1Upsmanship: Assassin’s Creed Origins (Feat. Youssef Maguid)

Michael and Adam are joined by Ubisoft host and producer Youssef Maguid to discuss a huge turning point in the Assassin’s Creed franchise, and, dare we say, history? A lively conversation ensues about what makes this entry essential, the meticulous crafting of Ptolemaic Egypt, and whether the changes were good or bad for the series. Mount your camel and zip directly to your destination…Fun! Seriously, those camels have an incredible auto-travel feature!

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Oh, listen, jeesus, it's a flack of tie. Welcome to

(00:26):
One Upsmanship. It's the coolest name for like, it's better
than Bobby, it's better than Copper. It is a lack
of Tieuh. You could probably already guess what game we're
discussing on today's episode of One Upsmanship ship Heads. Welcome. Welcome.
I'm Michael Swain. That's Adam Ganzer. Yeah, good to be

(00:48):
here with you, Adam, great to be here. I enjoy
how every one of your intros is a is a
gift and a surprise to me every time. I never
know what it's gonna be, and I love it every time.
It's easy to surprise people when you just pull the
first thing off the top of your head. The surfaces
usually not that predictable. Yep, Um, this is a gaming

(01:10):
podcast where pals talk about games. Uh, usually in a
very I would say, air you die, yeah, jovial manner.
Occasionally it's a train wreck nightmare where we're at each
other's throats. But I don't think it'll be that way today. Nahum,
So if you're here for the crashes, yes, skip to
the next episode, um, because today we're talking ac origins

(01:32):
that's right, Assassin's Creed origins. We sure, and we have
oh a brand new guests, new face on one Upsmanship.
I'm so excited to have with us um from Ubisoft
writer and host mister Yusef McGee. Welcome, Yusuf, welcome, Thank you,
thank you, Michael, thank you, Adama. No one told me
I needed to be aird uh and so you're you're

(01:54):
throwing that on me mid recording. That's a lot of pressure.
But I'm gonna do my best. I'm doing us and
keep bubble. Y'all were real gun slingers around one ups.
It's a lot of off the cuff. Yeah. I don't
want you to feel stressed or put on the spot,
but if if your air addition level falls below a
certain point, a clackson will sound and there will be punishments.

(02:15):
So just listen for the clackson. Yeah naturally. Okay, all right,
so let's dive Ryan into format on this show. That
means we're passing a checkpoint. Boom, boom, there's that sound,
which means where in it's our first segment, which we
call tell me like I made bit. Now, if you're
new to the show, this is where we ask the

(02:36):
guests traditionally to take us quickly and in the barst
of nutshells through what is Assassin's Creed Origins? And I
like to say, like, pretend you're describing it to your
like early seventies aunt, like someone who does not know
what the game is at all, So not the nitty gritty,
but like, what's Assassin Creed Origins? Refresh our memories? Please

(02:59):
use of absolutely So. Assassin's Creed Origins is a game
that takes place in Ptolemaic Egypt during the reign of Cleopatra,
where you play as Baiak, who is the last magi
who's almost a peacekeeper of sorts in Egypt, and you

(03:20):
have to deal with the tragic death of your son,
and through that you uncover a conspiracy that takes Baiak
and his wife Ayah throughout all of Egypt and throughout
major moments in history and meeting major characters and you know,

(03:43):
famous historical figures like Cleopatra, like Julius Caesar Um and
full encounter. He actually, he actually might be. He's in
the game more than I think you might be remembering.
He's isn't it about five hours? But you only talk
to him or see him like I don't know, like

(04:04):
twenty minutes Max, Like you don't spend a ton of
time with him. No, you don't spend a ton of
time with him. And then yeah, there is a particularly
so that leads us to, like, everyone needs to know
we are going to spoil this game. You had six
out six years to play it, so you know, if

(04:26):
you haven't yet, though, you might want to skip at
least when we talk about the story stuff because we
will be spoiling the game. Yeah, just now, it was
beautifully down. Although I know Ganza is gonna want to
chime in and give the basics of the mechanics because
that's his jam, right. Um, I'm happy too. So although
you did an amazing job and thank you for that.
Um just briefly, you guys all know Assassin's Creed probably
it's the stealth uh you know, ninja third person action

(04:49):
to game. This game is unique in that it moved
away from the traditional format of Assassin's Creed and added,
um some RPG elements including you know, I think some
light crafting and also upgrading your weaponry in a way
that was not just purchasing new weapons but also like
different variety of weapons and stuff. You've got a lot

(05:10):
more expansive. They put numbers over people's hit boxes and stuff.
Like we're talking, there's a lot more complex in general, Destiny.
I noticed Destiny picked up on that, like if you
have a favorite weapon esthetically, you can keep feeding stuff
to it. Yeah. Correct, Yeah, So climb anywhere, I think
is the huge or you know, all the way back

(05:31):
to Assassin's Creed one and two, that was the huge
mind blowing advance at the time. Climb anywhere, climb on
anything that, jump around, hide from people, stab them. Cool.
Let's pass another checkpoint, which means the world has dissolved
into a wobbly grid and we're waking up in a tomb.
And that takes us to our segment we call gamer rants,

(05:55):
where we basically chime in with our emotional you know
how this game hit for us. It's sort of just
a first blush our take on the game. It's place
in our life or you know, in our experience with
the franchise or what have you. Adam, can I go first? Okay,
I want to, because player one plugging in. I have

(06:18):
a pretty clear and concise rant this time with no
major hot takes unless I guess you unless you. I mean,
I'm sure people do strongly feel about AC two or
various acs, but um, this is the one for me.
Like I'm I'm glad we're covering it. This is actually
my perfect Assassin's Creed well, and I'm excited to talk

(06:39):
about it for that reason. And I have lots of
reasons to unpack why I feel that way. I don't
dislike like things after this Odyssey or Valhalla, but there
is a level of, um, you know, game's got to
meet you where you're at or whatever. I'm like close
to forty now. If I was nineteen and I only

(07:01):
had so much money and I cared how much money
I put into a game, and I had unlimited time,
I'd be so down for something like Odyssey because I
can do it forever and ever and ever and ever,
and it's you know, a lot of bang for your buck.
But where I'm at in my life now with this
was my major takeaway playing at this time is it's
like it's just the amount of complexity that's perfect for

(07:22):
me that does feel engaging. It really it's it thoroughly
feels like a fully developed game with all the do
dads and all the different ways to micromanage each thing
to whatever degree you want, and yet it doesn't quite
overwhelm me to the degree that the scope of like
Odyssey and Valhalla personally, for me, I got like a

(07:43):
third of the way through, and I'm like, this is
just too much. I just have too much other stuff
to do. I ran out of time with this game.
Origins I'm able to complete, even though the world map
still feels hugely expansive and the story is very involving.
I really like buy it. I genuinely think he's like
the for my money, one of the charming, more likable

(08:05):
AC protagonists we've ever gotten. I think it nails boat combat,
which obviously everyone loves so much that they're doing Skull
and Bones now and Black Flag was so popular. But
for my money, again, I guess I'm just the middle
road type of guy. But like, I think Origins has
just the right amount of boat combat without too much.

