The past few years haven’t been great for Assassins Creed games. Many had claimed that Ubisoft was finished after the disaster that was Assassins Creed Unity. It seemed that the games were beyond their glory days and much like Call of Duty, the series had become a quick cash grab. However, Ubisoft has done an impressive job of turning it around thanks to a series of back to back excellent games.
After AC Unity, expectations were fairly low. AC Syndicate was a pleasant surprise which was followed up by AC Origins. Both games were decent and by the looks of it, Ubisoft now knows what they want to do with their Assassins Creed games. They’ve gone further down the route of making a more RPG-styled game with an even bigger game world.
There’s a lot more territory to explore this time, which has been a recurring theme in the past few AC games. The freedom brought by dialogue choices are great which really helps in delivering the unique feel to your play through. Improvements have also been made to the game’s existing structure, making Assassins Creed Odyssey a wonderful game. You can read the full review here.
There are a ton of new mechanics and changes made to the game which can be confusing for newcomers and older players too. A lot has changed, and one can get lost or confused easily. Here are a few tips and recommendations to get the most out of the Assassins Creed Odyssey experience:
Side Quests you DON’T want to miss
There are all types of people with it comes to Assassins Creed games. Some people play just for the story, some play for the lore and narrative, some people play it for the free roam and gameplay while some are completionists. Although everyone has their own style, if you’re someone who skips side quests to finish the main story, then you’re missing out.
From serious and action-packed to lighthearted and funny, the side quests in Odyssey have it all. However, there are so many side quests in the game that you might even get lost in them and never come back into the main story. Some are worth your time more than others.
To get things started, there are two types of side missions. The ones indicated by gold and black diamonds on the map are the more important side quests. These are always worth it, they’re amazing to play. Other side quests usually consist of completing a simple task which feels more like a chore at times than an actual side quest. These are indicated by the white and black diamond markers on the map. They can even be accessed through the message/bounty boards.
Not all side missions are made equal. Some, even the smaller white and black diamond ones can be fun. For example, there’s a side mission in which you have to defend a philosopher. However, that’s rare, and most of the time you’ll just be traveling long distances just to talk to an NPC. Therefore, it’s best to skip the smaller quests altogether unless you find something interesting. The larger side quests are the more interesting ones, so definitely complete those.
Don’t forget to sell your stuff
As is the case with many RPG games, you tend to get more items the more you play. That’s the nature of RPGs which is why people come back for more, to get that one piece they always wanted. This is true for Odyssey too as you can pick up a lot of different weapon and armor pieces as you play the game. However, sometimes people forget that you can actually break that stuff down or even sell it!
Throughout the course of the game, you’ll come across many useless items or weapons or armor, that’s just in the nature of an RPG game. However, they’re not THAT useless when you think about it. You can break them down for resources or visit merchants in order to sell them for a reasonable amount. With the resources and money, you can do other things like purchase better gear.
You’ll also come across goods in the game that you’ll never use. Be sure to get rid of those as soon as you can so you can get money for better things. Once you get a new weapon, dismantle or sell your previous one unless you tend to use it further down the line. Dismantling and selling your items is really helpful in the long run.
Weapons and Armor
Assassins Creed Odyssey continues where previous games left off in terms of weapons and armor which are even more important than they used to be. Different gear pieces have different stats and they contribute to your overall personal look. In order to be more efficient against enemies and higher difficulty areas, you’ll need the best gear you can possibly get.
How does one get good gear? One way is to complete the side quests as mentioned above. You can also target your side quests according to this as each quest shows the types of rewards you can earn. So, you do the ones which give weapons and armor first and you’ll end up making the rest of the game much easier for yourself. Another way to earn gear is through mercenaries.
The mercenaries menu offers a pretty detailed description of the type of gear you can get from each mercenary. Therefore, you can simply see which mercenary has the weapon/armor you want the most and then track them. This is perhaps the easiest and most reliable way to find something specific in this game. For randomized loot drops, you can do conquest battles which will drop a random piece of Epic Loot.
Earning weapons and armor is one way to be more effective against higher level enemies. However, if you like a certain piece of equipment then you don’t necessarily have to part ways with it. You can take your gear to the blacksmith and upgrade it to your current level. This is a great way to keep the gear you acquire early on in the game and it also means players have a bit more freedom when it comes to choosing their gear. Weapons and armor can be enhanced further through engravings, which we’ll talk about in more detail below.
Engravings
The great thing about gear in this game is that you’re allowed to have preferences. You might like one piece so you can upgrade as mentioned above. However, in order to take the piece to a whole new level, that’s where engravings come in.
How to find engravings? Well, if you’ve played Assassins Creed Origins then you’ll find that acquiring engravings involves something similar to that game. In Odyssey, can be found from puzzle tablets that contain riddles on them. This is similar to the Papyrus puzzles in Assassins Creed Origins. You get new engravings by following clues to the treasure.
Once you get engravings, don’t use them just yet. They can be upgraded even further which means you can make your gear even more powerful if you wait. Upgrade the engravings as much as you can to maximize their potential. How to upgrade? It’s pretty straightforward. You upgrade by completing an associated goal or challenge with the puzzle activity you do to get them. Therefore, always keep an eye out for those so you can upgrade your engravings.
The one good thing about engravings is that they don’t go to waste. If you used an engraving on a piece of armor and later, you find another piece of armor you like more. Then, you can simply swap the engravings over to new gear without a problem. However, it does come at a small cost but it’s doable.
Abilities
Your player’s abilities are really important in this game. This is something that was not there in AC Origins. In Odyssey, you get different skill trees for the three different types of assassins, the hunter, the warrior, and the assassin. Each skill tree is different as it focuses on the strengths of each type. For example, the assassin’s tree will be more inclined towards stealth whereas the warrior’s tree would be more combat-based.
You start off with 8 slots to equip abilities, four melees and four ranged. Abilities can be equipped and swapped in this game which is nice. What abilities should you equip? That’s completely up to your style of play but here are a few suggestions to make your life easier.
There are many enemies that have shields in this game and they can get really annoying. In order to deal with them, the shield breaker ability is a great thing to have. The ability rips off their shield and lets you inflict damage to them with it. Another great ability to have is the Hero Strike ability. This boosts your attack up which helps against enemies high in health. Enemies such as captains or enemies with a large amount of health, in general, get easily taken down thanks to Hero Strike. The ability uses the damage statistics that are usually present in assassin attacks which are highly effective.
The skills described above are all good if you like a good fight. However, if you’re more of a stealth person then Rush assassination is the skill for you. It’s ridiculous and awesome at the same time. With rush assassination, you throw a spear and teleport next to where you aimed it. It’s quite handy for going from one place to another as quietly as possible.
Critical assassination is another great ability. It allows you to assassinate high-level enemies which you usually aren’t able to. That’s thanks to the damage buff you get with the ability. The last ability is perhaps the most fun out all the ones described here. The Spartan Kick is exactly what you expect. Go towards an enemy at the edge of a cliff or wall and spartan kick them all the way down. It’s a really cool looking and fun ability to have. It also makes for some really nice clips to show off to your friends.