Assassin's Creed Odyssey kicks off in October
THIS! IS! A MOVIE REFERENCE!
After a great many leaks, Ubisoft today finally announced Assassin's Creed Odyssey, taking the open-world murder simulator to Ancient Greece. Playing as a lad or a lass who's the grandkid of Leonidas, the Scot who was crowned king of Sparta after kicking a postman down a hole, we'll sneak, sail, and stab across the land. It largely resembles last year's Assassin's Creed Origins, obviously, but the return of naval combat to the series is quite welcome. It also leans on the drama a bit more, with dialogue options and even optional romances. Here, come watch all this.
First, your usual announcement trailer introducing the broad strokes:
I'm calling it: this game has too many 300 references. Mate, calm down. I know you like the film but it was 12 years ago. Chillax. You've got to stop shouting "THIS IS SPARTA!" whenever you give a can a kick down the road.
Anywho. In Odyssey we play as either Alexios or Kassandra, a kid of Leonidas who's prophesied to doom Sparta and therefore lobbed off a cliff. Except they don't die, obvs, and soon they're tootling around, stabbing folks with Leonidas's magical spear and uncovering secrets and conspiracies in their family history. It's set in the fifth century BC, during the Peloponnesian War. Unlike Assassin's Creed Syndicate and its Frye twins, Alexios or Kassandra will be the character we play all game, not switching between them.
It seems mythical elements will creep in, as trailers and screenshots show Medusa and the Minotaur. But having recently watched Sergio Leone's The Colossus Of Rhodes, I'm sorry that mecha is probably too far outside the game's timeline to appear.
Kotaku have already played a bit, if you want to read more. Or, you can watch this lump of gameplay yourself:
And most importantly, you can reject romance:
Assassin's Creed Odyssey is due to launch on October 5th, costing £50. Development is led by Ubisoft Quebec, with eight other Ubisoft studios (and some external companies) chipping in.
Check out our E3 2018 tag for more announcements, trailers, news, and goodness knows what else.