(08:26):
I actually found that, Like I think Skull and Bones
will be boring, I don't want to do that kind
of boat combat eternally, like I don't want that to
be the core loop interstally, but I love doing it
as a departure from the normal Assassins Creek formula. So
it's just like, I don't know, man, I also love
Egyptian culture. I love the desert personally. I'm hugely like

(08:46):
I grew up in the desert and go desert camping
a lot, so I think the terrain is remarkably striking
and beautiful. I love the way the people look like.
I just love that era and the water. I guess
I'll end on the water. That green gold water that
they capture in this game is for my money. Still,

(09:07):
I was playing it again, I was like, you know,
we've made advancements in facial animation and body animation. Everyone
does kind of look like any animatronic by my modern
standards are like if I compare to like Last of
Us two or something, But the water has not been
beat for me. And I don't even mean that there's
not technically ever been a more complex physics engine to

(09:27):
render water what have you. I don't know about that,
Like maybe Horizons water engine is technically better, but I
think the water I don't know. Maybe people think this
is weird I'm harping on it, but the water in
Assassin's Creed Origins is generally a source of like beauty
and comfort to me. The whole time I'm playing the game,
I'm like, look at that water. It looks so inviting,

(09:47):
and I hate how thirsty all the boatmen are to
come let you borrow their boats, because I'm like, no, man,
I'm good swimming. It's a beautiful day. I want to
swim across the nile right now. That is one of
my favorite things that if you are swimming for long enough,
someone on a boat will come just like get to you,
and it's like, please steal my boat. Yeah, it's obviously like, hey,

(10:08):
you probably want a boat, but it's also like I'd
like to imagine it was like there, you know, some
some you know boatman out there saw this guy swimming
for miles stranded and thought, hey, I should go pick
them up. That's right. It's it's a kind culture. Its culture. Yeah. Well, also,
I mean, just a quick note on that, I think
this is one of the only ones where you really

(10:30):
can swim a lot to other destinations seas a blake
or one of the first ones. Just a quick note
on that. So that's a uh yeah, so I'm basically done.
But yeah, I also think it's notable of course, and
the reason it's called Origins is that we get the
origin of the Assassins, and I think it's actually fairly
well handled. You don't. You kind of forget that it's

(10:53):
that that's where we're driving, and when it comes up,
you're like, oh, that actually all makes sense. Oh yeah,
yeah yeah. So okay, so this is the first one.
Oh they're the Assassins now neat um So I like
that angle. I feel like that does make it feel
like an important entry in the series, and I just
think it shows a lot of love and care and gosh,
I've played through it three or four times and I

(11:14):
have a whole lot of fun with it. Um there's more,
but I'll save it. That's the end of my rant. Traditionally,
we ask the guests to go second, if you if
you're up for it, yeah, you know, I think I'd
like to go last. Okay, fantastic, Okay, sat the best
for last? Then? Uh yeah, probably is. Then I will

(11:37):
go next Player two Adam Ganzer plugging in. Um okay, so, uh,
this is a very good game, I think, and um,
I actually did not play the first Assassins Creed RPG.
This is not my first one. I played Odyssey first, um,
which I like better as a game for reasons I

(11:57):
won't waste our time into. But I think as a
story in a setting, this is probably my favorite Assassin's Creed.
Egypt as a setting is exactly why Assassin's Creed needs
to exist. Like the joy of Assassin's Creed for me
is reconstructing some version that's quasi realistic of the past

(12:17):
that rules, and the idea of sort of skipping around
in these old cities is awesome, and there is no
more intriguing place to me than Egypt. My only point
of contention about it is I'm kind of wished that
they hadn't settled on this era of Egypt. I know
why they did, but I wish they'd gone further back
into the past into like you know, the Pharaohs and

(12:39):
stuff and Ramses and all that before they were occupied
by the Greeks, just because I feel like that's really
more where human history begins, and I'd like to think
of the Assassins as being an organization that was always
connected to human history and really would be the evil
colonizer with thousands of soldiers they kill, and you're like

(12:59):
you're cutting off you know, three thousand years of history
by saying that Assassin's Creed starts here, and more importantly,
perhaps you're making Assassin's Creed as a franchise and as
a movement more about European civilization than it needs to
be by starting here. You know, Like, I think that's
actually and it's not that I think that's like the

(13:19):
worst thing in the world. It's just that, like, look,
you started with a point where this is about the
Roman occupation and the spread of Rome. That means we're
gonna be based around Western civilization for the most part. Okay,
But like I'd like to play an Assassin's Creed game
that takes place in you know, with the Aztecs or something,
you know, or the income doesn't even reference, right, I

(13:40):
don't see why that can't happen. And I think this
decision makes that now they have to violate their canon
to do that, unless they have some some crafty thing
that I didn't think of. And look, this game is
loose enough with story and not just this game of
the franchise that I think they can get around it.
But I just I think that's I don't that decision
bums me out just a little bit. It because I

(14:01):
love what Assassin's Creed does. It gives me a reason
to like rethink about things that happened in the past.
That's that's fantastic. Now, Okay, so here's probably the biggest spoiler,
and I'm just gonna get it out up front. This
game is clearly structured around the idea of making the
assassins get basically solidified and borne by assassinating Julius Caesar.

(14:21):
Cool idea totally makes sense. It was telegraphed the minute
Julius Caesar set foot in this plot. It's like, oh, yeah, yeah,
so this the assassin's assassinated Julius Caesar, got it and
it rules. Man, it's the end of the game and
it's fantastic. And of course Assassin's Creed needed to start
there until we get the one where they revealed John
Wilkes Booth as an assassin. Every cool assassination is going

(14:44):
to be tied up into this, and I'm gonna use
cool and very loosely here. So but that does lead
me to I do like Biack, but I kind of
think that I was a more interesting character um and
had there there was more depth that was unexplored with her.
And I feel like maybe we didn't go with her
as the protagonist because we still weren't ready to do

(15:05):
a strictly female story and Assassin's Creed we're still kind
of have an arcake and eating it too on that subject.
And this is the one time it's like, well, wait
a minute, the most important thing in the game is
about her, and she's kind of a tangential character in
a lot of ways. And that's a mistake to me,
but not a huge one, just a minor one that
I'm like, ah, come on, I wish you guys would

(15:26):
just go for it on this. The RPG stuff is
a fun detour. It's done pretty well here. I think
it was perfected in Odyssey, but I still prefer the
other system of Assassin's Creed. I find that more repeatable
and replayable. But I'll just repeat there has never been
a cooler environment to scale than ancient Egypt. Like I, yes, man,

(15:51):
I love that, thank you. That's yeah, come on man, yeah,
sliding down the pyramids. That's what I want out of
video games. And thank you for doing it, because that's
what makes the franchise awesome. They should always be trying
to do that kind of shit and like, thank god
they're doing it. Assassin's Creed has its flaws. This is
one of the highlights. That's my rant. Can I ask

(16:11):
just for clarity of the listener, but also because I'm
kind of fuzzy or like forgetting no no, no, uh,
what would you before you consider before in the time,
before you consider Assassin's Creed too, have had RPG elements,
What was the system? Do you improve over time or
you just start good? Well, first of all, one, it's

(16:34):
this this franchise is closer to a combat oriented interface,
like sort of and I use this lightly like a
Dark Souls, right, it's a little bit more like getting
in there. I see a lot of Tsushima and yeah, also, yeah,
I feel like it's more like that the previous system
that has objectively worse combat, but there's a lot less
of it, Like it's really not about combat as much

(16:57):
as it is. It's more traversal and stealth puzzle solving.
And I think that they sort of slowly moved away
from it. And in like, in my opinion and also
in some aspects, Egypt is not the most climbable place
they've been either, you know, I mean they sort of
just moving away from that part of it, and they
got completely away from that part of it in Valhalla
in my opinion. But I don't want to digress too much.

