If I had one criticism of Assassin’s Creed Odyssey – a game which, eight months on, I still play most evenings – it’s that Ubisoft’s incredible efforts to make it an RPG worth returning to can sometimes get in the way of providing a final, definitive ending. Odyssey had a set of three finales – one for each of its three intertwining storylines – but each refused to close the book fully.
But why would they? Here I am, still playing now, sometimes just for a daily mission, other times to chip away at the latest side-quest Kassandra has stumbled into. Odyssey is so vast, I’m still finding things to do from the base game alongside the wealth of stuff Ubisoft has been busy building in since launch: weekly quests to win and cosmetics to unlock, new bosses, entire questlines. And that’s before you get into the stuff you actually need to cough up for – Odyssey’s season pass content.
Legacy of the First Blade, Odyssey’s first season pass story arc, ended up a mostly-enjoyable diversion aimed at fans who didn’t mind it meandering away from what was stated on the tin (its promised storyline centring on the origins of the series’ iconic Hidden Blade weapon was left largely in the background in favour of a somewhat clumsily-handled link to the hero bloodline featured in other games).
Odyssey’s second and meatier season pass arc The Fate of Atlantis, on the other hand, is something far more special. It provides – finally – a fitting conclusion to Odyssey’s overall tale via a hugely ambitious narrative told over a grand series of settings. Its story fills in much of Kassandra’s fate as Atlantis’ Keeper, glimpsed very briefly in the main game if you complete all of its mythological questlines, and it lets you spend more time as modern day protagonist Layla Hassan, who barely featured in Odyssey’s 100-hour gameplay at all. For long-time fans, Atlantis also delves generously into the franchise’s sci-fi backstory for some surprising returns and revelations. It’s here, finally, we get a sense of closure the main game was clearly holding off on until now – and when all is said and done, there’s a feeling similar to that at the end of Assassin’s Creed 3: that a significant chapter of the whole franchise’s storyline has now passed.
Assassin’s Creed Odyssey: The Fate of Atlantis DLC | Launch Trailer | Ubisoft [NA] Watch on YouTube
Each episode of Atlantis takes place in its own unique region set apart from the main Odyssey map. The three-episode serial – whose last slice launches this week – begins in Elysium, a sort-of heaven for those chosen by the Greek gods. It’s a setting perfect for what Odyssey wants to achieve with this arc, which dives headfirst into the plans and machinations of the Isu, the series’ mysterious precursor race. Odyssey has gently retconned the Isu into a group which could, at times, co-exist peacefully with humanity. There were suggestions of this earlier in the series, but the lingering impression of Those Who Came Before has been coloured from the off by AC2’s early vision of a pre-Biblical Adam and Eve escaping the nefarious Isu’s clutches, and the long-running plot thread of Juno trying to break free into the present day.