Assassin’s Creed Origins manages to live up to the expectation that the preview event gave me. I dubbed it “near perfect” after that event, and the final product does not disappoint. A few pacing issues late in the story caused things to drag a little bit, and the loot system doesn’t remain intriguing after the first few hours, but finding a complaint beyond that is difficult. You can nitpick some of the graphical hiccups or complain about repetitive side quests, but even those manage to stay fun and interesting with all of the different styles of play. On a day with two other heavy hitting AAA games and an amazing TV show releasing simultaneously, your time and money are going to be precious commodities. With Game of the Year talks coming up, Assassin’s Creed Origins is a serious contender for the title in my book.

For those of you who were suffering from franchise fatigue, Assassin’s Creed Origins should cure your ailment. Ubisoft’s increased development time for the game brought a gigantic open-world full of stories, exciting battles, and a loot system that have you exploring for dozens of hours.

Ubisoft Montreal managed to make Egypt not only beautiful, but extremely atmospheric. When you’re admiring the city and a mounted patrol rushes past you, you always get that urge to step aside to avoid getting trampled, even though you know you can eviscerate them all in a blink of an eye. [Issue#225, p.32]

Assassin's Creed: Origins marks a new beginning for the series as this open-world prequel successfully merges the old and new. While not perfect, the result is still a deeply satisfying Egyptian playground that will revitalize your love for a series that was starting to fall by the wayside.

Naturally, once you've beaten the main quests you can continue exploring the world, and the biggest compliment I can give Origins is that I'd much rather be playing it than writing about it. It's a got a dazzling and beautiful setting, lots of enjoyable systems for mischief and mayhem, and has just the right amount of diversions and distractions to keep you busy without ever feeling like busywork. The extra year Ubisoft took with Origins didn't result in a completely new and novel experience, but it did provide one of the best games in the Assassin's Creed series.

This killer holiday in Egypt is definitely no boring. On the contrary, it is a pleasant excursion to the times, when the sphinx had a nose, and mysterious killers did not call themselves assassins. You cannot find a nicer version of an Ancient Egypt in any other game, and up to it it’s entertaining. A modest family story affects the whole empire at the end, and you will forgive a handful of bugs to its charismatic heroes, as well as the fact, that you have played the same pattern so many times, just in another scenery.

Why not think of Assassin’s Creed: Origins as a lovely and chill sightseer sim? It only took about forty hours of game tax to get here, but you’ve earned it.