Assassin’s Creed Origins will present gamers with an expansive open-world that eclipses the size of Assassin’s Creed IV: Black Flag, its director has said.
Speaking with Game Informer, Ashraf Ismail nonetheless insisted that the size of Origins’ game world doesn’t matter when you take into account the number of unique experiences available in its cities.
Ubi talks Assassin’s Creed Origins map
"If I compare it to previous games in the past, I don’t actually know the exact numbers [for Origins], but I would say that it’s at least twice the size of Havana from Black Flag," he said. "At least."
"Having said that, I don’t think of the size of the city is what matters," he explained. "It’s really the content, the experience that you have inside of it. It’s how alive it is. So we filled these locations with quests, with making each city feel unique to itself, why was it important to Egypt."
Ismail went on to confirm that the game world will be largely open to the player from the get-go once the introduction sequence has wrapped. He also teased that the game’s modern-day sequences will be mostly kept secret for players to discover: “I would rather have people be more surprised by the experience," he said. "If [the marketing department] want[s] me to talk about it I’ll be more than happy to talk about it."
Assassin’s Creed Origins is scheduled for release on PlayStation 4, PC, and Xbox One on October 27, 2017. The game takes place in ancient Egypt and focuses on the formation of the assassin organisation, with players controlling a Bayek, a Medjay who operates in the sun-baked region to protect his people from various threats.
Unlike previous games in the series, Origins eschews any form of online component, instead focusing on a large-scale single-player campaign. Ubisoft has also confirmed that Origins will support both PS4 Pro and Xbox One X, although it appears the game won’t run at a native 4K on either platform.