YMMV / Assassin's Creed Origins

• Alternative Character Interpretation: Julius Caesar. Was he manipulated and fooled by Septimius and Flavius? Or was he recruited, and truly became the Father of Understanding that even modern Templars swear by? It doesn't help that Caesar is barely featured after he joins the Order of the Ancients and that his few appearances have Septimius by his side, it being unclear whether Caesar follows his suggestions, or is ordering Septimius about.
• Annoying Video Game Helper: The boatmen manage to be both these and an Anti-Frustration Feature. Useful when you're stranded on the water, but if you are trying to swim and pick up loot from the animals you just hunted down, you'll want them to steer their boat down the closest waterfall.
• Big-Lipped Alligator Moment:
  • Five optional tombs have an additional area attached at their end that contains one of the so-called Ancient Devices. Activating it with five of the rare silica crystals results in a nice holographic lightshow and a disembodied voice waxing philosophy about topics like time, language, reality and so forth, all delivered in a lengthy, several minutes long monologue. These things have absolutely no bearing on the plot and are never mentioned or talked about by any of the characters. All they do is introduce a very sharp shift in the story's overall tone that can border on immersion-breaking for some. It doesn't help that only a few of them make it clear that they aren't talking to Bayek but to Layla (and by extension, to the player), and that Bayek can't even hear the message, which makes it all the more confusing at times.
  • In the side quest "A gift from the gods", Ardyn Izunia and Bahamut appear out of nowhere.
• Bizarro Episode: The "Curse of the Pharaohs" DLC gets weird. It starts out subdued enough — a savvy player could easily guess that the resurrection of the pharaohs is due to a Piece of Eden — but then Bayek goes to the afterlife. Physically. Multiple afterlives, to be precise. Putting the pharaohs to rest also involves some esoteric actions; in particular, preventing Ramesses from rising requires you to gather parts of his soul. The game doesn't even try to provide a Piece-of-Eden-induced justification.
• Catharsis Factor: Since Flavius Metellus/The Lion was responsible for murdering Khemu and manipulating multiple people to do what he wanted, seeing his father Bayek finally avenge his son's death by killing the man responsible for it is gratifying.
• Complacent Gaming Syndrome:
  • Several abilities are considered must-haves for any build: the ability to regenerate health during combat, start combat with a full adrenaline bar, and healing when using an overkill ability.
  • The Pharaohs DLC makes the ability to respawn arrows and tools in the afterlife a must-have as Bayek needs to fight 4 pharaohs in their afterlife realms.
• Complete Monster: See here.
• Crosses the Line Twice: One blunt weapon you can buy with Helix credits is... a mummified cat. Called LOLCAT.
  Description: "It's very important that you understand that the work we do here is absolutely serious. No fun allowed."
• Demonic Spiders:
  • You will come to hate the cowled, dual-wielding enemies that begin to show up about halfway into the game. Their combo attacks are impossible to escape from and very hard to avoid in the first place, they're so fast you'll be hard-pressed to get even a few hits in yourself, they drop smoke bombs in case you actually do get the upper hand for once, and to top it all off, they're also lethal shots with their bows. Prepare to encounter a lot of them once you hit around level 15, and to prioritize them in any ambush no matter the cost lest they wreck you in no time in case you're spotted.
  • Lions will become a nightmare in the wild, especially for low armor situations. They are fast, live in prides and will ambush you from multiple angles, can easily take a ton of health off you very quickly, and can slug it out. Their speed prevents a retreat, a shield is useless, and unless you prioritize, you will likely swing at lions randomly. Be sure to take advantage of Senu; you will need her.
• Epileptic Trees: The giant snake at the end of the premiere trailer has raised more than a few among long-term fans of the possibility that mythological and folkloric beings truly did exist in the Ancient World of the AC-Verse. The actual game takes it even further with its heavy focus on Egyptian Mythology which is dealt with seriously, and Bayek being truly pious in his faith believing that his quest to defeat the Proto-Templars will help him take his son's "ka" (soul) to the field of reeds.
  • The Curse of the Pharaohs DLC took this even further, with Bayek actually visiting the Egyptian afterlife, interacting with and fighting deceased pharaohs (among others), with no hand waves saying it was a simulation or related to the Isu (although Bayek does voice his suspicion that he's not really in the afterlife).