(17:18):
That's how I'm distinguishing between the two. I'm happy to RPG,
meaning I'm big focus on making the number stuff like that.
There was not a consideration before as much. Anyway, I
want to turn it over to our illustrious guest if
I may, Oh, yeah, no, thank you. UM. I love
hearing y'all talk about that, and I think, yeah, I

(17:40):
can speak to a little bit of it, um or
have thoughts at least on a little bit of it.
But I'll start with my take. For those who don't know,
I am Egyptian. M So. An Assassin's Creed is my
favorite franchise in games, has been since AC one in
two thousand and seven. Um So, in a lot of ways,

(18:03):
this game is incredibly special to me. UM. I was
working at Ubisoft when it came out. It was the
first Assassins Creed that launched. UM when I started, since
I started working now, it was it was amazing. Um
And you know, when we talk about favorites and things
like that, I don't know, I you know, depending on

(18:25):
what day of the week it is, I'll say this
is my favorite, this is my favorite, this is my favorite. UM. Unequivocally,
the most important Assassin's Creed to me is Assassin's Creed Origins. UM.
It is in many ways, I think a game like
Odyssey is quote unquote maybe my perfect game, because there
is still part of me that is that nineteen year
olds that wants, you know, a two hundred hour game

(18:47):
with everything to do in the world. UM. But I
always say that Assassin's Creed Origins is the game I
never thought I would get. UM. And one of the
first things I ever wrote in my editorial job at
Ubisoft was how Assassin's Creed Origins made me feel accepted
as the Egyptian UM. And there's a scene very early

(19:08):
on where you're playing is obviously you're you're playing is Baiak,
and you come across one of your friends, a man
named Hepsepha, who is you know, fighting UM fighting some
guards and and you know, you join the fight, you
save him UM, and afterwards there's a cut scene and

(19:29):
it's Biak and Hepsepha. They embrace us like brothers, and
they're they're just they're they're talking, and they're they're riding
back to their town of Seewa um and it's you know,
I think for you know, ninety nine point nine percent
of gamers who played that, it's just a regular old
introduction to a character. Um. And to me, I cried

(19:52):
when I first played that, because it was the first
time I'd ever seen in almost any media, not just
video games, that there was an Egyptian hero and there
was another Egyptian character there. And they weren't villains, they
weren't side characters, they weren't side things or something. Yeah,

(20:15):
they weren't stereotyped, they weren't cliche, they were just they
were two Egyptian men embracing each other as normal characters.
And to me, that is what I love so much
about this game is that, from start to finish, this
game so wholly embraced Egypt and Egyptian culture and Egyptian people,

(20:39):
and it was it was absolutely foundational to everything this
game did and how it changed from the previous ac
formula and all the new things that it brought, um,
you know what, which which I'm sure we'll talk about,
but to me, it all starts with the fact that
this game decided to make you know, Egyptians, um in

(21:02):
the Egyptian people, it decided to treat them with so
much respect. And I think the time period even gets
into that because there is this you know, Greek influence,
there is this Roman occupation and it and the game
goes out of its way to show you that Egyptians
were very much second class citizens in their own country
during this time. Um. And it shows the plight that

(21:25):
they went through. Um and and it's it's one of
the things, um. You know, we go to tollmaking Egyptian
obviously because there's there's famous historical figures there. All of
the monuments have been built, so that means that you
can explore all those monuments. But at the same time,
it's it tells this story in this this perspective in

(21:47):
history that I think gets lost. Right. You hear about
Cleopatra all the time, who is half Greek. You hear
about Julius Caesar all the time, who is Roman. But
you don't you know, history is taught at least in
the US very you know linearly. You know, you're you're
sort of taught that. Okay, there's there are the Sumerians
and then there are the Egyptians, and then there are

(22:07):
the Greeks, and then there are the Romans, right, and
it's it's like, oh, you know, once we get to
the Greeks, then you know, then you know, the Egyptians
were gone whatever. You know, we get to the Romans
and you know, we're already focused on them. There's this
way in US history that it's at least you know,
when I was coming up in school and um, in
my public school education, where things are taught very much

(22:28):
through the lens of this like intense microscope where you're
just zooming in and onto one culture and you're not
thinking about the greater civilizations at play and the way
they intermingle and intertwine with one another. And so I
really appreciated that this game said, Hey, no, this is
you know, this is a world. This is the time
where you know, in in Turn of the you know, uh,

(22:49):
turn of the millennia, right, I believe it's forty seven BC. Um,
this is the time normally you would talk about Rome, right,
Julius Caesar is I don't know about you, and then um,
but it's showing that hey, nope, Egypt was this jewel
of the Mediterranean at the time that that had so
much interest from so many different civilizations, and that this

(23:11):
game decided to embrace that and say, Okay, we're going
to talk about Egyptian culture, Egyptian religion, Egyptian society, how
they were treated in their own country by by foreigners.
That to me just made it all so so so special. Well, man,

(23:31):
just really quick, because I don't want to I don't
want to move on until I've asked you this question.
How do you feel about it as a game in
the franchise? Like, how do you feel about the gameplay
piece in the franchise? Just curious? I think you know,
I share a lot of the sentiments both of both
of you echoed and which Um, you know, this was

(23:52):
AC stepping into new territory, and you know, this was
the first time the franchise had taken a year off
since AC two. It had been annualized from two thousand
and nine to twenty fifteen, and so the team at
Ubisoft Montreal took a year off after AC Syndicate, and

(24:12):
we're reinventing the franchise to a certain extent. Um And
I think you you, I think I saw you know
a lot of the reasons, um that this game made
the decisions that it made, so you know, as you said, Adam,
that the combat was completely reworth right. The combat wasn't

(24:33):
really necessarily the star of the show, um in the
earlier games, and they instead of going from a paired
animation system in the previous ones, they went to a
hip box system that was you know, quote unquote more
more dark Soulsium Climbing also had to change because again
you're in a much more rural setting. There's there's far
less uh you know, buildings around, and you know, a

(24:56):
one and two you know introduced. I always like to
think of it as Assassin Creed adding the Z access
into video games in a way that that games hadn't
really before. UM. And I think Origins took that to
the next level in which like, okay, no, you could
really climb anything. You know. In the previous games you
could climb any building basically, but you were often you know,
a cliff side, you know, like uh, you know, mossy

(25:19):
terrain anything like that. Like you played Black Flag and
you go to the islands and you can't climb everything there. Um.
But Origins said, hey, no, we're gonna let you climb everything. Um.
And and you know it's partially because hey, you know
there are the cities are few and farm between, and
we need a way for you to explore. Um. And
you know, this was the year that Breath of the

(25:40):
Wild came out, and you know that game let you
climb climb everything too, and so, UM, I think it
was it was introducing these new open world mechanics and
playing around with them. Um, you know, at a time
where that was still very new in in open world games.
That's a good point. Um, well, I want to send
a real quickly to the break so that we can

