If you're fond of sand dunes and salty air, interactive history lessons and non-combative fare, you might fancy Assassin's Creed Origins' Discovery Mode. But if you prefer undead mummies, Anubis-esque guards, giant scorpions and shed loads of bloody murder, I reckon The Curse of the Pharaohs DLC is more your groove. 

It's out tomorrow, and has a cinematic launch trailer. Observe:

With that, we're told to expect a new map "filled with surprises" that visits real world locales such as the temples of Karnak and Luxor. "Across the Nile, you'll find the Valley of the Kings, pitted with the plundered tombs of Egyptian royalty," Ubisoft explains. "And as he works to quell the spirits of each restless pharaoh, Bayek finds his way into their individual afterlives, which exist as big, self-contained open worlds connected to portals in their tombs." 

Shadows of the Pharaohs mark the biggest threat from the otherside—who first appear within a limited-time window; and by way of more powerful reincarnations thereafter. Ubisoft promises the ordeal to be "a challenge even for high-level players", while Bayek's level cap has been raised to 55. 

Seven new unlockable abilities await players, too. Ubi adds: "Players will also be able to acquire new outfits and gear, including rare and legendary weapons—all themed around classic Egyptian mythology."

Following a short delay, Assassin's Creed Origins' The Curse of the Pharaohs DLC is due tomorrow, March 13.

Ubisoft has dropped a new gameplay trailer for the upcoming Assassin's Creed: Origins DLC Curse of the Pharaohs, showcasing where you'll go, what you'll do, and who you'll have to deal with once the silverware starts flying. It's basically the opposite of the Discovery mode: Whereas that expansion takes players on an educational tour through the "real" Egypt of antiquity, this one is a battle against undead pharaohs, Anubis-like guards, and giant scorpions. 

"Curse of the Pharaohs' map is a vast new territory filled with surprises. There's Thebes, a massive city that boasts famous sights like the temples of Karnak and Luxor. Across the Nile, you'll find the Valley of the Kings, pitted with the plundered tombs of Egyptian royalty," Ubisoft explained. "And as he works to quell the spirits of each restless pharaoh, Bayek finds his way into their individual afterlives, which exist as big, self-contained open worlds connected to portals in their tombs." 

Enemies from the Underworld can bleed over into our own, foremost among them the Shadows of the Pharaohs, physical manifestations of dead kings who turn up now and then to go on a rampage. Players will be notified of their appearance, after which there will be a time-limited window to take them down, but they're tough—"a challenge even for high-level players"—and even after they're dispatched, they'll have to be dealt with again in the afterlife, where they're far more powerful, to be put to rest for good. 

To help him deal with that hassle, Bayek's level cap has been raised to 55, and he'll have access to seven new abilities, which will require 15 ability points to unlock.   

Unfortunately, this Curse of the Pharaohs also comes with a spot of bad news. The DLC was originally scheduled to come out on March 6, but Ubisoft said today that it won't actually be released until March 13.   

A hefty 5gb patch just dropped for Assassin’s Creed Origins, bringing with it an intriguing new mode called Discovery that turns the game into an interactive history lesson. Ubisoft’s vast, detailed recreation of Ancient Egypt is an incredible thing, and it’s great to see one of the studio's famously lavish historical settings being used for something other than parkour and acrobatic stabbing.

Discovery is completely separate from the main game, dropping you into an Egypt where all the fast travel points are unlocked and nothing can kill you. So you can stroll down by the Nile without worrying about being mauled by a crocodile, or wander into a Roman camp and not get skewered by a centurion’s pilum. It’s a mode I wish more games had, letting you experience the world without the usual open-world distractions of quests, enemies, and NPCs.

Dozens of blue icons litter the map indicating guided tours, which see you following a glowing thread between points of interest. And at each stop a narrator explains what it is you’re looking at, whether it’s a pyramid, people making bread, or lawbreakers writhing in agony on Roman crucifixes. There are a total of 75 tours to choose from, ranging from the history of mummification and the origins of the pyramids, to the secrets of the Sphinx and more conventional subjects like animal domestication, beer brewing, and religion.