• Game-Breaker: Can be found here.
• Goddamned Bats:
  • Cobras. They primarily infest tombs but can also be encountered in the wilds, are hard to spot in either case, and will take off one-third of Bayek's health if he gets hit, no matter how much his health has been upgraded. They also rarely come alone, and if you stumble into a group of them and don't get the hell out in less than a second, it's back to the loading screen. The only thing that keeps them from being Demonic Spiders is their lack of mobility.
  • Horsemen. They are difficult to fight in combat, tend to follow you for long distances while shooting arrows your way, always seem to know where you are hiding if you manage to break their line of sight, and tend to randomly attack you. One simply riding by can make some situations (such as stalking Phylakes) much more annoying than they could be.
• Good Bad Bugs: Take a look at what happens when a game developer uses a Cheating Angle perspective trick, and then adds a feature allowing players to pause the game to take screenshots, and forgets to undo the perspective trick.
• Harsher in Hindsight: The official discovery of the Brotherhood of Assassins began not as an ancient creed dating back to Adam and Eve ^note though the overall principles of free will still began there, as did the Templar principles with Cain, but rather as a Revenge Before Reason plot by Bayek and Aya against the Order of the Ancients for the death of their son. The fact that much of the creed seems to date to Aya's zeal versus Bayek's own personal motives also makes their opposition of tyranny somewhat less sympathetic.
• It's the Same, Now It Sucks!:
  • Some fans didn't quite like the title, with more than a few noting that the subtitle Origins is kind of overused, with some citing X-Men Origins: Wolverine and Batman: Arkham Origins as a case in point, while also pointing out that neither of them was universally praised or liked titles.
  • The trailers from Gamescom shows that a big part of the plot will revolve around The Alliance between Cleopatra VII and Julius Caesar, which irritates many because it is incredibly overexposed Hollywood History especially given the Foregone Conclusion of the setting i.e. that Egypt would be conquered and occupied by The Roman Empire, Cleopatra would be killed by the Assassin Amunet, and Caesar would be killed by the Assassin Brutus, as per earlier lore. Likewise, the idea of Bayek as The Remnant of an older Egypt (being a Medjay) seeing his land occupied and doomed to see it remain conquered and subjugated by Western powers more or less makes the setting, and Bayek himself, a redux of Assassin's Creed III.
• Memetic Mutation: WE WUZ KANGZ ^Explanation  An old, originally unrelated meme that's been used as a mockery of the "hotep" movement (a black supremacist movement promoting the mostly-discredited Black Egyptian theory) took on a whole new level of popularity after the protagonist was revealed to be looking African-American black rather than the more usual Mediterranean skin pigmentation as is scientifically accepted as the most likely option for Egyptians. At it's peak it was simply impossible to have a discussion about the game without at least someone mentioning "kangz n shieeet" as one of Ubisoft's motivations for the decision.
• Moral Event Horizon:
  • Berenike/The Crocodile's murder of Shadya. Even their henchmen are horrified by it, while Bayek is so disgusted that he, unlike with most of his targets, doesn't even administer last rites to the Crocodile in their assassination.
  • If Flavius Metellus/The Lion did not cross it in his first appearance when he killed Khemu, he definitely crossed it when he abused the Apple of Eden's power to brainwash innocent people into doing his whims for no other reason other than he could.
• Narm: Most of the dialogue that comes out of Caesar's mouth is over-the-top and the mission where Bayek rides shotgun with Caesar riding the chariot, aside from the sheer improbability of it^note Chariot-riding, especially war-chariots were a specialized skill, and Caesar would certainly not man his own chariots, has an unfortunate resemblance to Paul Revere's riding mission from AC3.
• Narm Charm: The Gamescom 2017 Cinematic Trailer's use of an electronic remix of "You Want It Darker" should be terrible, but somehow it works, similar to the movie's first trailer and its use of "I am a God".
• Older Than They Think:
  • As more than a few fans noted, the Eagle Senu is reminiscent of a mechanic in Far Cry Primal but others point out that the notion of a playable floating Eagle Avatar goes back to the Mushroom Samba sequences in Assassin's Creed III, both in the main game and the DLC, The Tyranny of King Washington which also introduced many original fantastic elements to the franchise (albeit as part of a Piece of Eden All Just a Dream scenario).
