. With this list I want to give some tips and tricks with how to approach the latest game in the series. I did everything in Origins and am currently working on getting 100% in Odyssey.
The game is huge and there are a ton of mechanics to get down and that can be very intimidating at first. It’s honestly Witcher 3 level big and has about as much to do as that game does, just for perspective. So don’t go into this game and expect to be done with it in 30 hours, it’s going to take around 60 hours to just get through the main story and well on to 100 hours to see everything. It’s an amazing game so lets get on to the list and explore Greece.
25 Upgrade Your Ship
The ship battles in Odyssey aren’t as big of a deal as they were in Black Flag but they are there and they can be rough if you don’t upgrade your ship. You can recruit people to be part of your crew and they all have ratings and stats. Upgrading everything can take a while and you’ll need a lot of stuff to do it, so don’t think you can do it quick. I would upgrade the arrows and javelins first so you can do more damage.
24 Loot Everything
The looting system in these games might be my favorite in gaming because of how quick you can loot multiple things. There are so many things to loot in this game and you need to be looting all the ones you see.
Press up on the d-pad to locate all the things you can loot in an area.
It’s the main way you will get better gear so at least make sure you open all the chests in an area. You will also get a ton of money doing this and you’ll need it for some story reasons.
23 Scout Out All Areas
Before going into an area for a mission using your eagle to scout ahead is always recommenced so you know where all the enemies and objectives are. Some forts have 20 plus people in them and if you are trying to be stealthy then you definitely need to know where enemies are. The enemies won’t spot it so don’t worry about it being seen. Using the left trigger/L2 will slow down the eagle so you can tag stuff.
22 Don’t Worry About Difficulty
So look, I play these games on easy and I know… that’s “not the way to play the game” according to some people but so what! I have a thing that if a game doesn’t have an achievement tied to difficulty then I go with the easiest one.
I really don’t want to struggle with combat in a 70 plus hour game.
It just lets me focus on the story and characters without having to go into each encounter knowing I’m going to have to repeat it three times.
21 Try Exploration Mode
This is what I call the “Breath of the Wild effect” in that I think we will see more of this in games over the next few years. Odyssey added a game mode where you have to explore and find all the locations instead of them just appearing on the map. Some of the NPC characters will have more to say in explaining locations if this mode is on as well. I tried it out but I went back to the old way because going for 100% in this mode would be a whole thing. I’m glad it’s in the game though!
20 Use Stealth
Even though these games have taken major steps in becoming action games, the stealth is still very solid and should be used. The game is set up in a way that if you get caught then you can just fight your way out because the character always talks as if stealth should be your first instinct.
The movement speed when you’re crouched should be a standard in all games.
You still move pretty fast when you are crouched and it feels really good. Also, it just feels satisfying to clear an entire base without being caught.
19 Use The Stash On Your Ship
You’ll get a decent amount of legendary gear/weapons in this game and you can’t sell them or dismantle them. I was confused about what to do for a bit but remembered the stash on your ship, you can store and retrieve all that stuff there. You may want to go back and get something out later in the game and upgrade it so it’s good they put that in there. It’s kind of odd and feels very Destiny 2, but I dig it and it makes sense.
18 Sell Useless Items
While looting stuff in the game will get a bunch of useless things that you can just sell at the blacksmith for some decent money. When you go up to a blacksmith choose the “Sell All Trade Goods” option and you can get rid of all of them at once. I didn’t do this till I was about 25 hours in and got a few thousand Drachmae. You can’t use any of that stuff for crafting, it’s basically there so you can sell them so do that every few hours and you should never have to worry about money.
17 Unicorns!
This game has some stuff in it that I wish more games would do like letting you get a unicorn skin for your horse…yeah, a unicorn! The game acts like it’s not even that big of a deal either. You just go to a blacksmith and pay 8,000 Drachmae (dollars) for it.
It leaves a rainbow trail behind it when you’re riding it.
Apparently, there is a black unicorn you got if you pre-ordered the game from GameStop. One of the few times I wish I’d pre-ordered!