It’s all incredibly interesting, and accessible for people with limited knowledge of the region and its history. But the narration is a little flat. The actors have the perfect, sterile delivery of those robotic voices that announce the next subway station. I’d have appreciated a little more humour, like the entertaining codex entries in previous Creed games. But Discovery seems to have been designed with education and teaching at least partly in mind, and this drier style is probably more appropriate in that context. It's like one of those audio tours you get in a museum, but with the added benefit of 'being' there.

There are some nice bonus features included too, like being able to choose who you play as. As well as protagonists Bayek and Aya, you can wander around as Cleopatra, Caesar, or even just a lowly, unremarkable peasant. There are some characters from the game’s present day segments too, and it’s odd seeing someone wandering around Ancient Egypt in khakis and modern hiking boots. You also have access to a mount and Senu, but no weapons. We’re here to learn.

This, plus an abundance of fast travel points, makes Discovery one of the most enjoyable ways to explore Origins’ amazing world. And with the game’s great photo mode, it’s basically like going on a virtual holiday. I played Origins for 30 hours and finished it, and I never thought I’d return. But this is such a unique way to experience the setting that I’m loving being back there again, wandering the desert, taking photos of the scenery, and filling my head with history.

All games with impressive worlds should have non-combat tourist modes. Slaughtering beasts and baddies is great fun, but I love clearing an area of enemies and then returning to their natural habitats with the luxury of peace and quiet. 

Assassin's Creed Origins adds its educational The Discovery Tour today with this in mind.  

As outlined last year, the combat-free mode will allow players to "explore the rich world of Ancient Egypt" freely, or follow the 75 themed tours developer Ubisoft has installed around the game's world. 

"With the Discovery Tour by Assassin’s Creed: Ancient Egypt, we give everyone interested in Ancient Egypt the chance to enjoy its beauty and the realisation that video games can be a source of inspiring knowledge," says the game's creative director Jean Guesdon in a statement. 

As you might expect, The Discovery Tour has a trailer. Look and learn:

"We’ve been in touch with teachers from the very first instalment of Assassin’s Creed games," explains Maxime Durand, one of Ubisoft's in-house historians. "Many of them already used the games during their History classes but soon came to realise that what they needed was an easily accessible educative tool based in our historical reconstructions.

"With the Discovery Tour by Assassin’s Creed: Ancient Egypt, you can visualise and understand thousands of things from Egyptian history in their actual context. As both a game and a learning tool, it is quite a unique asset for teachers to integrate as part of their history classes."

Assuming you already own Assassin's Creed Origins, The Discovery Tour is free as part of the game's 1.3.0 patch and is out now. If you'd like to give it whirl sans Origins itself, it's available for £15.99 standalone.  

2017 was a good year for Ubisoft, which reported a "strong rise in sales" in its third quarter report for 2017-18. Assassin's Creed: Origins is a hit, the Rainbow Six Siege Pro League is continuing to expand, and even The Division is bouncing back, although I'm not sure what "player engagement," which apparently doubled following the release of the 1.8 update, really means. In all, it added up to quarterly sales of €725 million ($891 million), easily surpassing the company's targets. 

"Our very strong third-quarter performance highlights two areas in which we have made major strides. First, our games' live operations are making steady progress. This has fueled momentum for digital and back catalog, which both hit record highs this quarter," Ubisoft CEO Yves Guillemot said. 

"Second, the increasingly recurring profile of our business has had a very positive impact on our new releases. By taking additional time to develop our games, we have been able to deliver three top-quality titles since August, including the grand return of Assassin's Creed." 

The success of AC: Origins following Ubi's decision to give the series a year off in 2016 is obviously good news for gamers who'd rather wait for a good one than get a half-assed effort on time. But what's really noteworthy, as Guillemot indicated, is the sharp increase in "player recurring investment," including sales of "digital items, DLC, season passes, subscriptions, and advertising," which leapt more than 87 percent to €318.5 million over the preceding nine months, representing 26.7 percent of total sales, compared to 20.9 percent last year. Ubisoft emphasized the value of post-launch content in an accompanying slideshow, describing it as "a major booster to profitability" that requires "much lower levels of R&D and marketing." 

That's generally similar to Activision's year end report, delivered last week, in which it noted that in-game purchases accounted for a huge portion of its total sales for the year, and that live games—"in-game services, features and content"—actually encourage player engagement, rather than pushing them away.   

