Warning: This guide contains major spoilers for Assassin's Creed Odyssey.

What would a romp through ancient Greece be without bumping into every chapter in your old college Greek Mythology textbook? The Gates of Atlantis quest line in Assassin's Creed Odyssey starts out as a hunt for four ancient relics. As you track them down, you realize that all four relics are personally guarded by a different mythological legend: the Sphinx, the Cyclops, the Minotaur, and Medusa. Each legend comes down to a very different style of boss fight, and they're pretty impressive, too.

They can be really hard to find, though. Looking for unexplored question marks on your map isn't going to do it, as most of these legends only come at the end of long chains of seemingly unrelated quests. Here's where to find all four famous Greek myths and beat them.

1. The Sphinx, level 35 

Location: Border between Scorched Rolling Plains and Lake Kopais, Central Boetia.

The first boss fight in this series is not a boss fight at all. It's a boss riddle. A boss debate? You find an old temple with the characteristic black stone of the Isu ruins and a large Sphinx statue in the center. After you help a local archaeologist find his assistant('s corpse) and retrieve an artifact, you can use the artifact to wake the Sphinx after nightfall.

Talking to the Sphinx is a series of riddles, of course, though none of them are too hard because you only have so many dialogue choices to choose from. Keep a little notepad where you jot down your one-word answers ("tree" and "time", for example). After you answer all of the riddles, the Sphinx invites you to walk around the room activating glyphs that match your answers. When you've lit up all the glyphs, the Sphinx screams and dies, and you get the first artifact needed to open the gates of Atlantis.

2. The Cyclops, level 35 

Sidequest name: A God Among MenQuest Location: Border between Pilgrim Hill and Aphrodite's Watch, on the road to the Murex dying facility, Kythera Island.

A lumpy statue on the edge of town starts the quest to eventually find the Cyclops. On the northwest side of Kythera Town is a questgiver marked on your map. The quest is called A God Among Men, and it starts with an acolyte's request: Bust his god out of jail. Gods aren't typically jailable, but this lunatic with a messiah complex apparently is.

After you get the god, named Empedokles, out of jail, he'll ask you to beat up the guard who threw him in jail. When you do, you'll retrieve a disk that opens an old Isu ruin. Give Empedokles a high-five and sail north, up to the Isle of Thisvi in the sea bordered by Phokis, Boeotia, Megaris, and Achaia. When you meet Empedokles there, he'll use the disk you retrieved to open the Isu ruins and come eye to eye with the Cyclops.

The Cyclops is big and slow, and one of the most effective ways of beating him is to dodge between his legs. Lighting him on fire is useful over time, and keep a steady stream of arrows shooting at his eye. If you get a hit, he'll crumple to the ground for a minute and give you plenty of free hits.

When you bring him down to half health, the Cylcops will get fed up and grab a nearby support beam to use as a club. This destabilizes the entire cave, so chunks of ceiling will fall on you if you stand still for even a moment. Keep moving and shooting him in the eye.

3. The Minotaur, level 40 

Sidequest name: Of Minotaurs and MenLocation: Center of Minos's Legacy, Central Messara, West side of the Messara/Pephka Island.

Lato, a small town in Minotaur Hills, is populated entirely by hucksters and scam artists trying to rip off tourists and sell Minotaur-themed junk. They worship the minotaur in the same way that Parisians worship the Eiffel Tower: it looks really good on a T-shirt. Just over a ridge to the west, though, is a quiet palace ruin that hides the real deal. Head to the Knossos Palace ruins in Minos's Legacy, and find a child trying to find his lost dad.

Helping the kid will open up the Of Minotaurs and Men set of quests, which will have you running errands all over Messara. Eventually, you'll get ahold of key to the Minotaur's labyrinth of legend. The labyrinth isn't a confusing maze, luckily, so you can work your way into it until you meet the Mooing Menace.

Like the Cyclops, the Minotaur is a big aggressive brute you can easily defeat by dodging his attacks and chipping away at him in the brief openings between his combos. The best strategy is to continually circle to one side and attack his rear, as the Minotaur has a hard time keeping up. The Minotaur's deadliest attack is a charge that you can see coming from a mile away. When he winds up, try and put yourself just in front of one of the walls or pillars in the room. If he charges into it, the Minotaur will be stunned and you can get some easy hits in.

4. Medusa, level 50

Sidequest name: Romancing the Stone GardenLocation: Town of Eresos, Southwest coast of Petrified Valley, Lesbos Island.

Tracking down Medusa, a legendary Gorgon, starts in Eresos on the far northeast island of Lesbos. Look for a questgiver named Bryce, who will start you on a series of missions all over Lesbos and nearby Chios. These quests and the area are high-level, end-game stuff, so don't try to crack them before you get to level 50. Doing some other quests along the way, namely the Goddess's Hunt quest from the Daughters of Artemis, will also help a lot with all of the trouble you'll find in the region. Eventually you'll find your way back to the Petrified Temple, which will open up to let you fight Medusa.

The Medusa fight is the hardest battle in all of Assassin's Creed Odyssey. When the battle begins, Medusa will envelope herself in a shield and summon several petrified warriors to assist her. All the while, she'll be calling down powerful magic bolts and trying to petrify you with her deadly gaze. It's a lot to deal with. At the start of the fight, you'll notice several stone pillars scattered across the room. These are what you'll want to put between you and Medusa to stop her laser-like gaze from petrifying you, which will slow your movement and attack speed significantly and kill you if you linger in the beam for too long.

Head to one of these pillars and let Medusa's petrified soldiers come to you. Defeat them while dodging the magic bolts from above and keeping the pillar between you and Medusa to avoid her gaze. Once all the soldiers are dead, Medusa's shield will dissipate and she'll be stunned. Run to her and unleash your more powerful combo.

At this point, Medusa will begin teleporting around the room and swapping between her magic bolts and her petrifying gaze. Each time she teleports, find her and make note of which ability she is casting (the build up is different for each one). If she's using her gaze, take cover behind a pillar. If she's casting magic bolts, run straight at her and attack. When you get close, beware because Medusa has two extra attacks that she'll occasionally use. One is a massive explosion that you can dodge simply by backing away from her, the other is a grab attack that you'll need to watch for and perfectly dodge to avoid taking damage.

Repeat the process of chasing her around the room, dodging her gaze and magic bolts while attacking, until Medusa shields herself and summons more stone soldiers. Like the first time, find a pillar to hide behind while killing them off. This process will repeat several times until Medusa is dead. All in all, the fight can take up to ten minutes—so be prepared and take it slow.

After defeating Medusa, you'll have the fourth and final artifact needed to open the gates of Atlantis.

Assassin's Creed has always flirted with the boundary between history, fantasy, and sci-fi. In Assassin's Creed Odyssey, the blurred lines between genres is most apparent in the Daughters of Artemis questline. In central Phokis, a priestess at the Temple of Artemis tells you about eight animals that wander the world even though they'd fit in better in the realm of myth and legend. Hunting down all eight and returning trophies to the priestess grants you a blessing from the goddess herself—and a lot of amazing legendary items.

Many of the animals are high-level, meaning you don't have a hope of beating them until many hours in to the game. Finding them is also an issue: All eight of these beasts are huge, dangerous monsters living at the far corners of the Greek world.

These fights can be relatively easy if you're prepared, though. For each one, we recommend using the abilities Second Wind, so you can heal; Venomous or Flaming Attacks, for extra damage and mitigation; and Overpower Attacks while using a sword or dagger. When fighting animals, Overpower Attacks doesn't initiate a combo but instead unleashes one insanely powerful attack that also heals you. It's extremely effective in all of these fights.

In a rough order from lowest level to highest level, here are all of Odyssey's fantastic beasts and how to kill them.

1. Kalydonian Boar, level 20 

Location: Northwest edge of Sacred Lands of Apollo, Northwest Phokis

The Kalydonian Boar is a really, really big pig. Before you can start the proper questline, Daphnae will require you to kill this one first. Unfortunately, he's a real pain in the ass even if you're a few levels above him. Luckily, he's also nearby—about 400 meters due west of the temple, at the top of a cliff.

