The Assassin's Creed Series: Assassin's Creed Origins DLCs

Assassin's Creed Origins is such a large game compared to its predecessors that I decided to separate my review of the DLCs to the main game. You can read the main game review here: The Assassin's Creed Series: Assassin's Creed Origins.

Discovery  Tour

The Discovery Tour is not really a game, it is more like a virtual museum and it looks like it is designed to be consumed as a completely standalone experience to the main game. Why do I say that? Well to being with, the controls are exactly the same as the main game, but it acts like you have no idea how to move around.

You also have the option to wander around Egypt without combat and without missions, but if you've played the game, I'm not sure what appeal that has, because you would have seen everything already, so this is another reason why I think this DLC is designed for people who likely have not played the main game, and maybe are not even familiar with Assassin's Creed in general.

The best feature of the Discovery Tour are the virtual museum tours. There are hundres of "exhibits" clustered together in topics. For example, learning about Ancient Egyptian temples and their place at the centre of Egyptian life is around 20 exhibits, but a quick tour on Beer and Bread is 3 or 4 exhibits. You can opt to embark on one of these tours and the game will plot a sequential path for you to walk you through the tour. For each exhibit, you get an "in game" view of what the narrator is describing, which can be anything from people baking bread, preparing the dead, fields of crops or essentially anything to do with Ancient Egyptian life. Once the camera has moved to the subject, you'll get a museum-style narration of the scene depicted and often you can also view a photograph or diagram of the the subject from real life as well. When viewing a mummified corpse in a tomb, for example, you have the option of seeing a photograph of a real museum piece of a mummy whilst listening to the narration.

The virtual museum tours provide you a narrated journey along a set path of sights.

Going through the tour is probably somewhat of a challenge for people who have completed the main game, because although fascinating, it is a slow affair to go through all the exhibits one by one and pay attention. I do like the fact that there are some trophy/achievements tied to viewing one of the complete tour sets, because this is what pulled me in to even looking at the tour in the first place, and I'm sure it will be the same for many players.

My recommendation would be to not just try and push through the tour in its entirety, but instead break it down into sections. It is genuinely fascinating and it also does a lot of credit to Ubisoft's accurate portrayal of Ancient Egypt, but there's no getting past the fact that for a gamer, it feels like you are restricted to going through it at quite a slow pace.

Overall, I think the Discovery Tour is a great idea, but any player should consider the experience as being the same as visiting a real musuem. Unless you are being dragged along by your parents, you wouldn't go to a museum if you weren't specifically interested in going. In the same vein, don't go on the Discovery Tour if you are not interested, because you won't get anything out of it. However, if the game has whet your appetite for finding out more about Ancient Egypt, the Discovery Tour is a great way of learning more.

 

The Hidden Ones

This DLC is basically an extension of the main story. With a Hidden Ones bureau established in the Sinai region of Egypt, the local Assassins and Assassin leader run into series problems with the local Order. Two Hidden Ones killed in a recent battle triggers a request for help to Bayek, to which he responds by travelling to the region, heading to thelocal bureau, and then going from there.

In terms of size and content, The Hidden Ones is similar to other DLCs such as Jack the Ripper for Syndicate, with three additional land regions to unlock and one additional sea region, and a typical density of locations to work through. The main missions don't beat around the bush, and before you know it you are saying "oh boy, here I go killin' again" as you start hunting down the local Order leaders. There's a bunch of additional side missions as well, some of which are somewhat related to the main mission and some compeltely separate. One of the more intriguing side missions begins with you just assisting an elderly gentleman who is trying to put his recently dead wife to rest in a tomb, but is afraid of the haunting noises coming out of the crypt. The resolution to this side mission leaves you questioning what you just saw and treads the well balanced fine line in Origins of mysticism versus the basic reality of real life.

This DLC also serves as a convenient crutch for those who ended up missing out on a lot of rare resources needed for gear upgrades. If you make even half an effort to grab the chests that Senu can mark out for you, you'll find an abundance of these materaisl that will like let you upgrade you gear several times just within this DLC.

The Philakes mechanic is present in this DLC, although now they are called Shadows of the Scarab and hunting them down culminates in a side mission that caps off a story and NPC character arc started in the main game. The mission itself is reasonably interesting in terms of closing off that story, but otherwise it's a simple continuation of the Philakes mechanic with superficial changes.

