Assassin’s Creed Origins Review: Ubisoft Montreal’s Egyptian Reinvention Pays Off

Ubisoft Montreal rebuilt Assassin’s Creed from the ground up with Assassin’s Creed Origins, and the gamble pays off. The 2017 release drops the series into Ptolemaic Egypt, hands players a Medjay named Bayek of Siwa, and swaps the old stealth-action formula for role-playing systems and hitbox-based combat. It is the tenth major installment, following Assassin’s Creed Syndicate, and it is the most substantial rework the franchise has attempted.

Trailer, via IGDBcom.

Bayek of Siwa and the Road to the Hidden Ones

The story opens in 49 BC. Bayek, a Medjay who guards the Siwa Oasis, is abducted with his son Khemu by masked men and taken to a vault beneath the Temple of Amun. The masked men hand him a dormant Apple of Eden and demand he open the vault. Khemu helps his father escape, but Bayek inadvertently kills his own son while struggling with one of the captors. A year later he has exiled himself to hunt the five masked men.

That revenge plot widens into something larger. Bayek’s wife Aya has killed two of the targets herself. Bayek assassinates the Royal Scribe Eudoros, the last, only to hear dying words that imply more masked men remain. Their work against the secretive forces behind the coup leads them to form the Hidden Ones, the precursor to the Assassin Brotherhood. In the modern day, Abstergo researcher Layla Hassan reads Bayek’s memories from a tomb in Egypt, hoping to secure a place on the company’s Animus project.

The Egypt itself is the real achievement. The open world runs from Alexandria and Memphis to deserts, oases, lakes and the Nile, and Bayek can dive underwater for the first time since 2013’s Black Flag. Tombs and pyramids are explorable. Bandit hideouts can be raided. Riddle puzzles and stone circles hide rare loot. Synchronization points unlock fast travel. There is a gladiatorial arena with waves of enemies and a boss fight, and there is chariot racing.

Progression borrows cleanly from role-playing games. Experience comes from missions, discoveries and kills. Levels earn skill points, and the skill tree splits into three branches: Hunter, Warrior and Seer. Gear advances alongside. Ubisoft Montreal led four years of development with help from nearly 700 people across other Ubisoft studios, and the team consulted Egyptologists and historians to get the setting right.

The Order of What Works

Ranked by what Assassin’s Creed Origins does best:

1. The recreation of ancient Egypt, which carries the game even when quests turn routine.
2. Bayek and Aya, whose grief gives the revenge plot its weight and grounds the founding of the Hidden Ones.
3. The role-playing overhaul, which fixes the staleness that had settled over the series.
4. Side activities, which are plentiful but uneven — rescuing prisoners and collecting items repeat often.

The extra year of development shows. An annual franchise since Assassin’s Creed II got a reprieve here, and the polish is visible in the world rather than in the mission design.

What the Reinvention Costs

Assassin’s Creed Origins is not flawless. The side missions lean on rescue, defeat, collect and investigate, and the pattern wears thin across a map this size. The gladiator arena and chariot races are diversions, not reasons to stay. The modern-day thread with Layla Hassan gestures at an apocalyptic event through First Civilization structures but stays thin next to the historical story.

None of that undoes the core. The combat rework, the leveling, the gear and the sheer scale of Ptolemaic Egypt make this the first Assassin’s Creed in years that feels like it was built rather than assembled. Ubisoft Montreal took the criticism that the gameplay had grown overly familiar and answered it with a genuine reinvention. The tombs, the Nile and Bayek’s hunt for the masked men hold up.

Assassin's Creed Origins · Bayek of Siwa · game review · open world RPG · Ptolemaic Egypt · Ubisoft Montreal