Beating the Kalydonian Boar isn't easy—especially at such a low level when you have few abilities to use in combat. As soon as you approach its den, the boar will automatically spot you and begin charging, so make sure you're prepared ahead of the fight by equipping the right abilities. It's worthwhile to spend the drachmae respeccing your abilities to favor all-out combat, as there's no opportunity for stealth or ranged attacks during the fight.

To start, unlock Second Wind, which you'll need to heal yourself when you inevitably get gored on one of his tusks. I also highly recommend getting Venomous Attacks, which will weaken the boar's damage and armor while also applying some extra damage over time. Vanish can help you later in the fight if you start getting overwhelmed and need a few seconds to breathe. You can assign the rest of your ability points to your liking, depending on your level. If you're far enough along, Overpower Attacks with a sword or dagger will unleash its damage all at once instead of initiating a long combo sequence and it will heal you. It's a powerful ability that you should use in each of these fights.

The Kalydonian Boar favors strong, straight-line charges that you'll need to dodge. The best strategy here is to dodge often and avoid the front of the animal. If you can get behind it, you'll only have to worry about its 180 degree swipe attack that doesn't do any damage but will stagger you. Otherwise, stick to its sides and chip away at its health while avoiding its side-lunge attack.

When the Kalydonian Boar's health drops to three quarters, it'll run from you and keep its distance. At this point, a swarm of angry boars will take the field and you'll have to kill them all while keeping your distance from the Kalydonian Boar. This is where Vanish comes in handy, but you can also perfect dodges to slow time and create openings to take each mini-boar down one at a time. Using a bow can also be effective if you kite the monsters, get some distance, and unleash some quick headshots to thin the herd. Once the last one is dead, the Kalydonian Boar will return to the fight and the process will repeat. 

2. The Hind of Keryneia, level 25 

Location: Marsh just south of the center of Artemision Point, Northwest Euboea

Hope it's deer season in Greece, because the Hind of Keryneia is an enormous deer with golden hooves and a massive rack of gold antlers. Unlike the Kalydonian Boar, she doesn't get any help from her fellow deer—deer are famous pacifists, after all. Still, the Hind of Keryneia can be a tricky hunt. She's quick to charge, and she'll lower her head to swing her antlers at you in a pretty unpredictable way.

This fight is thankfully much easier and all you really need to do is stick to the hind's sides and hack away while dodging her attacks. From this angle, the worst she can do is stagger you with a blow that you can quickly roll out of. If you stand still and she gets close, she'll also slam her antlers down over you, pinning you to the ground underneath an angry, golden cage. If you dodge that attack, however, her antlers will get stuck in the marshy earth, giving you some precious moments to unleash hell.

Again, I recommend having Second Wind, Venomous Attacks or Flaming Attacks, and Overpower Attacks while using a sword or dagger to unleash a single, incredibly powerful strike. 

3. The Nemean Lion, level 25 

Location: Central Sinkholes of Herakles, South Argolis

Strutting around like a huge stone statue come to life, the Nemean Lion is a dead ringer for the carved lions guarding temples and palaces all across Greece. Unlike those statues, the Nemean Lion is hungry and he's coming for your face.

Before the fight begins, circle around the sinkholes until you're up on a ledge overlooking the arena where the Nemean Lion prowls. You'll notice several lionesses who you absolutely don't want to fight at the same time. Fortunately, with the right bow skills (namely Predator Shot) you can kill each one of them easily. Because you're high up on a ledge, they can't reach you and are easy prey.

Once you've killed the lionesses, jump into the pit to tackle the Nemean Lion. Unlike a lot of the animals on this list, you'll probably have some practice fighting lions. The Nemean Lion follows the same fighting pattern as ordinary wild lions you might anger in the wild—he just hits a lot harder. There's not much strategy here other than to stay on your toes and focus on dodging over doing damage.

4. The Kretan Bull, level 33 

Location: Western Fertile Battleground, South Messara

The legendary father of the minotaur, the Kretan Bull can be found in a lonely mountain-top clearing. You should be pretty used to dodging out of the way of charging animals by now, but with the Kretan Bull it's probably the most important to avoid those initial charges. Though he can do some damage throwing his horns around, his charge does the most damage. Also look out for him when he starts bucking and jumping around like a rodeo bull—there's no safe way to attack him while he's doing this, so just stand back and let it play out.

Unlike other animals in this guide, the Kretan Bull can deliver a deadly kick if you're directly behind him. The trick is to stick to his sides and jump in to attack in the precious second-long window after he charges.

5. The Lykaon Wolf, level 36 

Location: Northwest corner of Dioskouroi Peninsula, Southeast Lakonia

Ever since he was an extra in that flashback scene from 300, the Lykaon Wolf has had a big ego. To be fair, he probably deserves it—he's one of the toughest hunts on this list. In an abandoned farm near a cliff, the Lykaon Wolf leads a large wolfpack that you'll have to fight through to get to him. Even worse, if you give the Lykaon Wolf a chance to step back and breathe, he'll howl and summon even more friendly wolves to help him.

It's tempting to focus all of your energy on the Lykaon Wolf to take him out, but after a couple of minutes I found myself surrounded by more than two dozen wolves. Try to thin out the attacking wolves at least a little as he calls them. One effective way of doing this is by using a spear or staff because each has sweeping, area-of-effect attacks that'll hit any wolf that gets too close. Pair that with Venomous or Flaming Attacks and you should be able to trigger their respective debuff on the wolfpack pretty easily.

By this point, you should have Overpower Attacks, which is invaluable in this fight. With so many enemies coming for you, dodging and attacking them will rack up absurd amounts of adrenaline which will let you use this ability to thin the pack and top up your health at the same time. 

6. Kallisto the Bear, level 37 

Location: Southeast Golden Fields, Northeast Arkadia

Bears are scary, but this one actually isn't. Kallisto is all on her own, which means you just have to focus on bringing her down while avoiding her fatal attacks. But at this point, you should have some powerful weapons and armor and a good amount of ability points to keep you in the fight without much trouble.

Chances are you've fought a bear already, and Kallisto doesn't have any special tricks up her sleeve. Similar to the rest of these animals, stick to its sides and rear and unleash hell. Kallisto's attacks are slow and easy to dodge, so this fight should be an easy one.

7. The Erymanthian Boar, level 38 

Location: West Erymanthos Foothills, North Central Elis

What's with boars being so damn hard to kill in Odyssey? The Erymanthian Boar is one of the toughest fights in this questline due to his tendency to—I kid you not—fart toxic clouds of gas that will poison and quickly kill you.

You won't have to worry about any extra boars joining the battle, so the trick here is to avoid the Erymanthian Boar's attacks and try to stay on its rump to avoid its tusks. Eventually, though, the boar will do a kind of sideways charge and trip over itself, that's your cue to back up and move to a new part of the arena. Just as it hits the ground, it'll fart out a big cloud of toxic gas that'll linger in the area for up to a minute. Move the fight to another part of the arena and repeat this process until it's dead.

8. The Krokottas Hyena, level 39 

Location: South Central Skandeia Bay, South Kythera Island

Despite being the highest level beast on this list, the Krokottas Hyena is another pushover you should have no problem defeating when you're the appropriate level. The biggest thing to know is that this beast is incredible agile, so I highly recommend using a dagger or sword in this fight due to their faster attack combos.

Relying on the usual abilities (Second Wind, Venomous or Flaming Attacks, Overpower Attacks with a sword/dagger), you shouldn't have much of an issue. At a certain point, the Krokottas Hyena will begin leaping around the arena, and it covers such a large distance in each bound that it'll frequently disable the lock-on camera if you're using it. During these moments, you want to try and track the beast manually as best as you can, dodging each lunge as best you can. Really, there's not much more to it than that.

Assassin's Creed Odyssey asks you to collect a lot of stuff. Money, friends, and sailors are just the start of it: There's also wood, leather, iron, glass, and a few other essentials needed to upgrade your gear and your ship. Then there's Orichalcum, a special glowing ore that one, and only one, merchant accepts for payment. The good news is, this one merchant has a store full of seriously awesome stuff. His name is Oikos of the Olympians and he can be found near the docks of Pilgrim's Landing in Phokis (don't worry, the main quest takes you there pretty quickly).

