“Assassin’s Creed Origins” is not a typical “Assassin’s Creed” game. The single-player action franchise that was more of a linear story experience than anything else is no more — stripped of almost all mechanics besides its continuous storyline. This new installment is a tip of a hat to what the previous games introduced, but wrapped into a die-hard fan’s dream of an “Assassin’s Creed” themed role playing game. With that in mind, “Origins” bring players into maybe one of the largest free-to-roam maps ever created in video games, setting in Ancient Egypt. “Assassin’s Creed Origins” prides itself on rebuilding the franchise, while also delivering a wildly bloody revenge tale that weaves plot holes from its predecessors.

The game’s main character, Bayek, is a philanthropist of sorts, in comparison to other assassins in the series. Many of the side missions focus on his obsession with the protection and care of Egypt’s youth and future. “Origins’” story thrives when being a game about Bayek’s family history and impending future, and is easily the most passionate and personal story of the franchise yet. Like its predecessors, the game also intertwines a modern-day story about the franchise’s main antagonist organization, Abstergo, attempting to demolish the Assassin Brotherhood for good.

Beyond the story, this entry into the franchise is incomparable to past titles, as gameplay has been given a complete overhaul. Taking up the role of an RPG, “Origins’” first and foremost gigantic step into this realm is the matter of its map size. In previous games, you were either delivered to the next portion of the story or placed in a map with only a handful of cities. With “Origins,” you can forget the past. The map, with a plethora of colorful detail-oriented cities, is one of the largest open-worlds on both PlayStation 4 or Xbox One. Certain areas of the map can be extremely painful to travel as some massive sandy deserts are overwhelmingly barren due to a lack of enemies or activities to seek out within them.

Another element to this new RPG-styled “Assassin’s Creed” is the leveling system that has been added into the game. This mechanic adds hours of gameplay to the game — as the typical the “Assassin’s Creed” installment may take you up to 10 hours to complete, “Origins” took me almost 27 hours to finish. The game ensures that each player must either eliminate a large amount of general enemies or either partake in side missions to level up Bayek. There is no way around the matter as you must be at least two or three levels behind an opponent, in the main story missions, to defeat them. After completing the game on regular difficulty, I could not avoid side-missions to exclusively explore the main story. While fans of roleplaying games may not see this as a roadblock to their enjoyment, casual gamers who are only spending their money for a continuation of the main plot may eventually be annoyed with this change in the series.

At its core, “Assassin’s Creed Origins” is an ambitious next installment in the series. With a storyline for both hardcore fans and new players of the series to be invested in, and what feels like a entire country to explore and learn about, the game will not leave players bored. While the size of the game’s world results in an abundance of barren space and the game suffers from a  dependency on side-missions, these are the only negatives to what is otherwise a great entry to the Assassin’s Creed franchise.

Rating: 8/10