It's worth noting that this is a "DRM-free" game from the Humble Store, which means that it's not a Steam game, you have to download and install it by yourself.

Have they really improved that much?

I was a big fan of the series until AC 3. That game killed (get it?) the franchise for me, and even after finding Black Flag enjoyable, I simply lost interest in the franchise.

It's basically The Witcher III with more stealth and less magic. If it sounds appealing for you, go for it.

And to me, Ubisoft should just get rid entirely of the Abstergo modern day plot, right now is no more than a distant background for the whole thing.

Sounds interesting. Thanks.

Depends what you like. I left after AC2, it was already big departure for me from AC1, played about half of Black Flag, didn't like it much, especially arcadey naval combats, got Origins due to Egypt setting, spectacularly gorgeous game that gets painfully repetitive very quickly (I honestly pitty those artits at Ubi), got Odyssey again due to setting (both Egypt and Greece are my go to places for summer vacations) - I'd say it's fairly improved Origins, I find it much more interesting, but the same old very basic loop, find-kill, find-kill gets old very quickly as well, with not much else to do, and honestly, after some 17-18 hours in I think i'm about to quit.

Oh, and it's nothing really like Withcer 3 - I can go in length about it, but honestly, I neither have time, nor desire, so, to cut it short, as much as it can be argued that TW3 is just barely action-RPG, Odyssey is firmly in this new genre of pseudo action-RPGs that are action-adventures with some light RPG mechanisms slapped on.

For me it's 6.5/10 , but, admittedly, i am quite harsh when it comes to scores.

The Friday news!

SALES & DEALS

Black Ops 4's lack of campaign didn't hurt sales 'in the slightest'
https://www.pcgamer.com/black-ops-4s-lack-of-campaign-didnt-hurt-sales-in-the-slightest/
Treyarch and Activision took a risk by omitting a traditional single-player campaign from Call of Duty: Black Ops 4, although Andy K. predicted a few months before its release that most fans of the series wouldn't care. It looks like he was spot on: Launch-day sales on the PC set "a new franchise high" and more than doubled those of last year's Call of Duty: WWII, and as reported by VentureBeat, the NPD Group has declared it the best-selling game of the month, the year, and one of its best-sellers of all time.
"Call of Duty: Black Ops 4 launch month dollar sales represent the eighth highest in videogame history since The NPD Group began tracking in 1995," the NPD said. "Black Ops 4 instantly becomes the best-selling game of the year, and the second best-selling game across the past twelve month period, trailing only Call of Duty: WWII."

SOFTWARE/DRIVERS

-empty-

MODS/EMULATORS

This Dying Light mod brings back cut features, improves/tweaks gameplay mechanics
https://www.dsogaming.com/news/this-dying-light-mod-brings-back-cut-features-improves-tweaks-gameplay-mechanics/
Dying Light is a game that I wholeheartedly enjoyed, even though I didn’t really like Dead Island. The game’s parkour and movement system made it play like a dream and modder ‘Ethical Lune’ has released a new mod for it that adds some cut features back in, fixes some problems and improves a couple of mechanics.
According to the modder, the Harran Uncut and Extended Mod makes fall heights more realistic (they are more akin to Mirror’s Edge rather than Spiderman) and players will need to perform a parkour roll for any big jump to avoid getting hurt.
Furthermore, Parkour rolling/Soft Landing skills are available for free from the start, Freerunning Expert will unlock a cut wallrunning feature, takedowns will use a slower unused choke-out animation instead of the rather silly neck snap animation, running will grant you a tiny amount of XP and boken weapons will deal 35% damage instead of 10% damage.
>> Get the mod from Nexus Mods.

GAMING NEWS

New DayZ beta patch reworks vehicle physics, improves heavy hit animations and more
https://www.dsogaming.com/news/new-dayz-beta-patch-reworks-vehicle-physics-improves-heavy-hit-animations-and-more/
Bohemia Interactive has released a new beta patch for DayZ. According to the release notes, this patch will update your game’s version to 0.63.149525 and comes with reworked vehicle physics, improvements to vehicles simulation, minor improvement to IK poses, minor improvements to heavy hit animations and animations for drop item in different stances.

First Sunset Overdrive beta patch completely fixes the awful mouse acceleration issues
https://www.dsogaming.com/news/first-sunset-overdrive-beta-patch-completely-fixes-the-awful-mouse-acceleration-issues/
Blind Squirrel Games has released the first beta patch for the PC version of Sunset Overdrive. The developers claimed that they have made some updates to how the mouse controls work to address the feedback players have been giving them and we can confirm that the awful mouse acceleration issues have been fixed.

Star Citizen is free to play for a week and you can start downloading right now
https://www.dsogaming.com/news/star-citizen-is-free-to-play-for-a-week-and-you-can-start-downloading-right-now/
Cloud Imperium has announced that Star Citizen will be free to play for a week; from November 23rd to November 30th and PC gamers can start downloading and playing the game right now. During this Free Fly period, anyone can join Star Citizen’s Persistent Universe for free.
>> Check the article for the links to create an account (necessary to play the game) as well as the download link.