Like Xur from Destiny 2, Oikos carries a rotating stock of rare and powerful armors and weapons that can be purchased using Orichalcum. He also has a loot box which contains a mystery item but also has a chance of netting you one of the premium cosmetic items from the in-game microtransaction store. Once you've finally beaten the entirety of the Odyssey campaign, finding Orichalcum and buying stuff from Oikos will be one of the few reasons to play each week.

How to earn Orichalcum 

Daily contracts (10 Orichalcum) and Weekly contracts (40 Orichalcum)

To start earning Orichalcum, head to any message board. There's one of these in every town at the base of a statue of Hermes (the messenger of the gods), and there's also a message board on the main mast of your ship. Orichalcum quests are set on timers, and two quests refresh daily and one more complicated quest pops up weekly. Looking through the list of lost goats and blood feuds against local bandits, find the quest marked by a swirly blue symbol.

The quest itself will be pretty normal and appear to be randomly generated just for these daily events. My quest, To Save a Mockingbird, was a call for help from a writer. Ugh, writers. Nothing but trouble. I found the writer on an isolated cliffside. She wrote a poem mocking a local man for having a small penis, and now he's coming with friends to kill her.

Here's where things get weird: Orichalcum quests appear to be more prone to bugs than other quests. Maybe it's because they're put together just for these events, or maybe I had a string of bad luck. But after I killed the angry dudes, the writer pegged me as hostile and started to run away. I ended up chasing her all over the island before I got close enough to trigger a totally normal conversation: "Ah, thanks for taking care of those men. Here's your pay. I certainly haven't been running away from you for several minutes."

Each daily quest completed earns you 10 Orichalcum, and a completed weekly quests earns you 40 Orichalcum.

Finding Orichalcum deposits while exploring

If you've completed all your contracts for the day, there are also hundreds of individual Orichalcum deposits out in the world. But good luck finding any. In around 45 hours of play, I've only come across three individual chunks of Orichalcum, and they were just sitting on random mountainsides like any other iron ore deposit, only glowing blue.

Fortunately, there's a simple way to highlight them all on the map. The in-game microtransaction store sells a map for just under $10 USD that'll mark every Orichalcum deposit on your map. Paying for that is for suckers, though, so instead take a look at this guide by Hold to Reset. They bought the map and took pictures of each zone so you can just reference that instead of coughing up your hard-earned cash. 

What to buy with Orichalcum 

There's exactly one man in all of Greece that accepts Orichalcum for payment: Oikos of the Olympians. Oikos has a small tent near the docks in Kirrha, a town in Pilgrim's Landing, the central region of Phokis. Phokis is the first nation on the first landmass you come to after leaving Kephallonia, so it's likely you've already been there. On your map, Oikos is marked by the same blue squiggle symbol you saw on the quest listing.

Oikos only has a couple of things to offer, but like the quests his stock changes weekly. Each week he'll offer three epic (purple) items and one legendary (orange) item. Picking out an individual item costs between 40 and 100 Orichalcum, with the legendary ones being the most expensive. A mystery loot box—sorry, I mean Olympian Gift—is cheaper at only 20 Orichalcum, but it's random whether you get something you want or not. The one thing that makes these lootboxes desirable is that there is also a small chance to earn one of the cosmetic items sold only in the microtransaction store. So if you don't want to cough up extra cash to ride Pegasus into battle (and who could blame you), this is the only way to get those cosmetics for free.

If you do decide to save your ore for another day, you can keep track of your total on the map screen, just to the right of your current gold amounts. Again, look for the blue squiggle—but this time, it's carved on the front of a glowing rock.

Take a stroll through any one of Assassin's Creed Odyssey's city streets and you'll be within a stone's throw of a penis. That's probably true for any city, sure, but Ubisoft's vivid recreation of ancient Greece doesn't censor the artistic expression of that era. Its cities and temples are adorned with studly marble statues of naked men letting their business hang out for all the world to see. Hell, even the backwater island of Kephalonnia sits in the shadow of one such godly weiner.

Though Odyssey often reuses these same statues across its various locales, I've toured from Macedonia to Pephka looking for every notable donger I can find for one sole purpose: rating them from best to worst.

Warning: In case it wasn't obvious, this article contains a lot of penises.

And if you want a closer look, click the icon in the top-right corner of each image.

 11.

Score: 10/100

I've seen a lot of penises in my lifetime, but this one is by far the worst. The artistry here is laughably bad: There's barely any definition, and this poor soul appears to be lacking gonads—a crucial component of any johnson. Considering this particular statue is found on every major temple in the Mediterranean, this crude, anatomically insufficient penis is a horrific disappointment that the entire Greek world should feel embarrassed about.

10.

Score: 15/100

It's fitting that this statue can be found right next to the previous one, because together they form the most disappointing pair of wangs in the Aegean Sea. This statue gets a few extra points, though, because the detail is slightly more pronounced. But why is it so pointy? You could cut yourself on that thing if you weren't careful. And again, I ask, where are the testicles? It's a shame too, because this guy's stance does a great job of drawing your eye to the prize, but anyone who gazes upon this willy is anything but a winner. 

9.

Score: 40/100

This warrior stands slightly above his nearby competition only because his package is anatomically correct. There's still a lot to be desired, though, and the lack of detail makes this dink look like Beaker's nose. Despite having a complete package, this dong is still fatally underwhelming—no wonder that other statue is trying to put him out of his misery. 

8.

Score: 42/100

While this competition is fundamentally about just the artistry in these statued ding-a-lings, this one gets some extra points for creativity. The fact that this guy has two snakes for legs but still possesses a human penis leaves me with a lot of questions, and I cannot help but think there must be some kind of statement to be made when considering the contrast between the two. Unfortunately, this statue still loses a lot of marks because the most impressive snake on your body should never be your legs. 

7.

Score: 48/100

Okay seriously, what the hell was up with Greek artists and their obsession with snake legs? Why are we idolizing these people that suffer from what is very obviously a horrific condition? Just so we're clear, I'm not giving bonus points because there is two of them, but even I have to admit there's a nice bit of detail here—particularly in the shape of the scrotum.

6.

Score: 64/100

This statue makes it clear that Poseidon was pretty insecure about his body. The enormity of his trident makes his other spear seem a little underwhelming, despite still being the size of a car. Still, who am I to judge? It's anatomically correct and even features a little pubic hair without making the whole thing look ghastly. But if you're working with this much material, is it too much to ask to spend a little extra time adding definition instead of just smashing phallic clumps of bronze together and calling it a day? 

5.

Score: 68/100

Fortunately, this other statue of Poseidon is much better. His scrotum is properly shaped and I also think the use of stone over bronze was a great choice since it really enhances the ruggedness of Poseidon's physique and his trident doesn't overshadow what matters here: The giant stone dong of a god.

4.

Score: 70/100

Finally! A respectable penis! This statue, found in the Sanctuary of Delphi, isn't extraordinary by any means but it wins points for detail, size, and for being anatomically correct. Here, we can see the artist actually attempted to carve out some pubic hair. I appreciate the extra effort, but the end result is something that resembles Medusa's hair. It's kind of off-putting to say the least. At the end of the day, though, the detail on the foreskin is undeniably impressive. 

This statue also gets bonus points because, nearby, I found a tranquil garden circumscribed by dozens of the same statue. It's the perfect place to enjoy some lovely conversation. 

3.

Score: 76/100

I respect the effort here. Technically this guy has everything you could want in a penis but the way it's arranged is dreadful. I'm torn, honestly, because in setting out on this adventure I wanted to showcase the most glorious penises (penii?) of the Greek world. This penis isn't glorious, but I can't help but feel like that was the artist's intent all along. Instead of standing triumphantly with his business hanging out for all the world to see, he's hunched over, almost concealing it from onlookers. It's subversive and controversial. I like it. I like it a lot. 

2.

