If my second favourite thing to do in Assassin s Creed Origins is tomb raiding, my first favourite thing is travelling by eagle. Your character, Bayek, has a pet eagle called Senu which constantly follows in the sky above him, and you can possess it at pretty any time, sweeping your view up into its own. As Senu you can fly freely, ascending to extraordinary heights and roaming as far as the map allows, while Bayek waits far below.

Here s the thing. If Bayek is standing, he ll remain motionless, but if he s riding a mount and you ve set it to automatically follow the roads to a waypoint, he ll keep riding as you fly. And thus you get to experience Egypt from the best seat in the house. There are limits: you can t stray too far from Bayek, else he ll just stop. But it s remarkably free. (more…)

Weirdly, none of my favourite Assassin s Creed Origins moments so far relate to assassinating. Then again, they never really did in the previous games. Instead they re about buildings, specifically climbing them and going into them. So it s appropriate that my absolute second favourite thing to do in Assassin s Creed: Origins is tombs. (more…)

The continued clotting amalgamation of the Steam Charts, with CODWARs and AssCreed Oranges mysteriously occupying multiple spaces, is having frankly dangerous effects on the column. No The Witcher 3! No GTA V! And H1Z1 seems to have been entirely forgotten by the ages! What is a running joke to do? (more…)

My three year old rates games based on whether the character goes into water, and if they do, do they swim underneath. My personal rating systems are a little more nuanced, but it turns out that Assassin’s Creed Origins‘ swimming is so astoundingly atmospheric I’m willing to forgive it a dozen other foibles. In all of gaming, water has never felt wetter. (more…)

WAR. The men and women of the RPS podcast, the Electronic Wireless Show, are doing their part, but are you doing yours? We have shown bravery among the bullets and beaches of Call of Duty WWII, with John popping helmets in the “quite good” single player campaign, and Matt hiding in the bloodied crater of multiplayer. I’ve done sweet foxtrot alpha on the frontlines, so to make up for it I’ve invented another minigame for my fellow hosts. On top of that we’ve been horsing around (or unicorning around) in the Egypt of Assassin’s Creed Origins, appreciating our friend the eagle and taking nice photos of the ancient civilisation. Come listen. (more…)

Do you find solace through memetics? Which enormously popular game you like is also liked by lots of other people? What else might form the triangle of your desire? Cast aside your romantic delusions, and delve into the acquisitive mire that is the Steam Charts. (more…)

Good news: a new Assassin’s Creed Origins patch yesterday expanded and improved the open-world murder simulator’s Photo Mode, which is one of John’s favourite parts of the game. It also fixes a number of bugs and crashes, and supposedly improves performance a bit too – things I suppose you might be interested in. Me, I’m poring over the update with concern, trying to figure out if Ubi have fixed those wonderful glitched-out humanoid animals. Please no. (more…)

I’m having an odd time with Assassin’s Creed Origins. It is, perhaps, the most “fine” game I’ve ever played. It’s fine. It’s fine>. It’s not bad. There are bugs, but they’re not that bad. There’s… plenty to do? It is, I’ve found, one of the most bland games I’ve ever experienced. But goodness me, it lets you take a good screenshot.

I’ve found, as I’ve played the first ten or so hours, that I’ve had much more fun using the game’s photo mode than I have completing any of the quests. So I figured I’d share some of my snapshots with you. (more…)

A soft reboot four years in the making, Ubisoft Montreal’s Assassin’s Creed: Origins is one giant step back in time plus a smaller step forward in terms of world design, a stumble in terms of its levelling system, a sideways hop as regards combat and an exercise in jogging on the spot in terms of missions. This is exactly the kind of complex footwork that leads to messy accidents during parkour sequences, but somehow, the game keeps its balance throughout, though it’s not quite the revival I was hoping for.

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Several Ancient Egyptian gods had the heads of animals but a bug in Assassin’s Creed Origins turns beasts humanoid in a wonderful and terrifying other way. While we’ve already reported players bumping into bugs and crashes in Origins, none were nearly as exciting as the creatures photographed and tweeted by Tom Phillips of our corporate sibling Eurogamer. A bug can make animals appear standing on their hind legs, twisted in the human ‘T pose’ (a sort of ‘blank slate’ animation) with their necks mangled. Reminiscent of Red Dead Redemption’s human/animal glitches like the donkey lady and flapping bird woman, they replace Unity’s missing faces as my favourite Ass Creed bug. Sure, bugs can be nuisances, but we can also enjoy their absurdity; I myself was delighted by a light show in XCOM 2’s final mission.