If practically 100 hours of Assassin’s Creed Odyssey simply wasn’t sufficient for you, Legacy of the First Blade DLC has you coated.
Legacy of the First Blade is the story of the Eagle Bearer’s encounter with Darius, the primary Assassin to make use of a hidden blade. He’s on the run from the shadowy Order of the Ancients who’re working behind the scenes to regulate the close by kingdom of Persia. Like the Cult of Kosmos in the primary game, the order’s brokers disguise in plain sight – it’s your job to uncover them and put a cease to their clandestine actions.
The story’s as partaking and charmingly acted as anything you’ll discover all through the remainder of Assassin’s Creed Odyssey, and every part is tight sufficient to not overstay its welcome – which might’t be mentioned about each chapter of the bottom game.
What’s extra, each quest takes place within the northern space of Makedonia, so there’s by no means an enormous distance to schlep over to get to the place you’re going. It makes the DLC really feel like a well-contained apart with a higher concentrate on telling a cohesive narrative than pushing you out into the world, which helps it to stand up and down with out dropping focus.
The official line is that there’s about 5 hours of game to get by means of in Episode 1, which is about proper should you do all of the aspect quests and don’t skip dialogue.
The DLC missions can be found after you’ve reached Level 28 and cleared Naxos in chapter 7 of the primary story – it’s not one thing you’re going to start out a complete new character to burn by means of. But the suite of quests it provides to the open world slot into the remainder of Assassin’s Creed Odyssey seamlessly.
As a personality, Darius definitely appears the half. A number of Assassin’s Creed Odyssey isn’t very assassin-y, so it’s enjoyable to have the hood and blade make an look. He doesn’t get an enormous quantity of screen-time although, and – an early boss battle apart – you don’t work together with him a lot. Because of this, despite the fact that the revelations you find out about him because the story progresses are fascinating, at this early stage I discovered the funding slightly missing. But with two extra episodes to come back, that may change.
On the gameplay aspect of issues, every little thing that may be mentioned about Assassin’s Creed Odyssey nonetheless applies right here. The motion, with its mixture of timed dodges and particular transfer spam, continues to be strong. There’s nonetheless good selection within the mission aims – whether or not you’re looking for clues within the surroundings Witcher 3-style, sneaking quietly right into a fortress filled with guards, or beating the sandals off a bunch of unsuspecting bandits.
Even although there are round ten questlines included with the DLC, it seems like Ubisoft has intentionally made it a little bit of whistle-stop tour by means of every little thing Assassin’s Creed Odyssey has to supply, forcing you to resolve mysteries and make powerful decisions. The setups can really feel a bit pedestrian and uninspired, like saving a child from some bandits or discovering the treatment for a pestilence, however the payoffs are invariably sturdy.
It all builds to a memorable remaining boss combat which, for me, became a sniper duel about as powerful as another boss within the game.
But with all the nice, the identical annoyances from the bottom game persist on this DLC too. Your horse, Phobos, nonetheless has erratic pathfinding, for instance. On high of this, you’ll nonetheless end some fight set-pieces with half a city’s civilians (and the occasional rooster) attacking you as a result of they received aggroed within the crossfire.
Other than the story, the primary draw of the DLC might be the entire new menu of Cultists it opens up. There are seven new targets to search out, not all of whom are tackled in the course of the central DLC storyline. So should you beloved taking out the Cult of Kosmos one member at a time, there’s extra stabby-stabby motion right here.
For completionists, or gamers nonetheless making their method by means of the bottom game, there are extra Legendary weapons and armor items to gather – every with highly effective, distinctive engravings.
Is it so ground-shatteringly superior that you need to put money into the bottom game simply to play it? Based on this primary installment, probably not. But it’s positively a worthy addition that’ll attraction to new and returning Assassins, letting veterans spend one other few hours on the Peloponnese peninsula with their favorite misthios, or bolstering a primary playthrough with but extra diversions from Assassin’s Creed Odyssey’s predominant quest.
It’s at all times powerful to suggest shopping for an episodic story on the deserves of its first half, as a result of there’s nonetheless a lot left to see, particularly when Ubisoft is charging the princely sum of £32.99 for the Season Pass. The three episodes of Legacy of the First Blade type the primary half of that cross, with the later half – The Fall of Atlantis – coming later in 2019.
I don’t assume die-hard followers will really feel too aggrieved, however should you’re content material with the Olympus-sized mountain of stuff already in Assassin’s Creed Odyssey, don’t really feel such as you’re lacking out at this stage.
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