Also interesting is that Ubisoft specifically cites "the PC opportunity" as a particular opportunity for future growth. Esports and streaming are obviously big drivers of engagement, but it also turns out that making "dedicated high-quality PC versions" of games leads to positive user reviews on platforms like Steam, and vastly improved overall sales: The PC accounts for 18 percent of Ubisoft sales in the 2017 fiscal, compared to just seven percent five years ago. 

Assassin's Creed: Origins is an exceptionally long video game. It took me about 60 hours to finish the bloody thing, though I enjoyed most of it. But if you've done the same and still want more, you'll probably be happy to hear that a new game plus mode is coming.

That's not really been announced as part of Ubisoft's ongoing support for the game, but a community manager confirmed it in the publisher's forums yesterday. "New Game + is coming. We'll have more information to share soon," the post reads. And that's all.

While the game will get ongoing free updates, its first premium expansion released last week in the form of The Hidden Ones. That update includes new weapons, outfits, mounts and a higher level cap, as well as new story stuff to play through. As for the free stuff, a new quest and new Heka chest goods have been added to the game recently.

The Assassin's Creed Origins expansion The Hidden Ones will go live tomorrow, taking Beyak and the gang to the Sinai to throw down with occupying Roman forces four years after the events of the main game. We covered most of what's involved last week—new weapons, outfits, and mounts, increased level cap, included with the season pass or $10 standalone—which means that now it's time to kick back, take a break, and watch the launch trailer. 

Big picture, we already know how this all works out—the Yin and Yang of Assassins and Templars dueling through the ages over the fate of humanity—but it's the journey that matters, as the saying goes, and not the destination. That's not to suggest that The Hidden Ones will tread across unfamiliar ground, but more Origins—"One of the strongest games in the series," as we said in our November 2017 review—is nothing to complain about even if it doesn't break any especially new ground. 

The launch of The Hidden Ones will correspond with some new free stuff for everyone, including a new quest for the base game, an expansion of the Heka chests item pool, and an option to sell outfits at weaver shops. Answers to more questions are available via The Hidden Ones FAQ. 

The Assassin's Creed: Origins expansion The Hidden Ones, a showdown between the new Brotherhood of Assassins and the Roman occupiers of the Sinai, will be out on January 23, Ubisoft announced today. Set four years after the events of the main game, The Hidden Ones will introduce four new Legendary weapons, new outfits and mounts, and increase the level cap to 45. 

Ubisoft confirmed in an FAQ that players will continue to roam the sands of Egypt as Bayek in The Hidden Ones, with all progress from the original game carried over into the expansion. Some supporting characters will also return, and new ones will be introduced, but the story itself will be an entirely separate affair. 

"The Sinai is mountainous region with a strong Roman military presence," the FAQ explains. "Players will witness the Roman occupation as they discover many well-guarded Roman military camps, harbors, and construction sites where Romans are taking apart Egyptian monuments. This steep region will offer many new opportunities for parkour and traversal gameplay, as well as challenging fights." 

The Hidden Ones is included in the Assassin's Creed: Origins season pass and will also be available for standalone purchase for $10.

Ubisoft also announced the release date and pricing for the second expansion, an investigation into an ancient curse plaguing Thebes called Curse of the Pharaohs, which will be out on March 6 and go for $20 for players who don't have the season pass, and the "combat-free living museum" Discovery Tour, which will arrive between the expansions: It's coming on February 20, free for all owners of the game or $20 as a standalone purchase for everyone else.  

With every Steam sale, our piles of shame grow to new, unsurmountable heights. If you've got a job or a family or some other responsibility, chances are your allocated gaming time is limited. Games can demand a lot of us, these days—whether it's an overload of sidequests, backtracking, repeat playthroughs to see every ending of a story, or because you're playing a multiplayer game with progression in mind.

Here, the UK team discusses whether games are too bloated, and where we draw the line with what we consider good value content versus filler. We'd love to hear your thoughts in the comments below, too. 

Long journeys ahead

Samuel Roberts: Over the holiday, I finished Nier: Automata, capping off the fifth optional ending after 41 hours of total play. That game was mostly fantastic, but it also felt too long to me. It made me repeat the same story beats in a slightly exhausting second playthrough, which shed some new light on the characters but not enough to justify the hours invested. It finally ended properly with a mostly-great third playthrough, after which I had no desire to go back and mop the sidequests I'd missed. 