Score: 88/100

By Zeus' beard, would you look at that thing? Size normally doesn't matter, but in this case this penis is so large it deserves extra points. What sets this dick apart from the others is its functionality—this is the only penis in the Mediterranean that I can hang off of. And, even better, you can find it within the first five minutes of starting the game. Even though the statue is crudely carved out of stone there's still an impressive level of detail. I mean, just look at how the foreskin is shaped. At the end of the day, this dong stands head and shoulders above the rest. It's enormous, well-made, and the fact that you can dangle from it like some kind of adults-only Cirque du Soleil performer makes it one of the most impressive pieces of junk in all the Greek world.

1.

Score: 95/100

I'm giving this penis our Editor's Choice Award and I think it's obvious why. Despite not being as large as other penises on this list, the artistry here is exquisite. For one, this is the only naked man-statue I found that was properly painted, which gives the whole thing a very lifelike appearance. I also respect that the artist even colored the pubic hair, even if the actual carving of it isn't the most detailed. Sometimes less is more. What really counts, however, is the immaculate shape of the testicles along with the subtle definition of the shaft. The best thing I can say about this is that, yup, that sure looks like a penis.

Making a game that has steep hardware requirements isn't normally a good way to sell lots of copies, but with each release Ubisoft manages to make Assassin's Creed even more demanding. Assassin's Creed Odyssey is the latest in a long string dating back to 2007, and the eleventh 'primary' game in the series—and that's not counting numerous console-only releases and spinoffs for mobile platforms. The last couple of games have made some welcome improvements to the series, however, and easily rank as some of the better installments.

That's the good news. The bad news? Odyssey is easily one of the most demanding games to come out this year. You'll need a potent graphics card to have any hope of breaking 60fps at 1080p high or above, and if you're hoping to max out a 144Hz gaming panel, you can pretty much forget about that. Even at 1080p low, running on the fastest CPU and GPU currently available, I came up a bit short of that mark, with inconsistent framerates helping to mar the experience. Fire up the game on a modest midrange PC with a GTX 1060 or RX 580 and you'll be dropping down to medium/high settings just to get close to 60fps.

You also need a potent CPU this round if you're after high framerates, though many CPUs can hit 60fps. 1080p low typically needs more than a 4-core/8-thread CPU to hit triple digits, while only the i7-8700K and i9-9900K can break 100fps at 1080p high (and that's only with an RTX 2080 Ti).

But don't let those numbers scare you off, as 60fps certainly isn't required to enjoy embarking on this Odyssey, and even medium quality (or high with a few judicious tweaks) at 1080p gets pretty close to a stable 60fps on popular hardware like the GTX 970 and above. We've also got some results using extreme budget graphics solutions, like Intel's HD Graphics 630. You're not going to get pretty visuals out of Odyssey at anything close to reasonable framerates, but it's still sort of possible to play the game.

Let's talk features quickly. Assassin's Creed Odyssey offers up most of the things we like to see, and the only missing link is mod support. A few reshade mods exist, along with some other minor tweaks, but with no official mod support you shouldn't expect a wide variety of game-altering tweaks.

Besides that omission, the game runs fine in widescreen, ultrawide, and even doublewide aspect ratios—as well as everything else I tried. You can adjust the FOV, though the range is limited to 85-115 percent. Keymappings and buttons are fully customizable, controllers work fine (though I prefer mouse and keyboard), and if you want to run with a locked framerate, that's supported—along with fully unlocked framerates.

Why would you want to run with a locked framerate? Because unless you have a G-Sync or FreeSync setup, Assassin's Creed Odyssey has inconsistent framerates that can cause microstuttering. I noticed this at launch and hoped patches and updated drivers would smooth things out. So far, that hasn't happened, which means even though average framerates may be okay, minimum framerates can fluctuate quite a bit. If you're bothered by microstutter, consider locking the framerate to see if that helps.

Assassin's Creed Odyssey system requirements

Here's what Ubisoft lists as the minimum and recommended system requirements for Assassin's Creed Odyssey.

MINIMUM – 720p low 30fpsOS: Windows 7/8.1/10 (64-bit only)Processor: Intel Core i5-2400 (4C/4T 3.1-3.4GHz) or AMD FX-6300 (6C/6T 3.5-3.8GHz)Memory: 8GB RAMGraphics card: Nvidia GeForce GTX 660 or AMD Radeon R9 285 (2GB VRAM)DirectX: Version 11Storage: 46GB available space

RECOMMENDED – 1080p high 30fpsOS: Windows 7/8.1/10 (64-bit only)Processor: Intel Core i7-3770 (4C/8T 3.4-3.9GHz), AMD FX-8350 (8C/8T 4.0-4.2GHz), or AMD Ryzen 5 1400 (4C/8T 3.2-3.4GHz)Memory: 8GB RAMGraphics card: Nvidia GeForce GTX 970 or AMD Radeon R9 290 (4GB VRAM)DirectX: Version 11Storage: 46GB available space

RECOMMENDED 4K – 4k high 30fpsOS: Windows 10 (64-bit only)Processor: Intel Core i7-7700 (4C/8T 4.2-4.5GHz) or AMD Ryzen 7 1700X (8C/16T 3.4-3.8GHz)Memory: 16GB RAMGraphics card: AMD Vega 64, NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1080 (8GB VRAM)DirectX: Version 11Storage: 46GB available space

It's telling—and honestly sad—that so many major publishers continue to push 30fps at "recommended" settings on PC. As a minimum threshold, sure, I get that, but I strongly recommend aiming for 60fps, or at least closer to 45fps, if you want an optimal gaming experience in Assassin's Creed Odyssey. I do appreciate that Ubisoft doesn't suggest the latest CPUs and GPUs are required for the minimum settings at least, and you can certainly go below the above recommendations if you want. But in general, you'll want a fairly capable gaming PC to handle Odyssey.

Assassin's Creed Odyssey settings overview

Assassin's Creed Odyssey offers up 14 graphics settings, along with five presets (low, low, medium, high, very high, and ultra), plus other display elements like resolution, FOV, and aspect ratio. The list seems pretty comprehensive, but as I've seen with many other games of late, many of the settings cause almost no change in performance, at least on the hardware I tested. In fact, there's only one setting that will boost performance about 20-25 percent relative to the ultra preset, and a few more that can give a 2-5 percent increase.

The game includes a built-in benchmark that provides a good idea of real-world performance based on my testing. I ran the full test for each setting using the ultra preset, but with the setting in question on minimum. Odyssey does carry AMD Radeon/Ryzen branding, but it doesn't appear to matter much, as Nvidia GPUs tend to hold a substantial lead over their AMD counterparts.

Here's the short summary of settings and how they affect performance, using two midrange GPUs, the AMD RX 580 8GB and the Nvidia GTX 1060 6GB. These are running on an otherwise high-end PC (Core i7-8700K—see boxout below), but the GPU is the primary bottleneck with these cards at 1080p.

It's worth noting that Assassin's Creed Odyssey will use up to around 6GB of VRAM at maximum quality (the ultra preset), and slightly more at higher resolutions. You can basically double performance on the 1060 6GB and RX 580 8GB by dropping from ultra to low quality, and cards with 4GB or less VRAM should stick with the high preset for textures, or performance takes a dive.

Let's quickly go through the individual settings. There's a caveat here, and it's that the combined settings (via the presets) apparently have a greater impact than any single setting change. If you run the 1060 6GB at the low preset as an example, it's twice as fast as the ultra preset. But benchmarking with the 14 individual settings at minimum and calculating their product only gives a theoretical 60 percent improvement.

The 580 is similar, with the low preset running nearly twice as fast, but the product of the individual settings suggests only a 35 percent potential improvement. It's probably a bug, but just be warned that fine tuning the settings may not work quite as expected.

Anti-Aliasing (<1 percent): There's no indication what form of AA is used, but based on the negligible performance hit it's safe to assume it's either FXAA or a lightweight form of TAA.

Shadows (5 percent): Affects the quality of shadow maps, including soft shadows and the distance at which shadows become visible.

Environment Details (3 percent): Improves the quality of the environment. Lowering this setting can make pop-in of higher quality models very apparent, so I recommend leaving this turned up if possible.

Environment Texture Detail (<2 percent): Uses higher resolution textures for the environment, which requires more VRAM, though 6GB is enough for ultra.