    • Io:nhiòte, Connor's daughter in the comics, displays the same ability as Bayek, to see through the eyes of an eagle.
  • A giant play-area filled with animals that attack each other and can be manipulated to attack humans was also present in Assassin's Creed III as noted by long-time fans. There was even an achievement in the game for observing animals attacking enemy soldiers in that game's Frontier setting.
• Play the Game, Skip the Story: The gameplay, sandbox, and side-activities are amazing and truly a leap over the previous two games, but some claim the actual plot and story are fairly simple, predictable and largely covers stuff touched on in the previous lore, with fairly little to add, though it has its fans especially in regards to any scenes that involve Bayek and Aya.
• Polished Port: In June 2022, Ubisoft released a 60FPS patch for the console versions of the game, leading it to be overall much more fluid and responsive as a result on PS5 and Xbox Series X/S.
• Scrappy Mechanic:
  • While it may have some justification from an in-game POV, the fact that horses and chariots slow down from a gallop to barely above human sprint speed as soon as one approaches any settlement gets annoying fast, especially since a large portion of the game takes place in and around cities.
  • For much of the last arc, you play as Aya instead of Bayek, and Aya lacks a lot of the skills you've doubtless had on Bayek for a long time and come to rely on. While the enemies she faces are relatively easy by Bayek's standards, Aya is much weaker and lacks a shield. Between having a lot less health, lacking skills players have probably come to use heavily and having a different fighting style, this represents a probably unintentional Difficulty Spike.
  • If you install the Hidden Ones DLC and don't start it, Bayek will constantly repeat one line after most loading screens and the quest menu automatically activates the DLC's opening mission as your current objective every now and then. However, since the DLC is meant to be played with end-game Bayek, anyone who isn't even remotely close to the recommended level (38) will constantly have to switch their active quest and hear Bayek repeat the same sentence over and over.
  • The above becomes even worse in the second DLC, where Bayek will comment on every open mission he has every time you start the game.
  • While riding, Bayek will be occasionally attacked by enemies for whatever reason, even if you did nothing to aggro them. While this likely exists to give players something to do during long riding sessions, those who just want to take in the scenery suffer from it. Especially bad since the player can set their mount to ride to their destination by itself, yet going AFK to do something else while Bayek travels can result in death.
• Sequel Difficulty Drop: In contrast from earlier games, there are no timed missions at all, and none that fail automatically if the protagonist is spotted, leaving it entirely up to you how you approach any given task.
• Sequel Difficulty Spike: Using "sequel" in terms of its release date instead of chronological order, Origins has noticeably more difficult combat than any of its predecessors. The all-powerful block-and-counter mechanic has been replaced with a hitbox system that requires precise timing and a lot more situational awareness. Many enemies use attacks that can't be blocked and need to be dodged in a specific direction; others are immune to attacks from the front and need to be staggered or flanked, something that is often more easily said than done. As in Unity, enemies defy Mook Chivalry, which turns being surrounded into the dangerous situation it actually is in Real Life — it's no fun fending off the shield-bearing Elite Mook in front of you while archers are merrily shooting you in the back. Boss Battles are a lot more prevalent, each of which requires studying the boss' unique attack patterns to figure out a viable strategy to defeat him. While a maxed-out Bayek can attack hostile strongholds head-on and emerge victorious, the odds are still very much against him, and the stealthy approach one should have in mind when one thinks of assassins has never been more recommended in the history of the franchise.
• Special Effects Failure: Or rather, sound effects failure. Especially during the last stretch of the story, cutscenes are regularly interrupted by loading screens. Besides being distracting from the story, the sound also cuts out for a few seconds, at least on PS4, causing a sudden jarring silence intense musical scores.
• Spiritual Adaptation:
  • If you ever wanted to play a video game based on HBO's Rome, Origins makes for a good adaptation of the series. Both works are set around the same time period and focus on the final days of a historical civilization with the Roman Republic, Julius Caesar, Cleopatra and Ptolemy XIII having significant roles throughout the story in addition to Lucius Septimius' presence and the usage of The Queen's Latin for their dialogue just like the series. The protagonist Bayek of Siwa is a well-trained Medjay who was married to his wife and children only to see his loved one(s) die and gets caught up in the complicated, tangled world of ancient politics thanks to having a close relationship with a popular ruler which makes him an Ancient Egyptian equivalent of Lucius Vernus, albeit much more heroic and noble than him. And both Bayek and Aya play an important role in changing the course of history with the latter assassinating Caesar and bringing about the end of the Republic similar to how Titus Pullo helped him cross the Rubicon in his own episode of the series. Both works even share the same actor, Michael Nardone who plays Mascius in the show and Julius Caesar in the game.