Even the red Shadow of the Scarab icon on the map looks like a Philakes icon

Perhaps my review so far seems underwhelming, please don't let that put you off if you are considering buying and playing this DLC. Whilst The Hidden Ones doesn't really contain anything new in terms of gameplay mechanics, it is still a very effective continuation of the Origins plot. The main missions are of similar ilk to the main game and there are more forts for you to clear out, including two very large complexes. Basically, although not amazing in itself, if you love the main Origins game as I do, you'll love playing through this DLC just as much. It's not spectacular new content, but it is a continuation of the main game that is just as good.

 

The Curse of the Pharaohs

Definitely in terms of land area, but also arguably in terms of content, The Curse of the Pharaohs DLC is the largest of any Assassin's Creed DLC released to date. There are nine additional regions to explore and the main missions will explicitly take you through seven to eight of the nine. This DLC also expands your ability to upgrade your fixed gear, such as the hidden blade and body armor, by way of a new resource that is unique to the DLC. There are additional side missions of course, but also some other brand new mechanics and concepts that we will cover in due course.

Like the Hidden Ones DLC, the story of this DLC takes place some years after the main game. Bayek learns of another ancient artifact in Thebes and sets off to find it so that it doesn't fall into the wrong hands. Upon arriving in Thebes he very quickly finds out that there is a curse ravaging the land. No sooner than Bayek steps on shore, a Cursed Pharaoh manifests next to the dockside and starts attacking bystanders. Bayek being who he is, immediately steps in to battle the apparition, so that hey may save the innocent people being attacked.

After the dust settles, Bayek learns that this is not an isolated incident and that the people say a curse grips the land. Suspicious that the supposed curse and his search for the artifact is linked, Bayek expects that finding the source of the curse will help his own search as well as free the local people, and so off he sets.

The Hidden Ones DLC, whilst being perfectly decent fun, is really just a continuation of the main game mechanics with only a few tweaks here and there. The Pharaohs DLC, however, brings with it some new innovations.

The Philakes mechanic is completely gone now, and basically replaced with the Cursed Pharaohs. As you move through Thebes and associated areas, Cursed Pharaohs will randomly spawn conveniently somewhat close to Bayek, and our hero can choose to break off his current activity to attack and defeat the Cursed One if he so chooses. The Cursed Pharaohs are a whole new type of enemy in Origins and bring with them the need to develop new tactics to take them on. One of the few criticisms I have of the main Origins game is that with the right setup, which includes the Instant Charging heavy attack, you can reduce combat for all but the most power enemies to a few heavy attacks and some dodges. Some of the Pharaohs, however, will completely overpower this approach and make mincemeat out of you if you don't adapt. Whilst these battles are mainly optional, there are a few that are obligatory to the main story, so you are better off taking on the challenge head on and developing new tactics with these enemies. If you do start taking out some of the Cursed Pharaohs, you'll be rewarded with the new rare resource you need to upgrade your gear further.

You'll need to develop new tactics to defeat the Cursed Pharaohs

As well as the Cursed Pharaohs, there are also a couple of other new non-human enemy types you come across. However, whilst the design of these characters is nice to behold, you can battle and defeat the vast majority of these enemies the same as regular human enemies. One specific enemy type, which I guess you class as an animal-type, are easy to defeat in their regular version, but there are some oversized and overpowered variants that will also present you a challenge.

There's also some major innovation with some of the location types. It would be a spoiler to go into the specific details of how this manifests itself, but suffice to say you will be exploring new locations that are not only nothing like anywhere you've explored before in Origins, but also unique to each other within the DLC.

No spoilers other than this picture, there are new locations unlike anything before in Origins

I always tend to enjoy AC stories that revolve around the Apples of Eden and other similar artifacts and the Curse of the Pharaohs is no exception. The AC series tends to stay rooted in reality, with the only fantasy elements being associated with the precursors and precursor artifacts. It has to be said that The Curse of the Pharaohs DLC does extend that right up to the limit. Bayek remains philosophical about all he sees and experiences, it doesn't seem that all of it can be associated with the artifact, but to be honest, the epilogue to the DLC essentially makes the case that these fantasy elements are "real" rather than imagined. This departure from being grounded in reality will not be to everyone's liking, but as a sneak peek ahead, it only gets worse in Odyssey anyway, so like it or not, you better get used to it.

Overall, The Curse of the Pharaohs DLC is one of the best yet. In the battle for overall best DLC of any Assassin's Creed game, I probably agree that Pharaohs doesn't quite have the appeal of the grim style and Lovecraft-esque undertones that the Jack the Ripper DLC has. However, this DLC is much larger and less formulaic in terms of the new content that it brings, so in the end I probably like the Pharaoh's DLC more.

But whichever one you like more, The Pharaohs DLC is definitely up there as one of the best, and totally worth a modest investment to play after completing the main game.