Learning to let things go in Assassin's Creed Odyssey

I spent a whole mess of hours over my weekend playing Assassin's Creed Odyssey and I can't help but continue coming to the same conclusion.

Man, this game is really good.

I had a lot of preconceived notions about Assassin's Creed before I jumped in but this game has comfortably defied all of them. I felt the game might feel sterile or callously AAA, might be overly repetitive, and the combat might not feel as involved as I'd prefer. None of these are true. It is a game with a tremendous amount of variety not only in play styles, but in content and sheer breadth of things to do. Having played a few massive open-world games, Odyssey easily tops them in sheer size and scale.

I think I really started to engage with Odyssey when I stopped trying to be completionist about it. I stopped trying to conquer every single optional objective. Going for that approach initially was a mistake, because there are hundreds upon hundreds of optional objectives in this game and many of them are entirely irrelevant. I came to learn, as I progressed further, that there were certain sidequests that simply weren't worth my time.

As you travel the many islands of Greece, you have the opportunity to take on a number of different types of quests. The main story quests of course advance the plot of Kassandra or Alexios as they search for their lost family members. You also have the ability to consult a message board posted in every major town that lists a series of mundane bounties and contracts that are totally optional. These quests are not unlike the type of tasks you would see in an MMO. They almost always involve killing a set number of enemies, sinking a set number of ships, or lowering a particular region's Nation Power. Attempting to complete many of these quests made the game initially seem very dull.

Another set of tasks available to you throughout the game involve conquering optional objectives that are available for certain areas. In the case of forts and bandit camps, these objectives might be to kill a captain or polemarch, maybe some guards, burn some war supplies, and loot some chests. Because I was enamored of the idea of seeing as many check marks as possible on my massive world map, I was initially on board with completing all of these objectives as I came across them. Again, this became a very dull and repetitive process.

When I started to ignore a lot of these optional objectives and only complete story- or character-driven quests, I started to really become engaged in what I was playing. The pacing felt so much better. I always felt much more motivated in accomplishing the tasks I set out to do. It wasn't about conquering a meaningless set of inconsequential objectives anymore. It was about discovering the whereabouts of a worried wife's erstwhile fisherman husband. It was about discovering the surprising truth about a resistance leader's biological father--and in what is by far my favorite series of quests so far, discovering how to unlock the door of an ancient labyrinth.

I would usually never deride a game for having too much content, but Odyssey could certainly do without those MMO-style quests. They don't really serve the game well, especially considering the fact that on top of the standard quests provided in the game, there's also a couple of subsystems on which you can spend your time. There's ship combat, and a hierarchy of mercenaries you can advance through, and a shadowy cult you must systematically eliminate. All of that is so much more exciting than those dull bounties.

There's so much to do in Odyssey that it seems silly those contracts are even there. Even now, there are huge swaths of area and whole islands I haven't uncovered and I'm only 10 levels away from the level cap. It could be they're a relic from previous games in the series, but because I have so little experience with the series as a whole, I can't really say. I plan on playing a lot more so I can have some context--and because, to be honest, this game has made me feel good about the prospect overall.

I'm glad that I took the time to dig a little deeper into the game, because I could have easily dismissed the game as being boring and repetitive had I continued at my doomed goal of systematically tearing down every fort and bandit camp I came across. There are just too many of them, and too much potential to spend a tremendous amount of time doing the same thing over and over. It would have given me the totally wrong impression of the game and I wouldn't have gotten to do all the stuff I've gotten to do. I've already spent 60-something hours on the game at this point and the end is not yet in sight. I'm excited to see what the game still has in store.