  • It's also the closest we can get to a modern game adaptation of the 1963 film Cleopatra especially since the titular pharoah is a major character in both works complete with a British accent and a subplot revolving around her relationship with Caesar.
• That One Achievement: "Old Habits" requires the player to discover and completely explore every single location in the game world. This involves clearing out innumerable hostile camps and looting their treasures, eradicating every animal lair in greater Egypt, raiding every tomb, defeating all war elephants, and so on. An early bug made this worse by a handful of locations required for the achievement not being marked on the map. This has since been fixed, but some of the markers are quite hard to see on the map, and you have to zoom in quite a bit to see them, so you're basically forced to scan the huge in-game map for that one last location.
• That One Boss: Every. Single. Pharaoh in the Curse of the Pharaohs DLC. All four hit hard enough that they can kill a fully leveled up Bayek with a few hits even on the lowest difficulties have truly ludicrous amounts of HP. Ramesses takes the cake as he has to be fought twice (once in the regular world, and again in his afterlife), and has an attack which will one hit kill on hard mode or above, regardless of stats. Tutankhamen might be one of the more sadistic, since losing to him means having to either sit through two cutscenes or the lengthy loading scenes that skipping them produces all over again. And three of the four are mandatory to finish the main arc; Ramesses's chain is considered a mini-arc on its own.
• They Wasted a Perfectly Good Character:
  • Julius Caesar, one of the greatest and most important men in history, is made into a Large Ham caricature in the game and a Puppet King of Lucius Septimus and Flavius Metallus, the former a minor footnote in history and a one-dimensional villain in the game, which to some feels like a drastic cheapening of the character, similar to how Assassin's Creed: Unity sold Maximilien Robespierre short in exchange for the flat Germain. The game doesn't deal with his more complex personality, such as his tendency to pardon his enemies (which the Assassins see as a betrayal when he does this to the Templars); the fact that during the battle in Alexandria, his men accidentally burned down parts of the Library of Alexandria (an action which the Assassins are shown to be complicit in the game, but not called out for it, or made to reflect on the same) or that he was inspired by Egyptian Astronomers to make the Julian Calendar, the prototype for the international calendar in use today. His assassination is also shown as a straightforward unambiguous action of good against evil, which effectively goes against centuries of traditions and most historical opinion, and likewise removes nuance and moral grayness from the Assassins' actions. Similarly the game reveals that Caesar is "The father of understanding" the Templar praise... but never sets up what he did to earn that reputation in their eyes. All he did is pardon two members of their order, who basically got killed shortly after (One alongside Caesar). It's weird the Templars would sing the praise of someone who did so little for their organization.
  • Most of the original members of the Hidden Ones are given barely any screen time, and almost none when they join the organization, or how they contribute to the fight. Brutus and Pasherenptah probably get this the worst. The former barely has any screen time, while the latter might as well be a generic priest with nothing to really make him stand out as a character. Tahira probably is only memorable because she dies in the DLC. For a game that's all about the Origins of the Assassins it's disappointing how little presence its original members have.
• They Wasted a Perfectly Good Plot:
  • Many fans who like the Ancient World setting feel that the Ptolemaic era is not really Ancient Egypt and some wanted a game set in an earlier era of Ancient Egypt, such as the era of the 18th Dynasty — Hatshepsut or Akhenaten, Tutankhamun or even someone from a later era, like that of Ramses II a.k.a. Ozymandias himself (who fought off the Sea Peoples during the supposed Bronze Age Collapse) or some of the more obscure periods of Egyptian history which qualify as seldom seen. Some feel that seeing the story of an Egypt in a time and place where Egyptians were truly an independent kingdom and people, as opposed to the Ptolemaic-Roman era (where they were second class citizens of first the Greeks and the Persians before them, and then the Romans) prevents the story and setting from feeling truly fresh and genuinely non-Western. Much of the actual game deals with Republican Rome politics and the finale deals with Caesar's assassination, rather than issues dealing with Egypt and its people, and Maxime Durand, in an interview with Bob Whitaker admitted that Ubisoft chose the setting because they also wanted to deal with The Roman Republic rather than exclusively Egypt.
