"It is recommended that you are level 40 before you begin this story" - A fairly ominous warning to start a piece of DLC with.
I'd already invested circa 70 hours into obtaining the Platinum trophy and yet was still somehow deemed below the requirements of par to dive into the first story expansion for Origins. Apart from perhaps indulging in some of the mundane side quests from the main game, I'm not quite sure what else was expected of me.
We fearlessly jumped in though. A scroll from Tahira explaining that the region of Sinai is under attack from Roman troops kicks off the story. We urgently travel by vessel to the new region of the map to offer immediate assistance, finding out upon arrival that a couple of the Hidden Ones have been caught up and killed in the skirmish.
Tahira introduces Bayek to Gamilat, who leads the rebel group occupying and defending Sinai, with a plan to draw out the Roman leader, Rufio, and suppress the Roman assault with his extermination. It's a very typical Assassin's Creed story arc.
Apart from an extension to the questline, which takes place 4 years after the ending of the main game, there isn't actually alot of new content to mention here.
The fact that this DLC takes place in a completely new region of Egypt is probably the most notable difference, but the landscape just feels the same. I understand that the scope may be somewhat limited. We are still within the same historical period after all, but if you're not going to add any new gameplay features or mechanics, then I believe this stance of feeling underwhelmed is somewhat justifiable. It feels like I'm purely playing an expansion to the main story that merely consists of a couple of additional missions, and nothing more.
I might be in the minority, but it's a bit disappointing. Short, lacking new ideas and that's a shame for a game that decided to gamble in re-inventing the wheel for the Assassin's Creed franchise.
The package adds 8 trophies in total, with a clear focus on the main story.
There are 6 main missions to beat in total, and these should accumulate towards a fairly short experience. However, I mentioned the warning the game gives you about the minimum level recommendation for this content, and this became very relevant for my level 38 character as I tackled the story arc. The scaling of the missions graduates quickly. It starts at level 40 and the final mission has a recommended level of 45.
In reality, there is only about 3 hours of story content across these 6 missions, and you'll unlock 2 of the 8 trophies for progression towards concluding the story. However, the missions are very combat-centric in some parts, and fighting enemies way over my recommended level added hours onto this as I kept losing fights to overpowered enemies over and over. My own perception has led me to believe that the game wants you to indulge it's side missions in order to level up and prepare you for these further challenges. This is fine, but I'd already ploughed 70 hours into the Platinum trophy completing all locations and that somehow still wasn't enough preparation to have a fighting chance here.
The game was already a grind. I was tapping out by the time I'd reached the end, so imagine what it was like heading into a piece of DLC where the game still had higher expectations of me? I still managed to persevere and stumble through, but at the cost of around treble the amount of time it should have taken me. I don't want to ruin it, but to make my point loud and clear, I only defeated a heavily-guarded, level 45 Rufio because of a fortunate glitch that allowed me to kill him whilst underwater.
Outside of the main story, the remaining trophies are awarded for a spread variety of tasks across the new region. Completing a couple of side quests, liberating the biggest citadel in Sinai and freeing 20 captured rebels are just some of these smaller tasks which can all be swept up within a couple of hours collectively. Thankfully, that was the easy part. I'm now just left hoping I don't run into the same problems for the final piece of DLC.
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