16 Use Your Bow
It’s easy to get caught up in the melee combat and forget to use your bow but you really need to be using it often. Once you get powerful bows you can take out people with one shot and that really helps with the stealth aspect. There’s a perk that lets you set your weapons on fire and that includes the arrows you shoot! Who doesn’t like fire arrows? Some of the bounty hunters specialize in bows and taking them down gives theirs to you and those are some of the best in the game.
15 Easy Achievements/Trophies
This is definitely a personal tase thing but I love going for achievements/trophies and these games have made getting them all decently easy. It’s more a time commitment than a difficulty one since, as I mentioned earlier, there’s not one for beating the game on certain difficulties. Odyssey made it easier than Origins in that you only need to de-fog the whole map instead of clearing every spot on the map. You do have to do all the underwater spots though and fully upgrade your ship, those are the ones that will take a while.
14 Always Check The Blacksmith
One of the first things you need to get in the habit of doing in new towns is checking the blacksmith. He will get new stuff as you get further in the story and you can buy/sell stuff there.
This is the way that you can upgrade your gear/weapons and engrave stuff as well.
You can tell where one is with the anvil and hammer symbol above him. Upgrades become a big part of the late-game and we’ll talk about that a bit later.
13 Play Around With Skill Points
Skills are a huge part of this game and you shouldn’t be afraid to play around with them and see what you like. You get one every time you level up and there are a ton of them that are broken up into Hunter, Warrior, and Assassin.
You can reset them anytime you want.
The Hunter side focuses on the bow, Warrior is melee combat, and Assassin is…yep, stealth. The gear and weapons you get also have those categories on them so you can essentially make different builds.
12 See The Story To Its Conclusion
I get that this game is as long as a Persona game but the story is actually pretty good and has a cool payoff. I thought Origins did the same thing with it’s ending but I’d say this one is better. I honestly just like seeing things I like through to the end but that’s just a me thing because seeing the achievement/trophy percent of beating the game is lower than I thought. I know that a lot of games come out at the end of the year but this is a long one that is worth finishing.
11 Take Your Time
Speaking of finishing the game, if you decide to finish it then I suggest taking your time and take it all in. I played this game on an Xbox One X and it’s gorgeous! I picked Kasandra and she’s one of the most interesting characters of 2018 in my opinion. Most side missions are interesting and you get to see her personality come out in them. I’d also just take the time to walk around some of the major cities just to admire the art and how much detail is all over the place.
10 Do Side Missions
I have a thing where when new side missions pop up I have to do them just to see what they are…and for the experience points…probably more the experience points. Most new locations will have a good bit of them to do.
The bigger ones are indicated with a gold and black exclamation point.
If you want to hit level 50 then you really need to be doing as much side stuff as you can. Most of them are good and some of the most interesting characters in the game come from them.
9 Watch Out For Bounty Hunters
Doing missions and taking out people, honestly doing pretty much anything, will start to fill a meter in the bottom right screen. That lets you know if a bounty hunter is after you or not.
It can go up to five and they will pursue you if it gets that high.
When it gets high they will come after you pretty hardcore and they are tough! It’s not uncommon to have 2-3 of them in the same area and they all take you on at once. They give you some of the best loot though.
8 Explore The Whole Map
Not only is there an achievement for clearing all the fog off the map but you’ll need to explore if you want to see everything. The main story won’t send you across the entire map so you will have to do that on your own. Something like the Arena is given to you as a side quest but you actually need to go to a part of the map it’s at to get any markers. Each place has a level suggestion and some are almost level 50, so I might wait till post-game to do some exploring.
7 You Can Climb Anything
This is another part of the game that seems to take a page out of Breath of the Wild and that’s being able to climb anything. There’s no need to find spots to climb, if you see a wall there then you can climb up.
Every open-world game needs to have this going forward.
So there’s no need to follow the road when going to the next objective marker, just climb. It’s also a good way to find random materials that you’ll need to craft.
6 Board Ships To Heal Yours
After you take out a ship in sea combat you have two choices: either ram it and split it in half or board the ship and take everyone out. Ramming is definitely the fast way to go, and you get a cool animation, but boarding it will heal your ship. Ship battles can get kind of hectic so if your health gets low then just board the next one. You’ll also need to loot the chests in order to get the materials you would get from ramming.