Terrain (1 percent): Adjusts terrain details, including LOD scaling. Doesn't appear to affect performance much if at all.

Clutter (2 percent): Increases the amount of 'clutter'—more grass clumps, small rocks, etc.

Fog (3 percent): Adjusts the amount of fog, which also affects things like god rays.

Water (-3 percent?): This is supposed to affect the detail of water, but turning it down consistently improved performance on both the test GPUs.

Screen Space Reflections (4 percent): Changes the quality of screen space reflections on wet surfaces and reflective objects.

Volumetric Clouds (20-25 percent): The single big setting that causes the biggest drop in performance, this only affects the quality of the sky and clouds. The clouds do look nice, but you can turn this down without missing out on too much.

Character Texture Detail (1 percent): Uses higher resolution textures for characters, which requires more VRAM. Not quite as demanding as increasing environment texture quality, however.

Character (<1 percent): Adjusts the detail level on characters, with a minimal impact on performance.

Ambient Occlusion (4 percent): Adjusts self-shadowing of objects, but there appears to be a bug with AMD as turning this down reduced performance (though the AO shadows did go away).

Depth of Field (1 percent): Enabling this causes distant areas to appear slightly blurry, while setting it to off makes all areas in focus. Another minimal drop in performance.

Assassin's Creed Odyssey requires a restart for most settings changes, and the dynamic weather makes it hard to capture meaningful comparison screenshots. The weather—specifically, the clouds and sunlight—can also impact performance quite a bit, even in the built-in benchmark.

One of the patches disabled the potential for rain during the benchmark sequence, which helped, but heavier cloud cover still causes a 5-10 percent dip in performance. For all of the benchmarks, I ran them multiple times (sometimes five or more!) just to get a sunny day where performance was 'optimal.' Also, because of the above oddities with tweaking individual settings—the RX 580 performance drops when turning down several options—I stuck with using the presets for the remainder of testing.

MSI provided all the hardware for this testing, including the latest GeForce RTX cards. All of the GPUs come with modest factory overclocks, which in most cases improve performance by around 5 percent over the reference models.

My primary testbed uses the MSI Z390 MEG Godlike motherboard with an overclocked Core i7-8700K processor, and 16GB of DDR4-3200 CL14 memory from G.Skill. I've also added results using other Intel CPUs (running stock clocks), like the Core i9-9900K and Core i5-8400. Ryzen processors use the MSI X470 Gaming M7 AC, also with DDR4-3200 CL14 RAM. The game is run from a Samsung 860 Evo 4TB SATA SSD on desktops, and from the NVMe OS drive on the laptops.

I’m using the latest Nvidia 417.22 and AMD 18.12.1.1 drivers. Considering the game has been out for over two months now, optimizations have had plenty of time to appear, though in general performance hasn't changed much since launch—including unreasonable amounts of microstutter. And despite being an AMD promoted game, Nvidia's cards generally take down their AMD equivalents.

I'm using an Acer Predator X27 display for testing, which includes support for 4k at 144Hz, G-Sync, and HDR output. I've disabled G-Sync for testing, and some older cards don't support all those features, in which case they're run in standard 4k 60Hz mode without HDR. Note that screenshots and videos are captured using the non-HDR mode, as HDR content looks muted on non-HDR displays.

Assassin's Creed Odyssey graphics card benchmarks

For the graphics card benchmarks, I'm using the fastest CPU I have—an overclocked Core i7-8700K running at 5.0GHz. This is to show the maximum possible performance of each GPU, whereas running with a slower CPU in some cases would reduce the gap. I've also run tests with a Core i9-9900K, which is basically the same level of performance. Look down to the CPU testing below and you can see how various CPUs stack up, but in general you'll want at least a 6-core processor to hit the sweet spot with Assassin's Creed Odyssey. Here's how the various graphics cards handle Assassin's Creed Odyssey.

Let's just skip straight to the big bad Hades of Athens, 4k ultra. Can anything hope to run the game at such settings? Well, yes, but not at 60fps. The RTX 2080 Ti takes top honors, naturally, with an average framerate of 54fps. Drop down to high quality and you'll get about a 50 percent boost to performance, which means breaking 60fps is certainly within reach. But even minimum quality won't quite double performance at 4k for most GPUs, which means only the RTX 2070 and above can hit 60fps at this resolution.

It's interesting to see that the GeForce RTX cards in general have a better showing here than in other games, with the 2070 in particular nearly matching the GTX 1080 Ti. 4k also places more of an emphasis on memory bandwidth, which certainly helps the RTX and Vega cards, and in general this is as close as AMD GPUs come to matching or beating their Nvidia counterparts.

1440p ultra allows several cards to break 60fps averages, but we're still looking at only the top-tier $700 and above models, and even then you might want to tweak a few settings to smooth out the sub-60 dips. 1440p high quality generally allows the Vega 56 and above to break 60fps, but cards below that mark aren't likely to provide a stable 60+ fps even at 1440p low.

Even 1080p ultra remains too demanding for many GPUs, with the GTX 1080 being the minimum required to average 60fps in the benchmark sequence. And for the record, there are many areas in the game where performance will dip below these averages (and others where it will be substantially higher), so keep that in mind. Also notice that compared to 1440p ultra, a lot of GPUs don't seem to gain much, indicating geometry or other bottlenecks are present.  Most GPUs see just 30-40 percent higher performance, whereas in other games 50 percent improvements are typical. In other words, Assassin's Creed Odyssey is good at pushing your hardware to its limits.

If you have a good but not extreme graphics card, like a GTX 1070 or similar, I'd suggest aiming for 1080p very high as a better target for smooth performance, or maybe even the high preset. Visually, there's not much difference between the very high and ultra presets, but very high runs about 20-30 percent faster (more on GPUs with less than 6GB VRAM). The drop from very high to high quality is a bit more noticeable, thanks mostly to the increased pop-in you'll see (set Environment Details to max quality if you want to keep pop-in to a minimum), but performance also improves another 10 percent on average.

Even medium and low quality still look pretty good at 1080p, without any resolution modifier. The RX 570 and above break 60fps at last, but quite a few cards—including budget offerings like the GTX 1050 and RX 560—come up short. Assassin's Creed Odyssey can still be played at 20-30 fps in a pinch, but you really want at least 40fps in my opinion to keep things from bogging down.

But what about integrated graphics solutions like Intel's HD Graphics 630 and AMD's Vega 11? 1080p at low quality isn't really viable on either one, though AMD makes a better go at it with a 25fps average. Dropping to 720p gets the Ryzen 5 2400G / Vega 11 into 30fps territory (with periodic dips well below that mark), but Intel struggles to even break into the teens. But there's still hope!

Assassin's Creed Odyssey supports a resolution modifier, which can be set as low as 50 percent within the game. That's still not enough for the HD 630, but you can choose pretty much any fraction you want if you edit the ACOdyssey.ini file in the Documents\Assassin's Creed Odyssey folder and change the PixelDensity setting. I decided to try running with a 25 percent resolution modifier (0.2500), so rendering the game world at 360x180, and then scaling that up to 1280x720.

Thankfully the text and UI overlays still run at 720p, so you can read what's going on, but visuals are rough—really rough. And even at 25 percent, the Intel HD 630 plunks along at a still unacceptable 18fps. It's sort of cool to see it in action, though! (If you want to see the same test on the Vega 11, I did that as well and averaged 46fps.) And you can go even lower if you want, though figuring out what's happening at 10 percent scaling (128x72) is admittedly tough. Those jumbled pixels might be a doorway, a wall, or an enemy—only one way to find out! It's like playing Assassin's Creed Odyssey on some serious psychedelics. Or a crazy sort of reshade mod.

One final note is that while I was technically able to get the game running on Intel's HD Graphics 630 at nearly 20fps, doing so required using a very low rendering resolution, and even with the tweaked INI the game wasn't stable—I routinely crash to the desktop if I try to play using Intel's latest drivers. I'm not sure if it's just my testbed or the new drivers, or if such problems exist in general, but do yourself a favor and don't try playing it on a standard Intel GPU, at least not until the dedicated models arrive next year. Maybe the Iris models do better, or just about any other reasonable GPU should be able to handle 30fps 720p.

