One of my favorite games from 2018 was "Assassin's Creed: Odyssey" the latest "Assassin's Creed" installment from Ubisoft. Although I had only playing two "AC" games previous to this title ("Black Flag" and "Syndicate' for those curious) I couldn't wait to pick up this game because for the first time in the franchise players could choice between playing as a male (Alexios) and female (Kassandra).
Like many recent RPG titles, "Odyssey" uses the 'level up' feature meaning that at least 20 hours of my play time before completing the main story was spent grinding Kassandra's character from a unknown peasant/misthios (mercenary) all the way to an Olympic event winning/demigod misthios sparking fear throughout ancient Greece, especially into the cold hearts of the 'Cult of Kosmos' this title's main antagonist organization.
For the first time in a long time those 60+ hours flew by. Sneaking in and taking out vast groups of Spartan and Athenian soldiers alike in their camps and forts, looting corrupt leaders of their priceless treasures, and even taking out legendary beasts for the Daughters of Athena all add up to hours and hours of good grinding fun. And I haven't even mentioned the franchise's new choice feature that allows us to friend, betray, and even romance NPCs we find along the way.
This feature allows the player to romance any romanceable character regardless of gender. I decided to play Kassandra as a lesbian (whom more often than not would romance female Lieutenants in order to recruit them to her ship) with the exception of my choice of romancing Alkibiades, although who can blame me, he is thought of as one of the most charming/seductive person in all of history. And again that was my choice that the game gave me, which made the latest released DLC storyline all the most confusing/shocking.
In this DLC, part of the "Shadow Heritage" chapter revolves around the player (regardless of them playing as Alexios or Kassandra) being forced into having a child with an NPC of the opposite gender. This chapter is a complete 180 of what the game's campaign has shown these characters as. Sure, part of the choices in the main story help/hurt your chances of reuniting with the character's own family, but the most maternal we see Kassandra being throughout the game is with her (late) friend Phobe, who see sometimes treats more of as an ally rather than a daughter and the same I'm sure can be said for Alexios.
Ubisoft's reason for this change of character is that this storyline was necessary in order to set up the lineage of Assassin's the entire franchise focuses in on, but my response is simple, you didn't have to charge players extra money just to watch these characters they have spent so long playing as turned into stereotypical 'my life/story wasn't complete until I had a child' trope found throughout all types of media, regardless of the setting it takes place in.
"Assassin's Creed" is sort of infamous for it's completely twisted and confusing timeline of events and after over 10 games, I'm going to say that is understandable, after all many "AC" agree that the present day storyline throughout the games are usually the weakest part.
Now that Ubisoft is focusing on growing their "Assassin" characters more, maybe it's time to start weeding out the family lineage storyline once and for all, especially since it can completely betray everything their character's stand for.
