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Ubisoft has released a short video for its upcoming title Assassin’s Creed: Origins, which is back with a vengeance after taking a brief break following the release of the critically polarising Assassin’s: Creed Syndicate. In this video the developers focus on the combat system in response to questions from fans.
Assassin’s Creed: Origins takes place in Ancient Egypt, and fans of the franchise can expect quite the change to the in-game combat. It’s certainly miles from the combat systems that featured in the first and second games, which I must say I absolutely loved, even if you only had to hold the block button to parry and defeat anyone ridiculously easy.
Origins’ game director, Ashraf Ismail, discussed the game’s new combat system and some of the changes that the developer has made to the gameplay experience. Responding to a fan’s question Ismail says that, ‘We’ve drastically changed the paradigm of “what is fighting?”’ In previous games a player and enemy would align in battle before going through an animation sequence, waiting for it to finish, and then resetting so the player could continue fighting. It was almost on-rails.
In Origins, the developer has implemented a hit box system where the player can hit enemies, and also receive hits, dependent on the distance between the target and the length of the weapon. This time around your relative position to an enemy has ramifications for the level of damage that can be inflicted with a single attack. Case-in-point: a big spear will hit more enemies with a swing than a short dagger can, and distant attacks won’t be as damaging as getting up close to an enemy.
There’s even a weapon in the game dubbed a Predator bow, which is a long-range attack weapon. Think a sniper rifle, except in this instance you can manipulate the direction and height of the arrow after letting it go. Which, although amusing, seems unrealistic for the tone being set.
Assassin’s Creed Origins is out for PS4, PC and Xbox One on October 27.