(26:03):
get back and start our next segment where we all
get to talk about all the points that were raised.
I think there's a lot of great stuff here. So
we'll see you on the other side of some ads

(26:24):
and we're back, which means it's time for us to
pass yet another checkpoint and get into I know Mike's
favorite segments game on. This is where we can interrupt
each other at will to discuss all the doing stuff. Yeah,
you are just like I wanted you to, exactly as
the prophecies foretold. So I just wanted to launch with

(26:48):
this question like, which I know is a little bit generic,
but is this our favorite Assassin's Creed for setting? It
seems like we all said that is that where we
Is that what we think? I? Well, yeah, if I
may interrupt, and also keying off of what Yusuf said
on the other side of the break, I feel like
the setting is potentially rendered with the most love and

(27:10):
it's just a feeling I get and I and he
mentioned respect, and I really feel that. I will say
this about the entire franchise for the most part, and
I think it's in its favor Ubisoft seems to When
I play in Assassin's Creed, it feels like a very
involved book report on a culture time period. And I

(27:32):
mean that in a good way, in the sense that
it's not just like God of War is literally taking
you know, whatever pantheon it wants, and this is also
a legitimate form of whatever, whatever storytelling or whatever, but
it's just different. They're taking bits and pieces from whatever
and saying, well, in our world, thors like this who

(27:54):
care like we're changing it all. It's whatever it is,
and the point is for it to be cool and
badass and exciting, and of course Assassin's Creed wants to
be all those things. Entertaining and engaging, etc. But Ubisoft
does actually seem to care about um No, you're gonna
learn a bit about the culture. That is if you
looked it up, historically accurate. And I don't see a

(28:15):
lot of other franchises based in the past even caring
about that at all. And I find it refreshing, and
it's true of most of them, but I will say
I feel it the most in Origins, Like even Valhalla,
I feel like, yeah, you get a smattering of what
it would be like to be a Viking. But um,

(28:38):
I feel like in Origins, I learned so much, even
down to like the little details of cultural nuance of
like Yusuf was mentioning or you know, from the time
they embrace into like seeing how people live and eat
and work. It's just like it's very filled with Now,
this is going to be super hokey, but it really
feels like history come alive. That's the that's the pitch,

(29:03):
and that's the pitch of Assassin's Creed And it's so
funny to me that it's also but so video gaming
and human and you'll get to kill everyone there. That is,
that's it's a fun way to go through history. I
think it says a lot about the world and the
research that the team did in the paint and saking
detail that they put into the world. That Assassin's Creed

(29:23):
Origins was the first game to then launch, um, you
know what what we yourself called, you know, the Discovery Tour,
which is an additional, add on, standalone experience that takes
the game world as it was in the you know,
in Assassin's Creed, and it completely pacifies it. It makes
it conflicts free, and it turns it into a museum.

(29:45):
It just it includes that. You know, the first game
Discovery Tour Ancient Egypt was like had seventy guided tours
that were all fully voiced and you know, it broken
up into different you know, topics of religion, society, arc, texture,
everything like that. And you know it's because they had
this world. And I've actually I've actually interviewed professional archaeologists

(30:08):
and professors at universities who are using Assassin's Creed and
Discovery Tour to teach because by their estination, it is
the best three dimensional recreation of Tolmaic Egypt. That's so yeah, sure,
I mean that's incredible. Just a quick quick point on
that Yeah. So this is also the last time that
Assassin's Creed took took the setting and allowed it to

(30:34):
just be a historical place and not also magic, you
know what I mean. Like Odyssey and Valhalla, they started
to like allow stuff like minotaurs and things like that
to exist that I don't think they justified, right, which
is to say, they felt some license to play around
with the historicity of those places, but they didn't feel

(30:55):
it here, and I think that was good that they took.
It's also interesting about any franchise like AC that's so
storied for so long, with so many entries, that has
a formula and loop that they don't want to get
too far from because it wouldn't be the thing anymore.
But also they're trying to keep it fresh, and there's
so many elements to any game, including Assassin's Creed. It's

(31:17):
just interesting to watch how each little on each level
things can get tweaked up and down. Right, even though
we talk about the franchise being known for climbing anywhere
as you used to pointed out like this was the
first truly climb anywhere one And I think it's interesting
how every time they sort of refine or pick. What
do we mean by climb anywhere? Because it means slightly

(31:38):
different things mechanically. In almost every Assassin's Creed, it doesn't
always mean and again, and this is why this one's
my favorite. It's just sheered by sheer chance in some regards.
All the choices they made this time are like that
car with that options is the one I would pick.
I don't know why I lucked out, and this one's
just the one for me. But it is down to

(31:59):
the climbing like that. The climbing in origins still involves
some figuring out of a three dimensional puzzle in the
loosest sense, which is what I always call like Prince
of Persia climbing U versus. There have been Assassin's Creeds
which are just hold acts and move in a direction,
and you will go forward in that direction and you'll

(32:20):
get to your destination. I just think everything in this
game is perfectly It as like the moderate path, Like
there's some difficulty to the climbing, so you have to
be engaged, but it's not complicated, and like everything is
like that nice happy medium which just really works from
so I totally get what you're saying too, because like
there is there's like you know, the light House of

(32:41):
Alexandria some one of the first big monuments that that
you know, I really remember in that game that you
climb in like that is one of those things words.
It is a flush, you know, like smooth surface. There
are no handholds there, right, You're not climbing up any
way you want. There is a a kind of a
way up there, a gamified way up there, much like
past Assassin's Creed and how how you would have to

(33:02):
climb buildings then same with you know, same with the pyramids,
but then smaller scale things, you know, natural cliff sides.
I think the game just kind of realized, hey, no,
like we we want players to be able to traverse
this freely and like and I love I know exactly
what you mean Michael when you say like this is
the moderate version. Um. This is like the kind of

(33:22):
like happy medium between you know what you know what
maybe honestly and Vold I will do and what the
old days he's did. Um, Because you know, so, I
I was an architect, um before I got into games.
I went to picture one. Um. Part of the reason
I love Assassin's Creed so much. UM. But One of
the things that I remember Professor telling me is, you

(33:44):
know when we were when we were sketching and drawing buildings,
is not to be afraid of the white space on
the paper. Um Let the white space work for you.
Let it do something. It can communicate just as valuable
information as lines can and curves. And to me, I
always think of that with assassin Screed origins, because this

(34:05):
is a game that takes place in Egypt. Obviously there
is going there are going to be deserts, and this
is a game that is content with just giving you
a wide open swath of desert without a million side
quests and activities and checkpoints in ye and it allows
you to just kind of breathe in that white space,
and it uses that white space. It also it lets
you do an auto like an auto drive with your

(34:26):
camel or horse, so that you gets so that you
can have a cinematic experience of those spaces. And it's
not a chore like they used it. Just like you said,
they used it for a different kind of experience, which
is emotional and reflective, a thing that Assassin's Creed hadn't
had that much of. But it was well designed in

(34:47):
that regard and from what it's worth, another game that
does allow itself to have long rides, like long traversal periods,
that also has the auto thing as dead to R
d R two and I constantly couldn't use that one.
Like the horse never quite and the camel, well you

