Title: Assassin’s Creed Odyssey

Format: PC, PS4, Xbox One

Price: $59.99

Developer/Publisher: Ubisoft

ESRB Rating: M (Mature 17+)

Release Date: October 5, 2018

The Grade: A –

AC Odyssey Haiku Review

Ancient Greece awaits

  You choose your own adventure

Sparta kick? Oh yeah!

What is it? Set in ancient Greece, players will take on the role of either Alexios or Kassandra, two Spartan warriors in this action adventure game. Your journey starts on the island of Kephallonia where you’ll get acclimated to your beautiful, yet dangerous surroundings.


The Good: “Odyssey” is all about giving players choices. This starts at the beginning of the game. Players have a number of decisions to make right away. Do you want to go with a Guided Mode (the traditional play style) or an Exploration Mode where you gather clues from conversations to figure out what your next steps will be? Will you choose to be Alexios or Kassandra? While the dialogue is pretty much the same for both, the delivery is different.

That feeling of choice extends to your gear and weapons, as well as your abilities (which you can reset) and combat style. Ability and combat wheels offer a wide range of options so you can customize the strengths of your character to match your personal play style. The first ability I unlocked was the Sparta Kick. If, like me, you’ve been longing to yell, “This is Sparta!” while kicking an enemy off a cliff, you can do that in “Odyssey.”

While choices abound, the most impactful consequences for your decisions are in the plot line of your character. There are three major story arcs for whoever you choose to play as, and how those stories turn out all depends on your actions and a dialogue tree. Sometimes the consequences of your decisions are minor. For example, if after a battle you let someone live, they may come back to fight you later, at an inopportune time. In other instances, your decisions can open up new quests and even decide which ending your character will receive. With nine (9!) different endings, “Assassin’s Creed Odyssey” plays out like a Choose Your Own Adventure story. Even if you and some friends are playing the game at the same time, you could have quite different experiences.

Intertwined with all these choices is classic “Assassin’s Creed” combat, adventure and excitement. Set sail on the seas, take on challenging foes, spend important time building relationships with NPCs and travel across a vast, open world. And what a beautiful world it is. Draw distances, terrain and environments all look impressive. “Assassin’s Creed Odyssey” is absolutely stunning, with an impressive attention to detail. I spent about 10 minutes appreciate the sides of my boat, which had imperfections along the wood. The sides even had different degrees of dampness depending how close to the water the wooden boards were. Those little details really make a difference.

The Bad: Ancient Greece is stunning but aside from Alexios and Kassandra, characters in the game don’t match up to the environments. I found this a bit distracting, especially because you’ll talk to more NPCs than normal for an “Assassin’s Creed” title. Eventually, they all started to look similar.

A bit more disappointing is “Odyssey” is missing something I really loved from “Assassin’s Creed Origins” – the Discovery Tour. This educational mode, where players could free roam around ancient Egypt to learn more about the country and the culture through guided tours, was incredible. Sadly, no such mode exists in “Odyssey.” Considering the setting, this feels like a missed opportunity.

The Grade: “Origins” was probably my favorite game of the “Assassin’s Creed” series, but “Odyssey” makes a strong case for the top spot. A lovely world full of vibrant, colorful characters and endless options that actually matter makes “Assassin’s Creed Odyssey” a blast to play.



Gazette Media Columnist Terry Terrones is a veteran video game journalist. He has written for numerous publications including GamePro, GamesBeat, PC World, GameZone, and Official Xbox Magazine. You can follow him on Twitter at twitter.com/terryterrones.