Assassin’s Creed: Origins hasn’t even been officially announced yet and we know practically everything there is to know about the game. It’s not even funny- there’s been a gazillion leaks. And now we have another one, and quite a hefty one, too.

We already know about the Game Informer leak, and it came with a great deal of new info- you can check it out here. But there’s a lot more info in that Game Informer article that we haven’t covered earlier, so here’s all of it now- the most interesting parts, anyway. Firstly, the leak says that the game will take place in the Ptolemaic era, which, to be fair, we all roughly knew for sure anyway. Some of the most important stuff the leak reveals, though, is the fact that the game’s protagonist will start out in his 30s as a Medjay (“a sheriff type character”) and will ultimately end up becoming the founder of the Assassins’ Brotherhood- it’ll be interesting to see how that is done in context of the series’ lore.

Players will now also be able to equip two bows and two melee weapons at once, while the game also makes it possibly to simply use your character’s fists as a weapon once again. Oh, and you can also fire two arrows at the same time. You can read all the details here, on NeoGAF. Meanwhile, we’ll be bringing you all new updates – if they haven’t been leaked already – from E3 so stay tuned to GamingBolt.

Assassin’s Creed Origins may not even have been officially announced by Ubisoft yet, but thanks to a number of leaks in the past few weeks, we know a great deal about the game already. Most notably, we know that it is set in ancient Egypt, going the farthest back in time that the Assassin’s Creed series has ever gone.

Obviously, it promises to be a very different Assassin’s Creed game- that means that the protagonist is going to be quite different too. And as per another leak, it looks like that is exactly right.

A picture of a t-shirt provided to GameStop for retailer promotion and merchandising has been leaked, and it shows the protagonist of the game in full view. He can be see holding a bow and a shield, similar to earlier pictures that show him holding a shield and a spear. The picture also reveals his name- Ba Yek. You can take a look at the image below.

Ubisoft are bound to officially confirm a great deal if information on Assassin’s Creed: Origins at E3 next week, including the game’s release date, so stay tuned to GamingBolt for more updates.

The new Assassin’s Creed is bound to be officially announced soon, and while there’s been no announcements by Ubisoft yet other than the one that confirmed its existence (which didn’t need announcing, to be honest), we do still know a great deal about the game, thanks to a number of leaks. The one thing we hope it does away with more than most, though, is also incidentally the one thing that has been a constant fixture in most modern Ubisoft games- especially Assassin’s Creed. And that is incredibly cluttered maps.

Sure, side quests and collectible quests and other similar quests do add a great deal of replay value and value for money to a lot of games, but in Assassin’s Creed, they seem to go a bit overboard. Maps in Assassin’s Creed games are cluttered with literally hundreds of icons for all manners of side quests- so much so that often it almost looks intimidating, or just plain annoying. Look at a game like The Witcher 3, which had a great deal of side content on offer, but was never aggressive in promoting it- it was always on the back burner, and fans could tackle it at whatever pace they were comfortable with. And best of all, it all tied into the main narrative of the game excellently.

We’re not asking for something exactly like that, but Assassin’s Creed Origins does need to do away with a lot of that clutter, most of which probably arises from the typical Ubisoft map towers gameplay structure (which we won’t get into right now- that’s an entirely more detailed topic/issue). Thankfully, it does seem like Ubisoft are taking this criticism to heart. First and foremost, there have been a lot of details the the game’s map is going to take cues from titles such as Skyrim and The Witcher 3, while other reports state that towers will not be making a return in the game.

What’s more, Ashraf Ismail, who was the director of Assassin’s Creed IV: Black Flag and is also probably working in the same capacity on Origins (or whatever it is going to be called), recently liked a post on Twitter that seemed to suggest that Assassin’s Creed needs to do away with its trademark map clutter (you can take a look at the tweet at the bottom of this post).

All things seem to point toward the fact that this will no longer be a problem for the series going forward. We can only hope that that turns out to be true.

Please, just don't do this again. @UbisoftMTL @ubisoft @AshrafAIsmail pic.twitter.com/9GhTnDi7l9

— Hype Your Games (@HypeYourGames) May 16, 2017

While Assassin’s Creed games have long been a combination of open world and a story driven narrative, it appears Ubisoft is looking to include much less of the narrative approach in its upcoming games, including the still coming Assassin’s Creed game that we’ll see in 2017.

This little tidbit came from a larger interview with Ubisoft’s Serge Hascoët through LeMonde, a French website. The interview was translated by a Neogaf user and the pertinent details were then pulled out of that interview. In the interview, the company laid out the game will be more about smaller location based stories, rather than a larger narrative.

The translation states that: “Ubisoft would traditionally make open world games where they had a specific pre-laid narrative/cinematic experience in mind that the player would then go through. Think Assassin’s Creed 2 where you’re sent through a series of hub cities and hit the same plot points and set piece as everyone else, and even though you had options, your core experience would be pretty similar. Ubisoft notes that the first game that will really showcase this new approach to open world game design is the next Assassin’s Creed title.”

Ubisoft is basically implying that their games “will be more about things like vignettes and area stories than the overarching narrative. Or, put another way, there will still be dialog and cutscenes in their games, but they’ll be more localized to what you’re doing currently.”

“We’re putting less narrative in our games (especially the type present in Assassin’s Creed 2), and instead focusing on player stories, believable worlds, and emergent character interaction. We want games with things players want to share, and to allow them to play their way. We’re doing this because of both ourselves and market trends. See the next Assassin’s Creed for the first major example of this.”

This approach is still being refined but we’re seeing at least a little bit of that approach in Watch Dogs 2. The company said in the interview that it will be used even more in the next Assassin’s Creed game . Of course, just when we’ll see this new approach play out is anybody’s guess.