(35:07):
can get a horse, but I mean the steed in origins.
For whatever it's worth, it is like spot on, like
it really takes you. You can really zone out, and
not in a bad way, but like you can fly
Senu and look at the vistas around you as your
camel takes you wherever you're gonna go, and it'll get
you there. It's good, like it knows what's up. That's

(35:29):
the other thing that this game introduced, though, too, was
it changed the nature of Eagle Vision. Eagle Vision for
the longest time had been okay, this this detective mode
that highlights you know, enemies and my target everything like that,
and this said, okay, no, your Eagle is going to
be a part of you now, and you're it's going
to be its own character, and it's gonna be Bike's
companion and it's gonna get to fly throughout the entire
map if you want it. To without ever encountering a

(35:51):
single loading screen, and at any point you can, you know,
stop it and you can go back to bike on
the complete other side of the map. Who is on
his camel riding somewhere else. Another shout out. This is
one of the only games I've ever played that you
can ride a camel in. UM. I don't have many
just takes about how you should play a game. I am.
I am firmly in the camp that you should ride

(36:14):
a camel in Assassin's Creed origins. Yeah, it's great, it's
a good experience. It's a really friend the horse the
end game horse trust, I like the steed. So just
a couple of really quick, fun behind the scenes details
that kind of reinforce some things we said. So this
one was made by Ubisoft Montreal UM and as I
understand it, there are multiple teams that do multiple games,

(36:36):
sort of like Call of Duty with Assassin's Creed, and
ubisof Montreal is responsible. Well, Adam, the team is made
up of a group of different fronds, so uh. This
team started work on this immediately following Assassin's Creed for
Black Flag, and the game they'd worked on before that

(36:58):
was Assassin's Creed Revelations, And it's really interesting because for me,
those are the games that land as the big shifts
in the formula, like successfully shifting the formula, like both
of those. Um there was a director from a different
team who headed up Assassin's Creed three who said ancient
Egypt is one of the worst places you could set

(37:20):
an Assassin's Creed. So it's just kind of interesting that
within the company, like different teams have a really different
idea about what this is supposed to be from you know,
this is all from Wikipedia, so I'm not breaking any
thinking about the lack of verticat or where they were
stuck in that mindset of like it's got to be
a bunch of buildings close together and like a funny
observation about the eagle thing. So I believe Ubisov Montreal

(37:43):
was also the team that was working on Far Cry Primal, right,
I think it was, and far Cry Primal also had
that eagle that was sort of like a scout. I
was just about to bring that out, Yeah, I was like,
who thought of that first? I was, well, I think
it's the same team. I think it's really fun that
they found a way to cross. Yeah, it's really great.

(38:04):
It's actually yeah, it's so you saw Montreal for Reference
is massive. Um there there's there's more than four thousand
people who work there. So um there's you know, I
actually I and you know, I don't know. I'm sure
there was some cross you know, um pollination happening, but
you know, by and large, like the the the Core
Origins team was was the you know, the core team

(38:26):
that had worked on Black Flag and moved on from there.
You know, I don't know, I don't know if, but
you know, there's always a lot of influence. Maybe someone saw, hey,
this is what Farcar problem was doing. That's a really
cool idea. Maybe we can we can take it. But uh,
what I what I think is is so awesome. Um. So,
Jean Gadon is is the guy who's creative director on

(38:47):
Assassin's Creed Origins and Assassin's Creed Black Flag. Um. And
and you know there's a core team there, Darby McDevitt,
who was narrative director um on on Black Flag and
also Valhalla. Uh. Um, there's there's something you know about
that team's games that stand out to people, like like
you said, Adam, you know, and it seems like there's

(39:10):
you know, I talk to people when when when I've
learned their their favorite AC games, and they say, oh,
you know, I love Origins, I love Black Flag and
you know a lot of those same people too, do
you know, uh love Valhalla. I'm like, ah, okay, you're
you're a fan of that team's games, um, because that's
you know, the team that builds Origins and Black Flag.

(39:30):
You know, that is Ubisoft Montreal. Ubisoft Montreal also made
the first you know, three a C games and one
two in Brotherhood, but it wasn't it wasn't necessarily the
same core team. UM. And then Ubisoft Quebec comes in
UM as the lead studio for Syndicate in Odyssey. UM.
But you know, I think it's it's interesting the DNA

(39:52):
of teams and you know, if you know the games
well enough, you can almost tell which teams put you know,
made them just by you know, how how the games takes.
That's interesting. Now. So one thing that I think deserves
to be said about this game is it's actually like
it's not just a pivot point for obvious reasons, like
you know, which as they change the mechanics, it's that

(40:12):
the narrative around Assassin's Creed before this game came out,
was that Assassin's Creed was cynical, Like it was a
cynical cash grad Like that's the thing that people were
saying that gamers in particular, And it had the same
sort of reputation the Call of Duty had and Assassin's
Creed origins had this like I think, fairly monumental task

(40:33):
of establishing the sincerity of this franchise with a brand
new mechanical direction. I need to throw enough innovations at
you that it feels revitalized. They took a year off,
so they kind of like, in a sense, they were
like hyping this game by not releasing a game. You know,
I'd be like saying, like this one's gonna be good.
We took a year off, like we're gonna you know.

(40:54):
And I think the pivot did work here, But but
mostly because I think they really took the story seriously,
Like out of all the Assassin's Creed, this one is
the most serious about its story, except I mean, you
can make an argument about three maybe, but this one
they're very committed to it and it's very emotionally told.

(41:17):
Does anybody disagree with that? No, not at all like,
and the down to the little details where I'm like, man,
that's a good payoff, like the stepping on the bird's
skull necklace he's been wearing the whole game and it
makes the assassin logo in the sand, and you know,
little details like that where you're like, they really did it.
Any kind of movie that has to go back or

(41:39):
any media that has to go back and rat con
that's where this thing you're familiar with came from. That's
always tricky, and they did it with a plum. Yeah,
it works very well. My favorite example of that too
is the origin of the cut Finger, where you know,
Mike gets this hidden blade, he goes and he takes
it all you know, to his first assassination, and he

(42:01):
finds himself in a bath house and and he's in
you know, he's in a peculious situation. He's he's uh,
I think he's been caught by surprise or you know,
he's pinned down on the ground and he has no
choice but to just trigger the blade without being able
to get his hand out of the way, and it
goes right through his ring finger, and then you know
it's the sacrifice he had to make him that moment,

(42:22):
but it saved his life. And then it created this
whole tradition. Uh. You know that that the the Order
of Assassins kept you know up to you know, we
see it used um in one and um, you know
we see Bassim in assassin's feet. Lahalla has a cut finger. Um.
And so it's it's something that you know, they eventually

(42:42):
Etsio doesn't have to do. But I love those details. Yeah,
when there's the whole story is built around or like
pretty elegantly though, like Bayack Andy's situation is a perfect
way to take the audience from the idea of a
very personal I gotta kill this guy because he murdered

(43:02):
my son in front of me. That's a very any
you know, that's the core of revenge or any revenge story.
But it's very personal. Uh. And then slowly but surely,
over the course of uncovering this conspiracy, Uh, they realize
that they and I thought a very interesting choice that
I didn't think they would make. Um, they discard their relationship,

(43:23):
even though they love each other very much, they discard
They go through the period of realizing, um, we're not
we've outgrown killing to satisfy our own emotional needs. This
is becoming like a network of people who are going
to kill dispassionately for particular reasons to help the world. Uh,
it's cool. You feel the Assassin's Order coming together through

