The Discovery Tour is Assassin’s Creed’s secret best feature.
We’ve long maintained that Ubisoft builds such wonderful worlds in the Assassin’s Creed games, then does its absolute best to spoil it with towers, map markers, general open-world busywork, and absurd Abstergo nonsense. That’s not to say the “gamey” bits aren’t good in their own right, but it’s so pleasurable to just spend time in these detailed historical simulations, objectives be damned.
When Ubisoft added the Discovery Tour mode to Assassin’s Creed Origins’ ancient Egypt, then, it was everything we hoped for, and then some.
You get to not just enjoy the immersive worlds, combat- and objective-free, but there are guided tours from both the game’s developers and the historians who helped create it. You get to not just hang out as your character from the main game, but also enjoy the tour as a range of different historical characters.
The feature was almost universally applauded, so it’s little surprise, then, to see it return in Assassin’s Creed Odyssey’s take on ancient Greece.
According to the press release, “Visitors will travel through 29 regions in over 300 stations with tours featuring five different themes, philosophy, famous cities, daily life, war and myths. It also exhibits new features that allow players to learn the way they want, with 35 unique avatars and 15 mounts that are accessible by progressing through objectives.”
In addition, “Based on the dialogue choice system introduced in Assassin’s Creed Odyssey, Discovery Tour: Ancient Greece will test each visitor with an engaging, fun and rewarding quiz at the end of each tour.”
Good news for schoolkids, then: you might get to play video games in class! To learn! Bad news for schoolkids: there’s still going to be a test at the end.
Discovery Tour: Ancient Greece will be available as a free update to all owners of Assassin’s Creed Odyssey on September 10, 2019. Additionally, PC players will be able to purchase Discovery Tour: Ancient Greece as a standalone from Ubisoft’s Uplay store.
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