#perikles

The Assassins Creed franchise, from what I‘ve played and seen in the newer games so far, has a modern day and historical protagonist. For the modern day protagonist, Layla Hassan, it is possible to get into a machine, called „The Animus“ and relive the historical protagonists life with a bit of their DNA. And just Layla, the player gets to experience history in the, for our technological advances most accessible and interactive way possible. 

Assassins Creed Odyssey takes place during the Peloponnesian War between Athens and Sparta. The former of which I got to visit a week ago. The protagonist, as I played, is Kassandra, a spartan woman, banished from her home and family. She is a mercenary and grew up on Korfu, doing the dirty work for Markos, a local man, that seems to step from one trouble to the next. This setting is very quickly left behind as Kassandra starts an Odyssey, that would change her entire life. She travels through all of ancient Greece in the search of her family and with the goal to destroy a cult, whose goal is power over the entire greek world and beyond. This, of course, is a fictional story, but does not at all make the game less impressive to me. 

In this game you can discover the entirety of Greece, with replicas of historical sites, today left in ruins. Nowhere else I believe you can visit the Acropolis of Athens with all it‘s temples intact. Not only Athens, also Corinth, Mykonos, Crete, Olympia, say whatever you want. The world seemed surprisingly alive to me. The storylines are funny, beautiful, tragic and just incredibly entertaining. The NPCs lead their lives in the cities, doing daily things, selling things on the market, praying, dancing, singing, enjoying the sun. you can visit temples, markets, fishing villages, salt lakes, mountains, tombs or mycenean ruins. Of course it is not entirely historically accurate in it‘s gameplay for entertainment reasons but I was still stunned way too often over being able to see and visit these places in a way that can replicate it‘s former glory and being able to, through Kassandra, participate, interact with it. 

I have played the main story once now and have luckily gotten the happy ending, but have read that due to the decisions you can make there are nine different possible endings to the main story, some of which are incredibly tragic and heartbreaking. These are only the possibilities for the main story. There are amounts and amounts of side stories and extra content to which you can get multiple scenarios and endings again too. Decisions that you make in the game have a lasting effect on the NPCs. One for example is a little girl, that asks Kassandra to bring her gems for her friends. Once Kassandra brought her the gems it is revealed, that her so-called friends are a group of clay figures, she built, because her real family is dead and the people in town think she is strange. As Kassandra you can either make the decision to encourage her or tell her those clay figures aren‘t real friends, to which the girl will be very sad. If you choose the former and return to the island once it rained, the clay figurines will have been destroyed by the rain and the girl is crying all alone. If you choose the latter she will be mad at Kassandra, but once you return you can see her playing with kids from the town, who praise her for her skill in forming clay. Another story that left a lasting impression, was one where I had to reload it entirely due to first getting an awful ending I did not want at all. It is a questline on Mykonos called „Trouble in Paradise“. In this quest Kassandra is called to help some rebels against the Athenians, whose leaders are Kyra and Thaletas. It is possible to have a romantic relationship with either of them. In my game Kassandra got together with Kyra. There seem to be quite many possible endings for this depending on wether Kassandra gets into a romantic relationship, with who, and almost anything you choose for Kassandra to say. I do not want to spoil anything for this questline, but know, that some or most of the endings are extremely tragic. 

While I was still quite in the middle of the story I got the chance to visit real and modern Athens myself and take a trip to the Acropolis as well as the National Archaeological Museum, which displayed a few artefacts, which you can find in use in the game AC: Odyssey. Among them some statues, altars, artworks and…my personal highlight…A HERM. 

I have written an entry about herms before and in Odyssey there is sadly only one herm, what‘s design has been used at every. single. crossroad. in. the. game. But this herm, in all it‘s glory but with the phallus missing, is displayed at the National Archaeological Museum of Athens. 

This entry is messy enough as it is but another aspect that got me incredibly excited about Assassins Creed: Odyssey is that you can often interact with historical figures from the time period such as: Perikles, Sokrates, Aristophanes…and…another familiar name from my entry on herms: Alkibiades. (The man, the myth, the legend, wildest guy you’ll ever meet) You also get a cool opening scene with Leonidas of Sparta fighting the Persians. Of course there are many more and also a playable storyline with mythological aspects and enemies such as the cyclops, the minotaur…