(43:47):
their story. Well, and it hurts too, Like I like,
it hurts that they break up. Where's than the kid
getting killed? I'm like, there's so there's so few examples
of like a happy like and it's hard to call
them a healthy couple when their their son was killed.
But like you know, a couple where you know their

(44:07):
their conflict, you know, them being in conflict is not
the point of them being together, you know, I isn't
fridged to motivate Bayak or anything like that, Like it is,
it's so like there are so many there are so
few examples I should say, of a couple just loving
each other and being there for each other and being
what each other needs in that given moment. And I

(44:28):
think I's introduction even just instantly adds this appeal to
their relationship in which they they love each other, they
are passionate, they are physically intimate with one another, and
it's it's just something so rarely seen. And then so
when they do split up at the end for a
greater cause. And I think there's some parallels in there,
because you know, they were both the parents of Kemu,

(44:51):
and Kemmu was taken from them, and then they go
through this this journey and they eventually become the parents
of the Assassin's order um and they go and they
take it in different directions and it's it hurts, but
you understand why they have to do it. And then
rose that Maja badge overboard real fast. You could have
kept it for a little. That's an interesting piece of

(45:12):
this narrative, that kind of that's actually, like I think
the most elegant piece of this narrative is the Assassin's
Creed has always been about people finding a larger purpose
out of their personal tragedy, you know, or at least
that's what it's been selling us. But a lot of
Assassin's Creed up to this point has been pretty edge
lordy about how they did it, you know what I mean. Like,

(45:34):
I just replayed Assassin's Creed two before this podcast because
I wanted to like have in my mind fresh the
differences between the two characters and et CEO, like, you know,
he comes to accept the creed after like years and years.
But it's not through sacrifice so much as it's a
coping step for him. It's a maturing step for him.

(45:55):
These two make make like honorable, thoughtful choices to leave
a series of traditions behind. They leave the megi behind,
they leave their child behind, they leave their marriage behind,
they leave like all their traditional morality behind. And the
game exactly, and the game places very carefully a lot

(46:17):
of artifacts that matter that are authoritarian artifacts that these
decisions happen around, like the tomb of Alexander the Great Right,
or like the Lighthouse of Alexandria, things that sort of
represent human civilization and the way things have been tradition, right.
And Egypt is a great setting for this because it

(46:37):
has an ancient civilization that represents a tradition that's being
swallowed by a new tradition, and so they have this
sort of metaphorical evolution happening around them and therefore have
to put these things aside as a sort of personal
step that joins the setting. It's really well crafted, like
narratively that way, you know, it's really impressive. Yeah, I

(46:59):
wanted to point out that I I was sort of
gritting and playing it through it again. For this, I
think it's sneaky influential too, or I mean, you can
always argue that they're superficial similarities or the plot turns.
You know, there's only so many plot terns. But like,
there's a long scene in this that's a flashback where

(47:20):
you teach your son to fire a bow and hunt
an animal and then your son tragically dies later. It's
very God of War to the and then comparing them
scene for scene, I'm like, I think I like the
writing in origins better because like God of War is
the scene I looked at him again. The scene ends
with comb boy and they lead right, that's the end line,
and this one ends with I'm going to tell you

(47:42):
something my father told me one word that changed my
life forever. Jump. That's way better to me. It's just
better writing. And then another one that really caught me
is you end up going into a vault and realizing
that there's actually another layer of civilization that's way more
technologically advanced than you could ever conceive, and the key
to getting into that vault is your own genetic material.

(48:04):
That is the plot of Horizon zero Down. I just
think it's a funny parallel and it could be nothing.
But I don't know. I know the people that made
those games played this, you know. I just feel like
it's part of the flow. And I think media is
highly highly iterative, which gaming embraces, which I like about it.
So I'm not doing this to say like they stole

(48:25):
this from this or that's the I think it's more
interesting to say, no, this is the flow of ideas
and the provenance of this idea and how it got
woven into the tapestry that is wherever we're at with gaming.
But I'm just saying I think there are a lot
of Assassin's creeds, and you tend to go like, yeah,
there's like am in my mind, there's like a blur
of like, yeah, all the Assassin's creeds, and it's worth

(48:48):
it to drill down sometimes and appreciate that there's individual
ones that I think they're really saying, and I think
this is one of them, and I think it's sort
of been woven into our gaming consciousness, probably more than
we think. It is a bundle of a lot of
really good gaming ideas that are truly innovative, like the
Eagle Vision thing alone is a big deal. To me, well,

(49:12):
and you know, I we take I think photomodes from
granted now too, and I get that note a surprisingly
good photo mode for this year. Yeah, so my favorite
thing about it, and you know, it might not have
the features that you know some other photomodes have, but
my favorite thing about it is a photomode triggers from
wherever whatever you're currently controlling at that time. So if

(49:36):
you're flying a senew around, you know, circling the pyramids, um,
you can trigger it then and then you can get
the exact shot you want from you know, five hundred
feet in the air if you want. And it's something
that Origins and Valhalla have done too, or excuse me,
Odyssey and Valhalla have also done. And I just I
love that level of manipulation and control that Yeah, I can.
I can get up exactly as high as I want

(49:58):
to get a top down a literal bird's eye view
if I want, and just it just and it triggers
on the thumbsticks, which just feels good to me. I
don't have to pause the game, I don't have to
go to a menu. I can just instantly hit both
thumbsis and I'm in it and I'm lining up the
shot exactly how I want. It's awesome. So I'm just
sort of curious. Do we feel like this change toward

(50:20):
RPG elements is abandoning anything essential to Assassin's Creed? Like
in hindsight, I know this was like a sort of
an in between one in that regard. Do we see
that trend as an essential not violation, but an essential
shift in Assassin's Creed? And do we miss it? I

(50:41):
feel like RPG elements. So something interesting is I actually
don't tend to as much as I want to, like
hardcore RPGs most that I play, And Adam and I
have talked about this and how we feel bad for
the audience because if we know people love them like,
we don't cover as much like turn based classics slock

(51:04):
through at RPGs. The number goes up. Now you can
kill this guy. I it's not my favorite kind of game.
I do like engaging in some kind of reflex play
or physics play, or like not just crunching, you know,
a turn order. And so even though RPGs are actually
not my favorite genre, I think there's something magical about

(51:26):
RPG mechanics. RPG mechanics do speak to something primal and
humans about putting things together and they become other things
and you get bigger and the number goes up. I
do think that's very primal, and so I think almost
every genre, like RPG mechanics are the cranberry juice of gaming.
It it makes any other juice better, but you don't
want to drink straight cranberry juice. You do want to.

