Ubisoft’s latest invokes a titan of Western literature.
![Assassin's Creed Odyssey](https://magarticles.magzter.com/articles/5196/302348/5ba4835a6c8f8/Assassins-Creed-Odyssey.jpg)
How might this year’s Assassin’s Creed play if it wasn’t just named after Homer’s Odyssey, but modelled on it? For starters, it would probably forgo the open world genre’s usual rhythms of acquisition and conquest. The Odyssey is, after all, the account of a refugee, returning by sea in the aftermath of a ruinous war. Rather than letting you climb every mountain you see, a game based on this story might make a virtue of impotence, asking you to endure the whims of spiteful gods, beg shelter from wary rulers and use cunning rather than force to overcome monstrous creatures. It would trade the average open world’s glut of navigational aids for a meditation on alienation and forgetfulness: when Odysseus finally arrives at his home island he no longer recognises it, and can only wander the shoreline in despair.
With its bustling map screen, abundance of gear categories, unlockable supermoves and many prizefights with gorgons and chimeras, Assassin’s Creed: Odyssey is not this game and nor does it pretend to be. But as narrative director Mel MacCoubrey explains, the developer’s readings of Homer alongside other ancient Greek authors have shaped Odyssey’s world, as the 20th Assassin’s Creed continues its predecessor’s push into the roleplaying genre. “We did a lot of research into Oedipus Rex, the Odyssey, crazy stuff like Lysistrata – all of these amazing Greek texts,” she recalls. “We looked at which of them would be structurally sound for an open world, and how we could mix the structure of an ancient epic and a Greek tragedy into one, and that very much influenced who the protagonists then became – they’re brought from tragedy into this big world experience, and you see it all through their eyes for the first time.”
Diese Geschichte stammt aus der November 2018-Ausgabe von Edge.
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Diese Geschichte stammt aus der November 2018-Ausgabe von Edge.
Starten Sie Ihre 7-tägige kostenlose Testversion von Magzter GOLD, um auf Tausende kuratierte Premium-Storys sowie über 8.000 Zeitschriften und Zeitungen zuzugreifen.
Bereits Abonnent? Anmelden
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Bulwark: Falconeer Chronicles
Anyone familiar with the concept of kitbashing is already halfway to understanding what Tomas Sala’s open-world builder is all about.
![Children Of The Sun](https://reseuro.magzter.com/100x125/articles/5196/1670775/GS2fLPwVu1713446045236/CHILDREN-OF-THE-SUN.jpg)
Children Of The Sun
René Rother’s acrid revenge thriller – an action game with its limbs broken and forcibly rearranged into the shape of a spatial puzzler – is at once a bonafide original and an unlikely throwback. Cast your eyes right and you wouldn’t blink if we told you this was a forgotten Grasshopper Manufacture game from the early PS3 era (we won’t be at all surprised if this finds a spot on Suda51’s end-of-year list).
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Post Script
What does Rise Of The Ronin say for PS5 exclusivity?
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Rise Of The Ronin
Falling in battle simply switches control to the next person up, and then quick revive fixes everything
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Post Script
The pawn and the pandemic
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Dragon's Dogma 2
The road from Vernworth to Bakbattahl is scenic but arduous. Ignore the dawdling mobs of goblins, and duck beneath the chanting harpies that circle on the currents overhead, and even moving at a hurried clip it is impossible for a party of four to complete the journey by nightfall.
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BLUE MANCHU
How enforced early retirement eventually led Jonathan Chey back to System Shock
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THE MAKING 0F.... AMERICAN ARCADIA
How a contrast of perspectives added extra layers to a side-scrolling platform game
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COMING IN TO LAND
The creator of Spelunky, plus a super-group of indie developers, have spent the best part of a decade making 50 games. Has the journey been worth it?
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VOID SOLS
This abstract indie Soulslike has some bright ideas