Even though Assassin’s Creed Odyssey is slated to arrive barely one year after its predecessor, it certainly looks like there will be a lot of worthy differences and additions. That’s probably because the game has actually been in development for three years, which means that it was developed concurrently with Assassin’s Creed Origins. The upcoming game will have romance options for the first time in the franchise’s history and it will be deeper than we initially thought.
In an interview with GameSpot, Assassin’s Creed Odyssey director Scott Philips discussed the new RPG elements in the upcoming game. When asked about the character relationships and romance, he said different characters yield different results and it’s up to the player’s choice. For example, the playable demo at E3 2018 featured side missions involving a female NPC named Kyra, and players were able to pursue a romance with her, regardless of the player’s gender. She is one of several NPCs that players can romance, even though she’s not part of the main story.
Assassin’s Creed Odyssey: Romancing On The High Seas
Phillips describes Kyra’s romance as “mid-level,” as he said that there will be several side characters and characters where it will be a “shorter thing.” Players can even recruit some of these romanceable characters to be in their ship’s crew for the rest of their journey throughout the game. However, some will never be seen again. It looks like the game will feature romance with different NPCs at different degrees of involvements, where some will be one-time flings and some can be more concrete.
He added that there will also be family relationships, which will presumably not count as romance. Player’s choices and decisions will determine whether they will be around to help them as they progress through the game. This definitely sounds a lot like what the Mass Effect franchise did with its relationships and romance options. Phillips confirmed that there will be “a lot of variation based on the way you’ve played the game.”
In other related news, Assassin’s Creed Odyssey will employ a games-as-a-service model. According to Ubisoft EMEA executive director Alain Corre, it basically means that there will be “new content every week.” The developer wants the upcoming game “to be living, to always be fresh, so it’s a different way to create games this way.”