Assassin's Creed Odyssey CPU performance

For CPU testing, I've switched to the RTX 2080 Ti this round—it's extremely expensive, but I wanted to see the maximum difference between the various CPUs. Running with a slower graphics card will reduce the performance gap quite a bit—or if you prefer, look at the CPU 4k ultra chart to get an idea of how a midrange GPU like a GTX 1060 would perform at 1080p using the very high preset.

At 1080p, up through the very high preset, the Intel Core i7 and Core i9 results can be up to 20 percent faster than a high-end Ryzen 2700X or 2600X processor. They're also about 20 percent faster than the Core i5-8400. But that's only when we do our best to remove the GPU as a bottleneck.

Even with the 2080 Ti, 1080p ultra starts to hit GPU limitations, and by 1440p with just about any other graphics chip, the CPUs would look about the same. 4k ultra shows modest differences in minimum framerate, and the Ryzen 5 2400G still falls off the pace a bit—possibly the x8 PCIe link is limiting performance, or maybe something else. Anyway, the 2400G is faster than i3-8300 at the other settings but falls behind at 4k.

More critical than the average framerates are the minimum framerates, with the quad-core CPUs struggling to stay consistently above 60fps even at 1080p medium. If you're not hellbent on maintaining 60fps it's not much of an issue—Steven reviewed Odyssey using a GTX 970 running at 40-50 fps and still found plenty to love—but don't expect to run a lot of background tests if you're using an older and/or slower CPU. 6-core processors are definitely recommended for this game.

Assassin's Creed Odyssey notebook performance

Shifting over to laptops, the CPU bottlenecks show up once more—and this time we're looking at far more modest GPUs. We have the mobile non-Max-Q GTX 1060 6GB, 1070, and 1080, with the 1060 and 1070 using a previous gen i7-7700HQ while the 1080 notebook has an i7-7820HK. Power use ends up limiting CPU clocks on the 7700HQ quite a bit, leading to a larger performance gap. Our desktop results use the overclocked i7-8700K CPU, which at times can mean a 25-35 percent clockspeed advantage, plus two additional cores.

At 1080p low, the faster desktop CPU allows a GTX 1060 to outpace every single laptop I tested, even though the GT73VR sports a much beefier GTX 1080. The desktop CPU also allows delivers better performance with a 1060 than the mobile 1070, all the way through the very high preset—though at 1080p ultra the charts finally line up as we'd normally expect given the GPU clockspeeds.

All three laptops use 7th Gen 4-core/8-thread CPUs, and I'm curious if the newer 6-core 8th Gen mobile parts would do better. I don't currently have any of those available for testing, unfortunately.

Looking just at the laptops and their individual framerates, the GS63VR only gets a relatively consistent 60fps at minimum quality, still with dips well below that mark thanks to the CPU. The mobile 1070 can mostly handle 1080p medium at 60fps, while the mobile 1080 goes all the way to 1080p very high. Not surprisingly given the earlier desktop results, none of the laptops can do a steady 60fps at 1080p ultra.

Assassin's Creed Odyssey is a great game, but set your performance expectations appropriately low

Thanks once again to MSI for providing the hardware for testing. These results were collected in early December 2018, with the latest graphics drivers available at the time (Nvidia 417.22 and AMD 18.12.1.1—the 18.12.2.1 Adrenalin 2019 drivers arrived after testing was complete). Assassin's Creed Odyssey is also running the latest 1.1.1 update, with the First Blade DLC installed. Each setting was tested at least three times, using the highest result, in an attempt to minimize variance caused by the dynamic weather system.

The level of detail in Assassin's Creed Odyssey is certainly impressive, but I do wonder if the modest improvements are worth the cost. Assassin's Creed Origins also looked very nice, and while 4k ultra was still asking a lot of any graphics card (the 1080 Ti only managed 50fps), in general performance of Origins is about 30-35 percent higher than Odyssey. And let's be clear: Origins was already tough to get running at 60fps, with a 1060 6GB averaging 56fps at 1080p ultra.

Assassin's Creed Odyssey ends up being one of the most demanding games of 2018, at least if you're trying to run it at maximum quality. However, it's still playable on far more modest rigs, provided you're willing to lower the resolution and graphics settings.

Assassin's Creed Odyssey is full of places to go and people who want to kill you. Luckily, it has a pretty in-depth and flexible armor system that gives you lots of ways to mix-and-match your way to some pretty cool old-world fashion. There are a lot of options, though, and that's where our Assassin's Creed Odyssey armor guide comes in.

Just like its weapons, Odyssey has a lot of different styles of armor that come in various levels of quality. Any armor can also be engraved, which gives you skill or stat bonuses—the more rare the armor, the more engravings it can hold at once. At the top of the pile are the Legendary armor sets, special variants of existing armor styles that add extra bonuses for wearing all five pieces at once.

A big part of Odyssey is just looking rad, though, and that's where Odyssey's upgrade system is a real fashion-saver. If you have a favorite helmet or entire suit of gear, you can spend money and resources at a blacksmith to upgrade it all the way up to level 50.

One last thing: There's not really such thing as a best armor in Odyssey. Depending on how you're playing, it might be worth it to have a lower level pieces of armor that offer a useful buff that augments your playstyle.

Stats 

Each piece of gear you find in Assassin's Creed Odyssey has three main stats that you should pay attention to. They are level, rarity, and the main stat.

• Like your character, gear has a level that indicates its overall strength. You always want to try and upgrade or use gear that is close to your level.
• Rarity determines how many traits a piece of equipment can have. Like most RPGs, rarity goes from common (white), rare (blue), epic (purple), and legendary (orange).
• For armor, the main stat is, well, armor. This determines how much damage is mitigated from enemy attacks. For weapons, this stat is DPS or damage per second, and determines how much your attacks hit for.

Engravings 

Engravings are a kind of item that you earn by completing various in-game achievements, quests, acquiring Legendary gear, and killing certain enemies. Each one offers some kind of buff, like increasing your assassination damage or making all arrows poison arrows. There's a lot of them and they come in various tiers of strength with Legendary engravings offering extremely powerful bonuses that augment certain skills.

Just by playing the game, you'll start to amass a large pool of engravings that you can then use to add extra buffs to your armor. The biggest thing to remember is that once you've unlocked an engraving, you can use it as many times as you want and can always change the engravings you added to a piece of gear. Experiment and find the right combinations for you.

Regular armor 

Regular armor is randomly generated with a random rarity rating and selection of engravings. There isn't a rhyme or reason to the engravings: I've found heavy plate armor with bonuses to assassination damage and flimsy cloth robes with bonuses to warrior skills. Though you can't change or remove the these inherent engravings, you can always add more and change the ones you add.

These types of armor don't offer a bonus for wearing a complete set, but they do look nice when they're worn together. You can spot armor suits by their names: Traveler's armor, Tracker's armor, Athenian armor, Spartan armor, Brawler's armor, etc. 

All of these non-legendary armors show up regularly in loot drops, so keep an eye for a rare one with lots of room for engravings. Since you can always upgrade the level, a good piece of gear with a 10% bonus can stay a 10% bonus from level 5 to level 50.

If you get a piece of armor that you don't want, you can either sell it or dismantle it. Drachmae is in no short supply in Odyssey, so we recommend you dismantle everything you don't want (aside from Legendary pieces) so you always have an ample supply of materials for upgrading.

Legendary armor 

Spoiler warning: This next section contains light spoilers for Odyssey's story.

Unlike the other types of armor, Legendary armor is one-of-a-kind. It can't be dismantled for parts or sold, so every piece becomes a collector's item sort of by default. Legendary armor has plenty of room for a lot of engravings, and it also comes with a set bonus, an extra buff you get for wearing the entire set.

For the most part, Legendary armor comes from a few key sidequests and primarily from hunting down different branches of the Cult of Kosmos. Each member you kill will award a specific piece of an armor set, but since many cultists are above level 40, it'll take quite a while before you complete a full set and unlock their powerful set bonus.

All you need to know is that when you complete a set of legendary armor, all of the pieces you've collected get upgraded to the level of the last piece you found from the set. So don't waste precious materials upgrading pieces you won't really use until after you've collected the full set.

