I had a lot of trepidation when this game was announced, and the fact it was by the same team that gave us Black Flag. I hated Black Flag with a royal purple passion. It's the only game in the franchise that I've never replayed. (This coming from someone who's replayed the first 4 at least a dozen times each, mind you.) BF was everything I hated about AC games from the main story tasks to the absolute lack of cohesive story to being absolutely bored with the sailing and fighting. I was quite worried about Origins.
Fortunately, it's not what I thought it was. The sailing missions are a DLC, so completely skippable, thankfully. They got rid of the stupid tailing/eavesdropping missions entirely. They gave us a cohesive, even interesting story with two heroes that I actually give a shite about. While I liked the Frye twins well enough, I haven't LIKED a character since Connor (and mostly because I think I felt sorry for him because no hero deserved the horrible non-story and guarantee-to-fail they gave him). Bayek actually ranks up there with Altair and Ezio for good character. He may surpass Ezio for best voice actor, which is hard for me since I adore Roger Craig Smith's work.
The stealth is better than it's been before, and the NPC's AIs aren't moronic. If they should be able to see you, they can, and if they shouldn't, they can't. (Anyone else remember Connor just walking blithely by people who couldn't see him yet get eyeballed when you couldn't even see them? Arg!)
The first story DLC dropped...last week? It's brought more challenges to the stealth system (I play stealth 'cause I suck at fighting, honestly), which has been nice. Nothing I couldn't overcome with a bit of patience, timing and a regen or two.
The graphics are absolutely frigging astonishing. With the photo mode, you can take pictures (and not have the chars in if you prefer) then go to the Ubisoft website (if you're on console) and download pics for your own use. Very cool.
All-in-all, I like what they did with it. Hope the next team doesn't screw it all up again somehow.
Anyone else have thoughts on the game?