With Assassins Creed Valhalla coming out in just a few short months, it seemed like an apt time to take a look back at the last couple entries into the franchise and see how it has developed and changed over time.
We're mainly talking about the progression in gameplay and story from AC: Origins to AC: Odyssey and finally onto Valhalla. Believe it or not, each game has had its own steps forward (even the Layla Hassan stuff was improved) and even a few backward. So without further ado, let's take a look at some of the fixes Ubisoft made from Origins to Odyssey, and then a few gameplay features fans hope they'll improve or change for Valhalla.
10 Origin To Odyssey: The Predator Arrow Changes
Predator Arrows in the recent AC games are one of the most enjoyable new tricks the player is given. They're arrows Bayek or Kassandra (two of the best assassins in the series, by the way) can fire that they are then allowed to control mid-air until their target is found. In laymen's terms, they're remote-control arrows.
In Origins, these things dominated the early to mid-game and Bayek could easily clear out most camps or buildings without ever having entered it. Frankly, they just had a bit too much fine motor control and did too much damage (especially with headshots). Odyssey nerfed these things and kept them useful but didn't restrict the player to basically being forced to use them if they wanted to try a Hunter build.
9 Hopes For Valhalla: Bring Back NPC Rafts!
This is such a minuscule little feature, but one that was desperately needed in Odyssey. Back in Origins, if Bayek found himself alone in the middle of a sea or lake, NPC-controlled rafts would spawn and sail up to him to give the Assassin a lift. It was a lifesaver that made some of the amazing sidequests even better.
Unfortunately, Odyssey didn't have this even though there were a ton more areas to explore under the sea, and it got a bit grating with how slow the swimming was after 20-30 hours of playtime.
8 Origin To Odyssey: The Visual Customization For Armor & Weapons
Every game should have visual customization. And, there's no reason not to have it in a single-player game. It's a bit more understandable in competitive multiplayer since being able to visually identify characters, weapons, or iconography matters a lot more.
But, in a game where the whole purpose is to roleplay as Sparta's biggest (likely female since fans love Kassandra) demi-god badass, it would have been a bit silly not to include this. Origins had tons of amazing armor sets, but there was no way to mix and match without looking ridiculous.
7 Hopes For Valhalla: Less Useless Weapons With More Upgrade Paths
The sheer number of weapons Kassandra/Alexios carries on their person by the mid to late-game portion of Odyssey is astounding. Seriously, after exploring a few camps and clearing out a fort or two, players would notice that they might be carrying over 50+ pieces of gear and different weapons, all of which would range from common (no color) to purple (rare).
Then, it would come down to the tedious task of finding a blacksmith, selling all of them individually, and maybe breaking a few of them down for resources. This process wasn't awful or anything, just a bit cumbersome. It already seems like Valhalla will be a bit more focused on building up individual weapons through upgrade paths, but fans will just have to confirm it for themselves in the final product.
6 Origin To Odyssey: From Phylakes To Bounty Hunters & Cultists
Early in Origins, Bayek assassinates a target who causes the Phylakes of Egypt to start hunting him down. The player can then randomly come across them or hunt down any who happen to be nearby.
The only problem was a lot of them used moves that would essentially insta-kill Bayek and didn't give him much chance if at all to counter-attack. As the game went on it became easier to hunt them but Odyssey's Cult of Kosmos and Mercenary systems were a lot more forgiving early on. And, thanks to things like Summoned Lieutenants and the Spartan Kick, overleveled Mercenaries could still be beaten with a bit of ingenuity.
5 Hopes For Valhalla: Bring Back The Hidden Blade As A Primary
The combat in the Assassin's Creed games has changed an incredible amount since the first title, in the early games many of the confrontations boiled down to standing there waiting to parry enemy's rather than going on the offensive. This had a lot of flaws but was fun in its own right, though the way to make it even more fun/challenging was to use the iconic AC Hidden Blade as the primary weapon.
Parrying with this weapon always resulted in a kill and the window was a lot more restrictive. Since Black Flag, none of the newer games have allowed the player to use this weapon as their primary, and with its reveal in the Valhalla trailer, fans are hoping this option makes a return.
4 Origin To Odyssey: The Weight Of Combat
Assassin's Creed: Origins was a big step for AC's combat system, as they very clearly revamped their entire system for something that was a blend of the old combat, character action games, and the Dark Souls reactive systems. And, while it worked for the most part in Origins, there were a few little flaws players could tell were the result of this system being so new.
For one, combat felt floaty a lot of the time, with animations and physics for items not quite having the weight behind them that they should have. Well, in Odyssey this is thankfully mostly fixed.
3 Hopes For Valhalla: Layers Added To The Animal Taming System
Both Origins and Odyssey have quite the expanded Skill Tree with abilities like the Predator Arrow, Bull Rush, and Animal Taming dominating the different Warrior, Assassin, and Hunter paths. Animal Training in particular seemed to quickly become a fan favorite as players would find Alpha animals on the map and make them their loyal pets.
Well, sadly, this mechanic was just a bit too shallow and had quite a few bugs where Animals would suddenly become untamed and attack their owner. Here's hoping that Valhalla expands upon this system and maybe even gives the animal their own upgrade path so that players can experience building up their Wolf, Bear, or Avian companions.
2 Origin To Odyssey: Plenty Of Smoothed Out Animations
Along the same train of thought as the floaty combat from Origins, this game did also have a fair amount of animation faux pas that took away from the experience a bit.
The combat animations would seem a bit "jumpy" at times and would interrupt itself in a very non-organic way from swing to swing. And, some of the area-of-effect moves with the heavier weapons would have deceptively large hitboxes that seemed a bit bigger than even the developers had intended. Again, in Odyssey, this is pretty much completely fixed and the combat both in gameplay and animations has been completely smoothed over.
1 Hopes For Valhalla: A Bit More Complexity For Recruits
And finally, fans should already be aware that Valhalla promises to bring back the settlement system with upgrades that players might remember from the early entries with Ezio (though this will likely be a whole new system), but what about the people in those settlements?
In Odyssey, players could knock out any enemy and then pick them right back up to join their team and work for them, sometimes they could even recruit their many lovers, it was a neat feature for sure that encouraged players to build their own team of elite badasses. But, outside of the passive stats, they added to the Adrestia and the Lieutenant Summon skill, there wasn't much more to do with these recruits. So, hopefully, Valhalla will expand upon this system and maybe allow the player to completely build their own crew or bring along a recruited back-up unit?