Without giving away who, what, and why you'll be killing people to collect legendary sets of armor, I've catalogued the names of the suits I've found and the bonuses that come with collecting the entire sets. When you get to the point where you can start hunting them down, this list will give you an idea of which sets you want to look for.

Immortal Set: 20% of your health bar refills when you die (only once every two minutes, so don't die more often than that please).

Obtained from Worshippers of the Bloodline cultists.

Spartan War Hero Set: +15% damage with all warrior abilities.

Obtained from Peloponnesian League cultists.

Agamemnon Set: +50% burning rate.

Obtained from The Silver Vein cultists.

Athenian War Hero Set: All arrows pierce shields.

Obtained from the Delean League cultists.

Snake Set: +10% intoxicated damage and weakening effect.

Obtained from the Eye of Kosmos cultists.

Pirate Set: +15% damage with assassin abilities.

Obtained from Gods of the Aegean Sea cultists.

Amazon Set: 2% damage dealt restored as health.

Obtained from Heroes of the Cult cultists.

Demigod Set: +10% damage with all abilities.

Obtained from the main story quests and the final cultist.

Assassin's Creed Odyssey is a big world full of splendor—and more importantly, lots of stuff to kill. As you chew your way through lions, Spartans, and cultists, you'll find a huge variety of ancient weapons to wield in battle. Knowing which weapon to use, though, is half of the battle. That's where our Assassin's Creed Odyssey weapon guide comes in.

Once you get a dozen hours into the game, Odyssey throws an ample supply of Legendary-quality weapons your way. And thanks to the flexible upgrade and engraving system, you can always spend resources to upgrade their damage and traits to stay relevant all the way to level 50. So don't worry about finding the one best weapon because it really depends on your playstyle and what traits you engrave into your weapon of choice. The best weapon depends on what kinds of enemies you're facing and what skills you've unlocked. Here, we'll break down each type of weapon, with a few recommendations of what skills complement these weapons.

For all of these weapons, though, we recommend unlocking Overpower Attacks as soon as possible. With the press of a button, your character will spend three stamina bars to unleash a deadly, unblockable combo that changes depending on your weapon while also healing you for a significant amount. It's insanely powerful, and you build adrenaline so quickly in fights that you can make use of this skill several times in prolonged fights.

With that out of the way, here's our Assassin's Creed Odyssey weapons guide.

Bare fists 

With so many swords and spears to use, you might overlook the value in bare knuckle boxing your opponent into submission. Your character in Odyssey is pretty handy with a punch, and damage from fists won't kill characters but instead knock them unconscious. If you want to recruit an enemy for your ship, tame an animal, or have a quest from a character who doesn't want you to kill anyone, going unarmed is always a good option. 

Swords 

Everyone starts out with a sword, and for good reason: it's the most versatile, flexible weapon in the Assassin's Creed Odyssey arsenal. Sword attacks in Odyssey are most effective at targeting a single enemy and they're also one of the faster weapons, which makes them useful for fighting higher-level enemies. When an enemy uses an unblockable attack, dodge to get behind them and then unleash hell.

Best skills for swords:

Sparta Kick: The shorter reach of the sword and dagger make them a good fit for the Sparta Kick. Since you'll already be in close, assigning the Sparta Kick to a melee hotkey is an easy way to finish off a combo with a brutal kick to the face. Don't forget that kicking enemies off of ledges is a great way to kill higher-level opponents.

Hero Strike: Your character's assassin damage is insanely high, but you can only use it when you're being sneaky. Hero Strike takes that high damage level and lets you use it in the middle of a melee.

Shield Breaker: Enemies with shields are a huge pain for swords. Heavy attacks will work, but they're slow. Get in close with the Shield Breaker to tear the shield off your enemy and fling it away. 

Daggers 

Daggers specialize in speed and getting up close. Focus on one enemy at a time and use the rapid-fire combos to kill them before they can respond. If you're facing a heavy-hitter like a brute, dagger attacks will carve them up while they're working on their big, slow attacks. When you do have to dodge or block, daggers are the fastest weapon to resume your attacks.

The downside is that you need to get real close to an enemy, which is dangerous. And their single-target style makes them especially bad choices for Conquest battles, where you'll always be fighting three or four people at once.

Best skills for daggers:

Flaming Attack/Venomous Attack: Both the fire and poison skill upgrades take a few hits to start doing extra damage. That's why they're perfect for daggers: you're already landing a dozen strikes a second anyway, so you can light people on fire or poison them fast.

Vanish: This skill blinds nearby enemies so you can escape, but dagger users can employ it offensively to distract groups of enemies so they can focus them down one at a time. Just know that any enemy you hit will become unstunned, so be careful to only damage one target at a time.

Call to Arms: You can't use this ability while in combat, but if you're about to take on a pack of bad guys, use Call to Arms to summon an ally to distract them while you get in behind with your daggers and carve up enemies one by one. 

Spears and Staffs 

Fighting multiple opponents is almost a certainty, which makes staffs and spears very handy. The long reach and wide swinging style of Odyssey's combos make them great for crowd control. Spears are usually better for getting the longest reach and staffs are better for fighting while surrounded, but they're very close to identical.

Generally, spears do more damage while staffs have more knockback power. Which one you prefer will probably come down to the situation: If you're fighting a few enemies on top of a building, the staff will send them flying to their deaths. If you're fighting an angry lion or a mercenary with a poisoned dagger, the longer reach of the spear will keep you from getting punctured.

Best skills for spears and staffs:

Flaming Attack/Venomous Attack: Staffs and spears don't hit as fast as daggers, so it will take a little more time to get a fire or poison bonus going. On the other hand, adding a bonus to staff or spear attacks gives you the unique ability to light everyone in the room on fire at once. 

Charged Heavy Attack: If you get a moment to breathe, charging up a heavy attack will give you a huge damage bonus and a big, sweeping target area. Use the staff and spear's range to get some distance, then swing for the fences.

Ring of Chaos: If you're already surrounded anyway, the Ring of Chaos skill lets you stun everyone within a few meters of you. This skill is mostly wasted in one-on-one fights, which makes it a good crowd control companion for staff and spear users. 

Heavy Bladed and Heavy Blunt 

These two-handed monsters are huge, slow, and powerful. You won't have to worry about enemies with shields, since these attacks will stagger anyone with a shield. That said, heavy maces and axes are the hardest weapons to use, and they seem to be a good fit only in the rarest of occasions. Their long, slow wind-up makes it hard to get hits in without also taking damage from faster enemy attacks. If you can stun or trick an enemy long enough to get swinging, though, there's almost nothing in the game that can do more damage.

Best skills for heavy bladed and heavy blunt:

Bull Rush: Charging through enemies and dealing a lot of damage is somewhat wasted on the other weapons, but for the heavy hitters it's a great way to get in close, stun your opponent, and leave yourself free to demolish the opposition.

Charged Heavy Attack: If you can see an attacker coming but they haven't gotten to you yet, using the charged heavy attack is one hell of a way to say "hello." The heavy attack also has a big throwback bonus, so if you use it with a heavy mace, you might fling enemies farther than even the best Sparta Kick.

Ring of Chaos: Even if you're not surrounded, the Ring of Chaos can reliably stun anyone nearby. For heavy weapons, time is the most precious commodity. Use the area stun and then flatten any nearby enemies before they can get themselves back together. 

Bows 

I'm not going to lie, the entire hunter skill tree feels like a bit of a waste of time. I've had great success specializing in both the warrior and the assassin skill trees, but the hunter skills are comparatively weak—too weak to make them worth focusing all your ability points in, anyway. Instead, hunter skills are good companions to the other, better skill trees.

Bows also get short shrift in the design department because they all handle the same way, and they're a terrible option if you're being attacked up close. That means they're often used outside of combat to snipe unsuspecting enemies or soften a target before going in for the kill.

Best skills for bows:

Sixth Sense: This skill slows time and auto-locks onto an enemy's torso any time they spot you while in stealth. Rather than letting that one guard blow the whistle, you have a chance to take him out fast and keep sneaking.