  • The game generally presents a far less diverse background in Egypt than actually existed. Siwa Oasis, which is central to a big part of the game, doesn't deal with the region's historically renowned tolerance and nurturing of same-sex relations, and homosexual marriages (which endured until the 20th Century, even during the Islamic era). The only representation of overt same-sex relations in the game (and the first in the franchise proper^note Leonardo da Vinci was made Ambiguously Gay in the Ezio games, and Patrice Desilets confirmed that Ubisoft removed his real-life charge of sodomy in his youth in Florence) is a kind of sleazy Easter Egg in Heraklion. Alexandria likewise doesn't feature the Hellenistic Judean community, who oversaw the translation of the Torah into the Septuagint, and who had a major influence on Gnosticism and who were absolutely contemporary to the era, time, and place of the game's setting. Although, with the hindsight of the results of including suffragettes in Red Dead Redemption 2, this may have been for the best.
  • Cleopatra has her entire conflict with Augustus Caesar skipped over despite it being one of the most famous real-life epics of all time. This may have been to avert a Downer Ending given the fact Augustus Caesar conquers Egypt, assimilates it, and proceeds to rule for decades with absolute power. Given the Hidden Ones were against the spread of Rome and for Egyptian independence, though, this is really writing around history given Brutus' assassination of Caesar was swiftly met with a Happy Ending Override, as all of the conspirators were swiftly hunted down, executed, and Brutus was trapped and defeated in battle before committing suicide.
  • Not that it was his fault, but the game never shows if Bayek ever told Aya that technically he was the one who stabbed their son through the heart and what her reaction was. Instead, Bayek consistently tells Aya that the Order murdered their son, and the game never explains if he genuinely believes that or is in denial and lying to Aya.
  • Despite being called Origins, the plot does not detail the foundation of the Assassin Brotherhood; instead, it focuses on Bayek and Aya's personal revenge mission. It's not until the end of the main game and the DLC "The Hidden Ones" that the foundations of the Brotherhood are shown, and even then it's just three small, loose collections of freedom fighters, which does nothing to explain how it became the incredibly well-funded, elaborate, globe-spanning organization it's normally seen as. Likewise, the start of the Templar Order is not shown, the Templars already existing by Bayek's time.
• Trapped by Mountain Lions: The Modern Day plot features no mention whatsoever of Juno, the Big Bad of the AC games, or any of the threads from the comics, i.e., the Instruments of the First Will, Desmond's child, or the modern Assassins besides William Miles. It features far more tie-ins to the 2016 film than it does to the previous games, including a heavy focus on Sofia Rikkin and mention of the death of Alan Rikkin, including how it happened (roughly). The main connections to the other games are William Miles and the appearance (but not explanation) of Sigma Team.
• Unconventional Learning Experience: Origins provides a pretty good guide to gain insight into Egyptian polytheism through Bayek's story and personal struggle. It's actually one of the most respectful portrayals of Egyptian paganism since they are often demonized in popular movies.
• Unintentionally Unsympathetic: Julius Caesar is a debated figure among historians but he's a famous and controversial figure who has had his assassination debated for millennia. The consequences for the act literally changed the fate of Western Civilization and brought to power Augustus Caesar as well as the downfall of Egypt among other things. Bayek and Aya kill Caesar for pardoning one of their enemies, which makes the entire thing look profoundly petty on their part.
• Values Dissonance: In a flashback early on in the story, Bayek not only encourages his seven-year old son Khemu to explore a hyena cave, but he also tries to get Khemu to jump off a cliff and perform a Leap of Faith (something that Bayek’s own father had him do). When Khemu is understandably terrified of jumping, Bayek is visibly frustrated, an at-the-moment feeling that will soon haunt the Medjay for the rest of his life.
• Win Back the Crowd: Origins is being heralded as a massive return to form, being critically acclaimed, after the last few titles have been lukewarm, with many people claiming it's on par with or even surpasses Black Flag.

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