At this point, I'd seen the same grey boxes and washed out greenery that make up its world so many times. I then looked at the other games I'm yet to finish from 2017: Divinity, Shadow of War, Assassin's Creed Origins, which are all pretty lengthy as well. Many of our favourite games are long as heck, now. Some of them earn it, but others don't. 

Taking something like Arkane's Prey, which I mostly enjoyed, I felt like the last third of the game sent me back-and-forth to the same locations for the sake of it—which wore down the magic of its excellent setting for me. Shadow of War, meanwhile, is a game we called out specifically for being bloated. I wonder if our readers feel this way, that games longer than 20 hours can be more intimidating than exciting. Thoughts?

Andy Kelly: I don't mind if a game is bloated, as long as it's fat with interesting things to do and not just obvious filler. Shadow of War's problem is that the distractions that litter its map, whether it's revealing Shelob's memories or purifying Haedir towers, all boil down to following an icon on a map and pressing a button to interact with it. It's design like this that makes a game feel like a checklist, rather than a collection of fun things you feel compelled to do. Watch Dogs 2, on the other hand, features some really fun, unpredictable side quests that I enjoyed as much as the main game, which I wrote about here.

Phil Savage: Yeah, the best open world games don't feel bloated, just full of options. But the line between meaningful diversion and tiresome padding can be fuzzy. Shadow of War was the latter for me. I played through the opening area—a small, mini sandbox that offers a small sampling of its sidequests and structure—and couldn't bring myself to continue when I was faced with that but on a much larger scale. Seeing the size of the full map just made me feel tired. I quit out and uninstalled it soon after. 

Mandatory sidequests—we can live without them

Andy: Although I loved Assassin’s Creed Origins, it's guilty of a particularly egregious example of padding. Whenever I finished a story mission, eager to tackle the next one, I'd hit a brick wall. The mission would be two or three levels higher than me, forcing me to complete side quests to get to the appropriate level. Which would be fine if 80% of these quests weren't dull and repetitive. I lost count of how many people I didn't care about that I had to rescue from caves and bandit camps. It's a stain on an otherwise superb game, and really tested my patience towards the end. It took me 28 hours to finish Origins, and I'm sure at least eight of those were spent completing side quests against my will.

Samuel: Assassin's Creed is an interesting one, in that I feel almost trained to ignore the majority of the series' side content—ever since those collectable feathers in the original game. Would it have been a great loss to make the level gating leaner in Origins and lose that extra eight hours, leaving it to the player to decide if they're worth it? I don't necessarily think so. 

Phil: My only hesitance in criticising this stuff is it must appeal to someone, and that someone is essentially me 15 years ago. I used to scour RPGs like Baldur's Gate for every scrap of story, and 100%'d Grand Theft Autos III, Vice City and San Andreas. I even collected those damn feathers in Assassin's Creed II. It wasn't because I enjoyed collectibles—I didn't—but that I wasn't ready to leave these cool worlds. I felt compelled to stay until everything was done. Since then I got a job, and realised there were more games than I could theoretically play in a lifetime—both things that have made me more discerning with how I spend my time. But I recognise that even collectibles, as pointless as they usually are, can add value for some.

Samuel: Thing is, I played both San Andreas and GTA III before I had a full-time job and I still didn't 100% complete them. I played them until I'd seen the credits, then just messed around in the open world until I felt done. I accept collecting the hidden packages has value for some people, but as a player, I feel like I've become pretty savvy about breaking down the higher value and lower value content in a game. I know the difference between a sidequest that starts with a cutscene and a three-minute race that's slightly too tricky to be enjoyable. And for me, it doesn't matter how much I love the world of a game—it still has to give me slightly more back in reward (the entertainment value of what I'm playing) than it's asking in time investment.

To offer a slightly different example, this week I thought I'd start one of Obsidian's two recent RPGs, which I've been considering for a while. According to my favourite games utility site, How Long To Beat, Pillars of Eternity comes in at 36 hours to beat the main quest line, while Tyranny comes in at 23 hours. Knowing that, I started Tyranny—it's unlikely I'll ever get through both, and even if our reviewers preferred Pillars, I'd rather start something where I know I'll see the ending. That 13 hours is potentially a whole other game I could complete. 