Werewolf: The Apocalypse – Earthblood to be published by Bigben, targets a 2020 release date
https://www.dsogaming.com/news/werewolf-the-apocalypse-earthblood-to-be-published-by-bigben-targets-a-2020-release-date/
Bigben has announced that it has reached an agreement with Focus Home Interactive to publish and distribute Werewolf: The Apocalypse – Earthblood. Cyanide Studio, who joined the Bigben group in 2018 and who has been working on developing the game for nearly two years, remains in charge of adapting the title which comes from the World of Darkness universe.

New screenshots and trailer for Darksiders 3
https://www.dsogaming.com/news/new-screenshots-and-trailer-for-darksiders-3/
THQ Nordic has released some new screenshots and a trailer for its upcoming a hack-n-slash action-adventure, Darksiders 3. In Darksiders 3, players will return to an apocalyptic planet Earth where they will take on the role of FURY in her quest to hunt down and dispose of the Seven Deadly Sins.

First Anno 1800 Technical Test begins at the end of November, official PC requirements for beta
https://www.dsogaming.com/news/first-anno-1800-technical-test-begins-at-the-end-of-november-official-pc-requirements-for-beta/
Ubisoft has just announced that the first technical test for Anno 1800 will begin at the end of this month. According to the team, this test is intended to give us valuable insights into topics like balance and game performance, and it won’t be representative of the final polished game.

Friday news, part two:

Rico fights a tornado in a new Just Cause 4 trailer
https://www.pcgamer.com/rico-fights-a-tornado-in-a-new-just-cause-4-trailer/
Just Cause 4 revels in action movie cliches, but the latest trailer for Rico’s next outing takes it to a new level. For two minutes, it unloads a messy spray of brilliantly bad one-liners and increasingly ridiculous action sequences. And then Rico fights a storm. Watch the spectacle above.

You can now recycle your Artifact cards into event tickets
https://www.pcgamer.com/you-can-now-recycle-your-artifact-cards-into-event-tickets/
An update to the Artifact beta that went live today gives players the ability to recycle their unwanted cards into event tickets, at a rate of 20 cards for one ticket. Event tickets, as explained in the Artifact FAQ, are normally sold in bundles of five for $5, and are used to enter events like Expert Gauntlets that award prizes to winners.

A big Bard's Tale 4 update adds grid movement, save anywhere, and respeccing
https://www.pcgamer.com/a-big-bards-tale-4-update-adds-grid-movement-save-anywhere-and-respeccing/
InXile Entertainment has rolled out a major update for The Bard's Tale 4: Barrows Deep that brings a host of new features to the old-timey dungeon crawler. Collectively known as "Legacy Mode," the changes include the promised grid-based movement with selectable free or fixed camera, a save anywhere option, character respeccing, and toggles for gameplay options including waypoint display, automapping, and auto-resurrection.

World War 3 adds Team Deathmatch, a new map, and a development roadmap
https://www.pcgamer.com/world-war-3-adds-team-deathmatch-a-new-map-and-a-development-roadmap/
The subtly-named online shooter World War 3 "is a more hardcore Battlefield," we said in our recent preview, calling it a promising experience that suffers from some irritating technical issues. That's not terribly surprising, given that the game is a relatively recent arrival on the Early Access scene and only just went to version 0.2 in an update released today.

A Fallout 76 bug has made one player invincible
https://www.pcgamer.com/a-fallout-76-bug-has-made-one-player-invincible/
“My character currently is unkillable, and I mean... really unkillable,” Fallout 76 player Brogadyn announced on the official subreddit yesterday. A bug has made them effectively invincible, which is certainly one way to win a survival game.
Unfortunately, it’s also left Brogadyn with little to do.

Now I would list the GOG and Steam deals of this weekend, but GOG is doing a Black Friday sale and Steam its Autumn Sale, so there's not much to say.

And that's all. Have a happy and gaming weekend.

I didn't have a problem with AC before 3. It's true that I was a bit bored of doing the same things over and over again, but that game had nothing good going for it. Black Flag was enjoyable because it wasn't really an Assassin's Creed game.

I don't need AC games to be role-like. Action-Adventure games are perfectly ok to me.

Yeah, I don't need AC to be RPG-like either, I need it to be more like the first one. Someone has compared it to TW3 earlier, that's why I mentioned TW3.

It suffers from classic Ubi design - there's a lot of things in the world, but actually very little variety to it. I guess if you play hour a day, you might get much better experience and not very daja-vu feel all the time.

I like the RPG mechanics they introduced. It might take away some of the realism but the realism from the first games makes everything less fun. Being able to just pounce of everyone and leave droves of bodies behind you makes everything less consequential. I remember in the second game where I killed someone and then there came an endless stream of guards and I just killed all of them until I couldn't even see the floor anymore. I didn't even come close to being in danger at any point there. Feeling invincible can be nice but AC wants to be a stealth game, so there should be at least some tension to make stealth gameplay more fun.

Can someone tell me if there are any considerable changes from Origins to Odyssey? I would play it if it was a bit less open than Origins. Traversing long distances of nothing without even climbing shit was pretty lame. I'd also prefer a bigger ability tree.

I guess I'll wait until Ubi decides to put it very cheap during one of Steam's sales to decide if I try it or not.