If you read my blog from last Christmas, you’ll recall that I loved Assassin’s Creed Origins. I’ve always been a huge fan of Greek history, and I remember loving the setting in the old Sierra city builder Zeus: Master of Olympus. So of course, I am playing Odyssey. While I am enjoying the game, I tend to feel the game is too bloated. The mountain of relatively uninteresting systems layered onto the Origins formula certainly does drag the average quality of the content down. That said still think it is a good game. ANYWAY, I am writing today not to talk about the intricacies of the game, or to review it as a whole, but to discuss one thing specifically: exploration mode.

When I was reading pre-release coverage and reviews of the game, they all made a note of the exploration mode. The mode, which can be toggled on/off, removes the on-screen quest markers for most quests. The UI instead displays directions that the player has learned from the quest giver and other NPCs, things such as “the house is west of Athens, and in a valley”. When one finds the location detailed, Icaros (the bird that serves as a flying Battlefield-esque spotter), will reveal the quest location with a marker. Andy Kelly of PC Gamer said “…exploration mode that’s really made me fall in love with this thing—and reignited my passion for open world games in general. Because it’s reminded me of how joyful exploration can be when you aren’t switching your brain off and following yet another flashing quest marker.” This sentiment is something I saw echoed in many reviews and forum posts. And I just don’t get it at all.

I started the game in exploration mode. As soon as I read the directional hints, I followed the same routine each time – open the map, find the exclamation point on map closest to the region detailed in the hints, select it, and walk. Nine times out of ten the location I sought was already marked on the map as a point of interest, but not illuminated as the quest location. This is literally all exploration mode added for me… I got to spend 45 seconds in the map every time I wanted to do a quest and I never felt challenged. I never felt like I was discovering areas that I otherwise wouldn’t have if I had just beelined directly towards a quest marker at the location. I mean I was literally doing it anyway, but instead of a golden square, it was my personal waypoint. When I finally turned exploration mode off, the game felt the exact same. Aside from the marker appearing (which effectively saved me a few seconds in the menus), the game was identical. While one could argue the persistent UI marker would break immersion, this isn’t a game that supports immersive play anyway; it’s a Ubisoft game at heart, with massive checklists to complete and countless outposts to formulaically capture. More than anything, this half-baked attempt to incorporate some organic discovery into a game that isn’t about exploration of the landscape just felt disrespectful of my time. It didn’t add value, didn’t impart a new or interesting experience, and added time with no added challenge. It felt much like the rest of the game does, and this is to say a Greek Origins clone with the content padded out to increase the playtime. While I’m certainly not mad the mode is included, I am truly confused about why it received such universal praise.

Aidan (@aiomon)