Rain of Destruction: Launches a massive flight of arrows straight up and straight down onto the heads of anyone in the targeted area. Upgrade it to use explosive arrows and then unleash carpet bombings on groups of enemies.

Overpower Strike: Overpower Strike is like shooting cruise missile with fletching. Unlike a lot of the other shots, the overpowered shot is strong enough and big enough to successfully assassinate a high-level target from a distance.

Tom: Assassin's Creed Odyssey is really good. Steven called it "a remarkably massive RPG held together by a web of satisfying pursuits" in our Assassin's Creed Odyssey review. We have found one sticking point that's worthy of more discussion, however. If you head into the 'Time Savers' section of the in-game store, you can find a permanent 50 percent XP boost that lets you progress through the story faster without having to complete as many of the game's side activities. It costs 1000 Helix credits. A pack containing 1050 Helix credits costs $10/£9. You also get some free credits during the game. 

Samuel and I both bought it, and for me it solves the biggest problem I have with the game. I played eight hours of Odyssey at a preview event. I noted my struggles to hit the level gate at the end of the demo. Now I'm going through the game again with the XP boost active, and it's a much smoother, more enjoyable experience. I love the story, but I only enjoy some of the sidequests and side activities. In another RPG, like The Witcher 3, the levelling curve is forgiving enough to let me progress at my own pace and pick and choose what I want to do. In Assassin's Creed Odyssey I feel like I can only do that with the permanent 50 percent XP boost. 

I haven't paid for an asset or a mission. It's ten bucks to tweak a number value. It's the sort of change you might expect to see in a balance patch.

I paid for it, so I guess I'm part of the problem, but it feels like a few years ago paying ten bucks for an XP boost in a singleplayer RPG would cause a lot more uproar. That's not to say most people aren't happy with the game's default XP tuning, but it's the kind of microtransaction we're used to seeing in free-to-play MMOs and multiplayer games being slotted into a game that already costs £50. That seems… not cool?

Samuel: I agree. Me and Tom both bought this independently of each other when the game launched last week, and for me it's partly in response to Origins, which introduced aggressive level-gating that nudged you towards side activities. By the end of that game I was so done with grinding—I completed the final section under-levelled and in stealth, struggling to take on a single enemy face-to-face, because I wasn't prepared to give the game any more of my time in reaching the recommended level. I otherwise loved Origins, but I felt like I limped to its finale. 

There's another reason I paid for the XP booster in Odyssey. On PC, you can pay for a temporary 25% XP booster with 10 uPlay coins (the free currency you unlock for completing achievements in Ubisoft games) through the Club rewards option of the menu. I put this on for two hours, and immediately noticed the difference. But you can only use it once. 

I could breeze through the opening islands without wasting time on as many side activities, focusing on what I believe are higher-quality side quests and main missions. Seven hours into the game, with the paid XP booster, I'm only ticking off the activities I want to do, and having no problem with the level curve. I've generally avoided the mercenary boards and limited time quests. This is the way I want to play. It costs $10/£9 extra. 

In discussing its issues with the boost last week, Polygon noted "Odyssey feels more like an Assassin's Creed game with this option purchased than it does without". I'm not sure I entirely agree—but the existence of the booster has made me think long and hard about Ubisoft's approach to level-gating. 

Tom: I don't think the default levelling curve was designed in bad faith; I'm sure the devs would like players to explore all of the activities they have made. But in an open world RPG I value the freedom to not do things I find tedious. The presence of the XP boost does encourage conspiratorial thinking though—is the XP curve tuned to be irritating enough to push people into XP boosts? 

The problem is that level disparities in both Origins and Odyssey are so punishing that being even one level below your opponents makes the game worse—and I don't mean difficult, I mean it makes the game less fun. It's not hard to press on through a one level deficit, it's just annoying. Enemies take a lot more hits to go down. The pace of the game becomes gruelling. 

Samuel: This, I think, is the problem: a difference of a few levels in Assassin's Creed doesn't mean an interesting combat challenge like it might in another third-person game. It means a gruelling encounter with skull-labelled enemies who take very little damage, while two of their hits will kill Alexios/Kassandra. Level-gating rules everything in Odyssey. I tried completing one of the larger-scale battles while under-levelled, and I couldn't kill the captains fast enough with my attacks to make the bar go down. I'm good enough at the game to avoid taking damage and survive, but the numbers and the timer dictate my success there, not how good I am at countering or using my abilities. It's this collision of flawed level-gating and microtransactions that inevitably leaves a bit of a sour taste. 

I'm otherwise really enjoying Odyssey, but it would be with some caveats if I was playing it at Origins' pace. If the XP booster didn't exist, maybe I wouldn't be thinking about the pacing of the game so much. Maybe I'd just get on with the grind without complaining. I've written before about games that do and don't respect your time—the PC release of Final Fantasy 12 includes a fast-forward function that lets you grind through enemies at a crazy speed, and it makes the game tons better than its original PS2 version. But Square Enix didn't charge you extra for it. 

I spend a lot of time worrying about how much games demand of my time now. This might not be the case for everyone, though: if Odyssey is the one big game you buy this year, maybe the gentle levelling curve represents value for money. It just doesn't to me. I'd rather have those hours back. We discussed Origins' problem with bloat earlier this year, and the thing that solves that issue in Odyssey...is extra money. 

Tom: A cursory Google of Origins or Odyssey turns up a bunch of ‘how to grind XP' guide pieces, and for me grind shouldn't be a part of a modern singleplayer RPG. My days of farming Cactuar for rare drops are over, and it's a shame to lock off the world behind XP gates and then charge players to access it faster.

Peak concurrent players for Assassin's Creed Odyssey reached nearly 62,000 on Steam yesterday, making a considerable gain (about 33%) over last year’s Assassin’s Creed Origins, which reached a peak of just over 41,000 concurrent users in October 2017. Origins, which released last year, was a big success for Ubisoft—and a bit of a gamble, seeing as they’d taken a year off AC’s release schedule in 2016. Critical reception to Odyssey has been very strong, with many noting that it feels like a more mature, refined version of Origins.

Assassin’s Creed Odyssey follows the journey of Alexios and Kassandra, two proto-assassins during the ancient war between Athens and Sparta in roughly 420 BC. It’s notable for letting you choose between a male or female protagonist and for its huge, free-roaming map that sees the return of popular naval mechanics from Assassin’s Creed IV: Black Flag. Odyssey also has romance storylines, and wouldn't you know it, we've got a guide for them here.

Thanks, GytHyp.

Following "a series of DDoS attacks" on the day of Assassin's Creed Odyssey's launch, Ubisoft is continuing to experience issues with its online services.

Yesterday, Ubisoft announced via its official forum it was "currently experiencing a series of DDoS attacks, which unfortunately are a common occurrence for almost all online service providers". 

Acknowledging it "may impact connections to our games as well as server latency" the publisher took "steps to mitigate this issue" and after several hours, reported the issues as resolved.

However, Ubisoft acknowledges some connectivity issues persist today, and offered the following statement via its official Twitter account and forums: 

Replies to the message from @UbisoftSupport intimate that some players are continuing to struggle to connect, regardless of whether they're playing on PC or console.

"Hi, I still have problem to connect on AC Odyssey (bought it via steam, I have played it yesterday night, can't play it right now)," said KarlD__. "Any suggestion, I found it very boring to pay and can't play."

"Can't login to my account uplay please resolve the issue," said another player.

At the time of writing, Ubisoft confirmed that assassinscreed.ubisoft.com  tomclancy-thedivision.ubisoft.com  starlink.ubisoft.com  should now all be working properly, but "are still investigating issues" with ubisoft.com.

It's worth persisting with the issues, though; in our Assassin's Creed Odyssey review, Steven said: "Assassin's Creed Odyssey is enormous and beautiful, and it effortlessly ties action, stealth, sailing, faction control systems, mercenaries, and cultist hunting together into one cohesive game that, even after 50 hours, I want to keep playing.

"Odyssey is a lot more than just another Assassin’s Creed, it’s an RPG of unparalleled scale supplemented by satisfyingly layered and deep progression systems that each play their part in bringing ancient Greece to life."