(51:51):
So I feel like limited RPG elements mixed into almost
any genre do make it more interesting to me, Like, uh,
you know, a survival horror game that's modern versus a
survival horror game from before we were mixing RPG elements
in it does feel shallower and less deep, like oh,
there's no texture, my character doesn't level up, And maybe

(52:11):
I'm just used to that, and maybe there will be
a change in the wind and we'll go back to
the purity of whatever some different experience. But I would say,
for the most part, limited RPG mechanics always make your
game better. And then this is where I diep over
and then putting too many RPG mechanics in starts to
make it bogged down, and if your game loop is

(52:31):
not suited for that, you start to feel that weight
and go. Now we're just doing RPG mechanics for the
sake of doing RPG mechanics. And I know this is
highly controversial, but some games that I feel like have that,
Like I think which are three? The Wild Hunt has
that where the RPG mechanics are so detailed that it
weighs down what you're doing, etcetera, etcetera. So and I

(52:52):
think Odyssey has that, and I feel like Origins has
I'm a broad right, it's just the right amount. Yeah,
it's the right amount. It's um, there's a lot of
a lot of options. Um. And yet you've seen more
complicated systems, for sure. It's not the most complicated RPG
system ever. It's like a medium one. That's what I

(53:12):
like about it. Also, this game has the perfect amount
of modern day animous scenes, which is almost that. What
do you think about that use? If it is this
better or worse than the traditional formula? I you know,
I this is going to sound like a cop on answer.
I really genuinely enjoy them both. A friend of mine, well,

(53:34):
so Assassin Street recently had its like fifteenth anniversary, and um,
part of what I do at yourself, this is stream games,
and so we were streaming every game in the series
counting down to the Assassin Scree showcase. In the reviewal
of Assassin Scream Mirage this past September, And so I
was going through when I was literally I was playing
every single one again. Um. And I think, like you

(53:56):
could ask my co host Chris Waters every time every
week we got to in the next one, I was like, God,
this this is so good? Should should I replay this?
Should I replay this? Uh? And I was just like,
you know, asking myself that over and over again every week.
So I genuinely love you know, both uh, both formulas, um.
You know, the more action adventure stealth uh of the

(54:19):
old game and the the RPG one. The thing I
will say about Origins and I feel Odyssey, UH this
applies to as well, is that I think the game's
had to change. Yeah, that's right. I don't think. I
don't think this setting. I don't think this this um.
I honestly, I mean, we'll we'll start there. I don't

(54:39):
think this setting could support um. You know the previous
versions of Assassin's Creed that relied so much on stealth,
It relied so much on the urban environment. You know,
the climbing. Um. You know, there's there's when when you
open up the space like you do when you go
to Egypt and you go so far back in time, um,

(55:02):
it ascessin states certain things. And I think one of
the things we haven't quite talked about that I think
gets slept on is that Assassin's Creed you know not
it wasn't just the combat that changed, but the actual
quest structure changed. There was a quest system previously Assassin's
Creed all mission base right, you got you got a mission.
You were doing that mission while you you know, as
you had it, you weren't exploring. You know, you weren't

(55:24):
accumulating a quest slog, you weren't dropping in and out
of one thing or another. No, you got a mission
to go, you know, escort um uh Karl Marx and
you know in Assassin's Creed Syndicate, that's what you were
doing at that time, whereas here, you know, it was
you were meeting people, you were talking to and you
were learning their their their stories and saying, Okay, you know,

(55:46):
I might come back and do this later, or I
might you know, something else might happen. I might fight
a crocodile along the way or whatever else. And so
I think when you opened your game all these different tasks,
you could do it anytime. Yeah, yeah, exactly when you
opened up the game this much, it needed to change,
It needed to embrace part of the the RPG elements

(56:07):
of that, y'all see. Now, I would say that is
that's because it was a good marriage of setting and
game mechanic. But I don't so like, I don't. I mean,
I can't say what what what came first the setting
or the game mechanicum, But you're right percent right, Like,
in order to play in this version of Egypt, it

(56:27):
couldn't be the same way, like you just because it
just wasn't as vertical. There wasn't as uh, there wasn't
as much opportunity for the kind of stealth missions that
defined Assassin's Creed. Um. I think that while this game
was a welcome change because the formula was so routine
at this point, uh, that I do think that the stealth, puzzling,

(56:50):
traversal puzzling piece of Assassin's Creed is my favorite piece
game play wise, and they've gotten very far away from that,
particularly Valhalla, but also even to a degree, Assassin's Creed Odyssey,
which I like as the most gamified version of this
idea because I think it is. I think it's the
farthest in the gamified version of combat. I think it's

(57:13):
inarguable that Assassin's Creeds combat was not as good as
it became with this game, Like you had to take
combat more seriously in this game, So they were fixing
a real problem. But I don't think that. I think
it was fixing a problem and creating another problem that
showed up later in the franchise, just not in this game.

(57:33):
And that's okay, you know what I mean, Like that's
not their problem, you know, like that's just a later
iterations problem. So but I do think the perfect version
of Assassin's Creed as an idea would would maintain a
more rigorous version of the stealth traversal mechanics stuff in
an urban environment of some kind that also makes you
take combat more seriously and is more rewarding. And I

(57:54):
don't know what the solution is because I'm not a
game dev, but I you know, I think they turned
to a Dark Soul's esque mechanic nick for a reason,
because Dark Souls has the best third person action combat
there is. You know, but like it also takes really
carefully fine tuned. Uh. I think, well, we can talk
about that some of the time. It takes a lot

(58:15):
of signs. Fair enough. I see that argument. I don't
agree with it, but I see it. It doesn't that's
not insane. That takes. It takes careful. I personally love
God of Wars, but but I don't want to get
off on the rails here. I do not like that.
As much I appreciate it you did that. I'll just say,
all of those games we mentioned, though, are really really

(58:37):
carefully balanced and have been iterated and fixed to a
degree that I don't feel what was true of this game,
or at least doesn't come across as true of this
game or really any of them since. So, I don't
think we found the perfect marriage of these two pieces. Um.
I don't know that they can be married. Hopefully a
dad out there will prove us wrong, of course, and

(58:58):
maybe a mirage is the perfect but I don't even
know that they need to be balanced. I kind of
agree with you, so if that, UM, I actually don't
like them both. But I would say there are two
modes general modes, and both are totally defensible and you
can like both or one or the other or whatever.
I happen to prefer the Origin style. I don't care

(59:20):
for blending in with a crowd and slowly walking or
having to like sit down on a bench until people
pass like that. I just don't like games. Um but
uh yeah, but if you do like that, then you'll
like the ones that do that. You know, it's nice
that there's both. So yeah. And also, and that was
always what was so unique about Assassin's Creed, and that,

(59:40):
like your default state in that game is walking very slowly.
You have to push a button, if not sometimes multiple
buttons to to start actually acting, you know, in a
video gaming manner, right to start running, to start climbing,
to start fighting. Your default state in that game is
passive in blending in and and casual, which I think

(01:00:01):
is is something that really appealed to people. In the
other there are the people who say Assassin's Creed is
you know, was at its best in the early years
to love that kind of thing, right, I love Origins
where your default mode is running as fast as you
can all the time. That's what I USh a button
the rim and and and as you said, that's as

(01:00:23):
beautiful is that is that both of those exist. But
I also think that that you know, RPG elements did
exist long before Origins. To go back to Black Flag
and and you know you were upgrading the Jackdaw in
that game much the way you know you upgrade, you know,
your your outfit, your armor, Unity and Syndicate both had
XP and you know you were upgrading your gear. Um,

(01:00:45):
you know that you were wearing your weapons, your swords,
things like that. So it was always the seeds have
been planted a little bit earlier, but than Origins, you know,
really really take it in. Yeah, yeah, essilutely true. Assassin's
Creed three was pouring goods on you three dead minutes
with like what am I doing with all this sugar?
I don't know what you got to build that big exactly?

