From all the apples coming before.
There are, on balance, a couple of things I am always ready to read about.
Paths not taken or half taken.
Forgotten faces suddenly looming out of the streaked grey murk, black eyes burning.
The other thing tickles the exact same part of my brain.
We have theories, and probably excellent theories, but there’s still a vapour of mystery to it.
These are questions I almost hope we never solve, because they are so exciting to just ponder.
And this is the world in whichAssassin’s Creed Originstakes place.
Is Origins the best Assassin’s?
I couldn’t tell you.
Finally this series has arrived at the Pyramids, where it always belonged.
Here’s the thing, though.
This is Egypt in 49 BC.
It’s Ptolemaic Egypt.
And the Pyramids are already old - dizzyling, incomprehensibly old.
There are a lot of wonderful things about Origins.
Bayek is great, a kind of local Egyptian sheriff drawn into the heart of something big and terrifying.
His wife Aya is even better, sheer charisma, warmth and danger combined.
The past of the past and all that.
Beyond that, there’s Egypt itself, a huge stretch of terrain.
It’s filled with stuff that history enthusiasts will love.
More than anything, I loved the sense of human life the game conjured.
It’s a pleasure and a privilege to see this stuff.
I say all that - and I mean it!
- but on my first playthrough of the game I was absolutely focused on the Pyramids.
I was locked in.
I could not be shaken.
And so, of course, Origins holds them back a bit.
A preamble on Bayek’s home turf.
Thenwe get the Pyramids.
And I remember thinking that Ubisoft had really done it.
The big conceit had really worked.
Because the Pyramids are ancient to us, it’s completely harmonious that they’re also ancient to Bayek.
He is surprised that the Sphinx isn’t bigger.
I have been to the Great Pyramid.
This was the late 1990s while I was a student.
But I thought at the time: I’m not Egyptian.
I live nowhere near this incredible place most of the time.
I can never really get a proper idea of this place.
I will always be passing through.
I was nineteen, and I would possibly never make it back here.
And so it’s safe to say that I came to Origins with my own preoccupations.
And this too is what I love about Origins' treatment of the Pyramids.
They play it very straight - up to a point.
And so Bayek walks through low chambers where he has to crouch.
Ahead lies - surely - the King’s chamber.
Did I get turned around?
But the crucial element of all this is memory.
And not just memory but my own memory, an addled, fading, tourist memory of this place.
I knew these places were special.
No easy indications of why or what for.
For me, this was what I loved about the Pyramids.
And that is a wonderful thing to explore in a video game.