Good sidequests vs bad sidequests

Tom Senior: I agree with Phil to the extent that I remember enjoying sidequests and working towards secrets in games like Final Fantasy VII. Finding Vincent, breeding gold chocobos, fighting the weapons—that stuff didn’t feel like second-tier content. Sidequests and secondary activities in a lot of current open world games feel like an afterthought by comparison, and I think that’s because, in open world games, technology has outpaced design for years. Game engines can do huge, beautiful worlds, but we don't exactly know how to fill them with interesting activities. 

There are exceptions, obviously, like Skyrim and The Witcher 3, and on consoles last year Zelda: Breath of the Wild and Horizon Zero Dawn. All of these games are full of fun, meaningful side activities that, crucially, don't delay your movement on the critical path. Assassin's Creed Origins' levelling system forces you to engage with the busywork to progress, which is the worst.

There are two big honking problem games I'd pick out: Mass Effect Andromeda and Dragon Age: Inquisition. The critical paths in both games are exciting, full of twists, drama, the stuff that BioWare is good at and known for. The open world side missions were drivel that got in the way and stopped you getting at the best parts of the game. Those games, and Shadow of War, define 'bloat' for me, though at least there is a point to Shadow of War having an open world. I reckon Inquisition and Andromeda could have been great relatively linear rollercoaster single player RPGs.

The Witcher 3 did it best, obviously

Samuel: I can see why open world seemed like the right route for both of those BioWare games. Dragon Age got to show you what felt like its whole world for the first time rather than just snapshots (and it's incredibly impressive to look at), and Mass Effect hadn't really done big explorable planets since the original game. But it's hard to dispute that one reason Mass Effects 2 and 3 were so great is that the busywork was kept to an absolute minimum. Pretty much all of the sidequest content was story-driven. Everyone remembers their favourite loyalty quest(s) from Mass Effect 2.  

That's one solution, then—linear games are totally okay by us, even if some publishers have seemingly convinced themselves otherwise. And open world games can be long, but that scale shouldn't ever get in the player's way. The more of these games that exist in the market, though, the less attention we can conceivably pay to each one—and the less likely we are to try and do everything. Sidequest design is more important now than ever. 

Tom: Statistically, looking at achievements, you can see that not many people ever finish games. Games seem more determined to tire us out than to leave us wanting more. Every hour you're spending in a game is an hour you're not spending with one of the game's competitors, and the games-as-service trend allows games to become platforms for microtransactions that can generate long-term revenue. 

Basically, there are incentives for big-budget games to be massive, but luckily smaller developers are able to create small games that don’t need to meet those big business aims. I wonder if there’s a space halfway for games with big beautiful worlds, minus the giant to-do lists. LA Noire and Shadow of the Colossus spring to mind, focused games that use its open world to create a mood rather than burden us with fetch quests and endless resource collection exercises. I think games are gradually getting better at this, though. The Witcher 3 showed that sidequests can be rich, self-contained short stories that don’t feel like filler. I hope to see more of that sort of thing as open worlds continue to get bigger with each passing year.

The first DLC for Assassin's Creed Origins (our vote for best open world game of 2017) is due out this month. Called The Hidden Ones, the expansion will add a new region to the already massive Egypt map, and today Ubisoft announced a few extras that will arrive alongside it:

• A new quest to celebrate the arrival of the first expansion, The Hidden Ones
• Update to the Heka chests item pool, which adds the items from the Nightmare and First Civilization packs, as well as the Gladiator and Wacky packs to the pool
• A new option to sell outfits at weaver shops

That's the free stuff. As for the expansion itself, which is included in the Season Pass (I don't yet see a price listed to buy it alone), it features Bayek fighting the Romans in the new map region as part of events that take place years after the story of Origins. The level cap will jump from 40 to 45, leaving you room to become an even more deadly assassin.

Players will also get another chance this month to fight Anubis (January 9-16) and Sobek (January 23-30) as the Trials of the Gods event returns.

The Hidden Ones will be followed up by the second DLC in March, called The Curse of the Pharaohs, in which Bayek will take on "famed Egyptian monsters."