(01:01:08):
There's that island. And again, sort of contrary to the
way that Assassin's Creed gets represented by gamers on Twitter
or whatever, they really try a lot of stuff in
this franchise, like Assassin's Creed four is a wildly different
experience than anything that came before Brotherhood created. I want
to say, like the calling in a team of people

(01:01:28):
and then revelations had tower defense, Like they really try
stuff in this franchise, and this one is no exception.
All right, it's time. I'm throwing it to break, and
when we come back, we will render our final verdict.
See if you can guess whether we will keep or
delete this game from the celestial hard drive as these

(01:01:49):
ads transpire. No, don't try to guess. Focus on the ads.
Then buy those products, then right in and said that
you bought those products because of the ads on our show.
We'll be back. We're back. I hope you bought those

(01:02:12):
things or thought about them in a positive light, and
that that benefits us somehow in the future. This is
still one upsmanship. We're still talking Assassin's Creed origins with
Yusef McGee, and we're about to enter the final countdown.
I suppose a segment we call keep or delete, or
we decide whether the game and question should be included

(01:02:35):
on a heavenly hard drive that we've decided can hold
one hundred games, and after Humanity is destroyed or maybe
some time before, it will be fired into deep space
and discovered by aliens, and the only thing they'll know
about Humanity and our culture will be this hard drive.
Of video games. So those are the stakes, and we
don't know anything about the aliens, so you don't need

(01:02:57):
to try to figure out how to please them. That's right.
I will say a lot of guests just think of
it as a top one hundred games list. I prefer
to think of it as a celestial hard drive being
shot into space. So we can be judged by aliens.
But you do you? I like that. I like that,
like the time capsule idea of like, hey, if we're
going to represent all of gaming in a hundred games, well,
I think that we think of the well, we like

(01:03:19):
to think of our show as trying to be a
little more artistically ambitious and treating the medium with slightly
more seriousness and respect. I mean not that we don't
joke around, but like trying to treat the medium as
as legitimate I mean as a legitimate force that's been
with us our entire lives and help shape us. So
from that stance, you're talking to someone who wrote their

(01:03:42):
master's thesis about architecture and video games exactly art and
it's not just a list of like I think Mario
is the coolest. You know, we're trying to do like
what's the real art here? That said Mario has made
it on the list several times, is the coolest he's
umb But moving on to the vote itself. Um, the

(01:04:07):
only other thing we should note is that the drive
is not full yet because we're very stingy with our keeps,
so there's no no danger bumping anything else. One day
that ass Creed two is on it. Okay, we that
is it? Yeah, all right, well I'll keep first that
was obvious. That was very predictable. I think from my vibes. Um,

(01:04:30):
the only thing I'll say against it at all is
that there's things in it that we've done better since then,
because gaming is iterative, Like after playing Ghosts of Tsushima
the cop and then playing this Origins again, I'm like,
the combat is good. I wish it was as good
as Ghost of Sushima because they've developed even further on
this type of combat. Um. But that's like my only

(01:04:52):
knock against it, man, Like, other than like the natural
course of artistic and technological improvement, right, like there's better
graphics now than there were then or whatever, as a
as an achievement of art of many many, many human
beings working together to create a thing. It pleases me
very greatly. Yes, And I think it's especially good for

(01:05:13):
the Aliens because rarely do they like Mario games are great,
but Mario game teaches them almost nothing about our culture.
Keep going after Mario? What a waste energy? Wait wait,
I'm sorry, how is saying Mario games are great? Going
after Mario? You're you know what you're saying, you know
what you're in playing? Uh yusef please save us? Would

(01:05:35):
you keep it? Delete this kid? I'm going to keep
it as well, I think am I think not. You know,
Michael brings up a great point, and it is a
good and respectful representation of humanity. But it is also
I think a you know, there was a time when
Origins was the outlier, right like in a in a
post syndicate world, Origins came out and it was like,

(01:05:55):
oh my god, this is this is so different. It
is now after Odyssey in Valhalla. You know, it now
exists on a spectrum. It is not the far end anymore.
And I think part of the importance of that is
that it is now a good representation of the franchise
as a whole, of of the marriage between um you know,

(01:06:16):
maybe more traditional and you know, traditional in terms of
the story, the fact that this is about the foundation
of the Brotherhood, and with the new mechanics that it
introduced that we're more RPG facing. And so I think
for those reasons, it is a very good representation for
Assassin's Creed as a brand, which I think when you

(01:06:37):
look at video games and you know, in one hundred
years or when whenever aliens get this drive and they
survey all of the games on it, Assassin's Creed is
just as influential, if not more influential, than many many
franchises out there. And you guys made this hard on
me today. Uh well, let me say this. So I'm

(01:06:58):
really torn honestly because this is not the most fun
Assassin's Creed. I think, I like, I think there's a
couple that I would pick for more fun. But I
think there's no doubt. Yeah, yeah, I think there's no
doubt it has the best setting. Um, I think there's
no doubt it has the best story. Uh, and I

(01:07:19):
think it does have a lot of the things that
are essential to Assassin's Creed. All Right, I guess I'm
gonna keep it. Yeah, I'm gonna keep it. Uh. And
I think we should talk about whether there should be
more than one Assassin's Creed on here, because I would
say no, but uh, more fun like slowly walking with

(01:07:42):
a crowd of people who are walking slowly. That's intentionally
misrepresent the fun of these other games. How is that
mister slowly walking with a group slowly part of that game?
All right, it's a part of it Assassin's Creed too
in particular that I'm thinking of, But also it's not
that's not the most fun one. I think four is

(01:08:02):
the most fun. Uh. There's a lot of leaping up
and down and climbing on rooftops and assassinating people from
way up lunchline. There's a lot of that stuff, and
this game doesn't really have that much of this. Uh.
And I like that that's the that's the cool part
of the game to me, or at least as a franchise.
But you, as you guys have said, I mean, this
game is awesome and I and as a as a

(01:08:25):
history simulator, it's fantastic. It's the best, So I feel
like it deserves me on I don't I don't know
if things are gonna get bumped later on in an
episode that I am I'm not on. But I stand
firm that Assassin's creat is one of the most influential
franchises in the history of gaming. Uh. And that's bold
deserves deserves two spots, So okay, and what Assassin's creat

(01:08:50):
to be or other one if you're keeping that or
do you not care about that one so much? Um?
Just I think I think it would be in terms of, like, okay,
if we're representing the most important games in the franchises,
and I do think AC two and AC Origins are
the two most important games in the franchise. Yeah, just
just you know, for for what they did and you
know what they did, right, yeah, and and the president

(01:09:12):
they sent the things they left behind for the for
the games to come after them. Um. But you know,
look at any modern open world game that's that's been
developed in the last decade and a half, and you
know there are bits and pieces of of AC everywhere.
I mean, yeah, that's undoubtedly true. Uh. And I think

(01:09:34):
I also have nostalgic glasses for the early experience of
Assassin's Creed when it was a new idea and just
like the idea of running around the rooftops and these
ancient civilizations is like so rad uh you know so Uh.
We're gonna wrap it up there, everybody, UM, thanks so
much for joining us. Use if we loved having Thank
you and and uh we will see you guys on

(01:09:59):
the ne next time. On one upsmanship worked complete