Ubisoft have been pretty clear about what their biggest aim with Assassin’s Creed Odyssey is- to turn it into full blown action RPG, a direction that the series has been moving in gradually for some time now, but seems to be embracing fully with the upcoming sequel.
Of course, a byproduct of those ambitions is an added level of player choice in every aspect of the game. That applies to story as much as it does to combat- the customizability of the combat, in fact, is something that also seems to be one of the game’s central hooks. According to creative director Jonathan Dumont, that was, obviously, a conscious decision, since the developers wanted to enable players to play the game with the style that they’re the most comfortable with.
“You have base combat and then everything we put on top is to facilitate getting the upper hand over other NPCs,” Dumont said in an interview with GameSpot. “We also wanted that to be a player choice, so we tried to have freedom at the core of everything that we’ve added. But in this case, creating your playstyle, creating your class, we were thinking about [it] as, “How cool would it be to mix and match skills?” We wanted to allow players to say, “I want to do these four things in the game and that’s it. And that’s the way I want to play the game!””
“We were looking at it more from a customization perspective instead of trying to enforce a certain way to play the game or unlock things in a certain order,” he continued. “Invest the points where you want them but map them like you want them and create your own playstyle. Because Assassin’s Creed has been around over 10 years now, and we all play different. Some people just want to play stealth and others might want combat, so we want to make sure that your playstyle is the right playstyle for you and that the game allows you to play that way.”
The fact that Odyssey seems to be placing an equal amount of focus on ranged, melee, as well as stealth-based combat excites me greatly- I only hope it’s executed as well in the game as Ubisoft are claiming it will be. There’s also the game’s expanded naval exploration and combat mechanics, so as things stand right now, it’s certainly looking like there’s going to be plenty of variety in the gameplay.
Assassin’s Creed Odyssey launches on October 5 for the PS4, Xbox One, and PC.