Assassin’s Creed Odyssey continues its release of DLC story packs, with The Legacy of the First Blade finally ending and gifting onto us the 1st episode of The Fate of Atlantis. With both story packs being wholly separate from one another we don’t see any mention of previous events, except for those of the main story, which follows on from the ending of the main game.
Instead of starting around 70% in the main game like the 1st story pack, Atlantis starts after the ending when Kassandra or Alexios has gained the Staff. Regardless of your gender choice, the story plays pretty similarly, just like the original game. After reaching some more relics of the past, Layla in the real world needs to open up a door to delve deeper into the technology of the past and gain Aletheia’s power.
To do so we are thrown back into the Animus to follow signs to find Aletheia in the past, who will tell your protagonist to find 3 separate tombs whose location will help Kayla find the correct symbols and order to open the door. This takes over an hour of travelling, which isn’t shortened too much with fast travel. While this is a mostly boring introduction there are 3 Layla segments that play out like a discount Tomb Raider, complete with block moving puzzles and find the hidden drawing.
After the symbols are found, the door can be opened, with a rather emotional excursion into the Animus through another’s eyes, though I won’t spoil that part. With the symbol puzzle complete we delve into the past yet again for the protagonist to train in Elysium to help both the past and present characters control the Staff better and without corruption. This is where the story starts off proper as we are given a large new map to explore.
Whilst in Elysium we will combat new foes, with new abilities, alongside reskins of previous enemies who try to deceive us with new content. Plenty of buildings are cut and paste with a reskin, especially some of the temples, though the overall map is lovely to look at. We will be doing assassinations, thievery, clue finding and even some Faction Control quests as we wrest control of Elysium from the gods who control it.
The 1st part of this story pack will last around 6-8 hours, depending on your fast travel locations and overall character setup. Like many other DLCs for this game, it is more geared towards full-frontal combat, with a few dashes of stealth around. Like the 1st story pack, there are some optional missions, however, it lacks the addition of a new line of order members or similar mechanic so it feels short-lived.
With the highest amount of disappointment so far, Atlantis adds in a seemingly new mechanic to the mix that no one wanted, moving block puzzles. They are often far too easy, or only take a few movements to solve as well as being highly unoriginal. Asides from the block puzzles no real new mechanics were introduced, though it is the first time that Faction Control missions were mandatary in DLC.
The bosses within Atlantis are harder and more unique, with larger health pools alongside varied attack patterns and abilities. Some of these fights are avoidable with quite a few optional endings or shifted dialogues depending on your choices, but it ends pretty much the same regardless of who lives or who is on your side.
With little to no ship combat, Atlantis being a sunken city is kind of pushed to the side. There are around 3 to 4 boss fights, 4 to 5 keeps to take control of or eliminate everyone within, plenty of hidden statues to destroy and more. The main thing you’ll find within the DLC is the added Rapid Fire skill for the bow which is actually useful and the enhancements you will gain to add to 4 specific skills that alter their final stage.
After the 2nd episode of Legacy, I already saw the flaw in their DLC format, waiting 6 weeks to redo old mechanics with some new voice acting and slightly altered levels. While Atlantis actually has some effort with a new playground it just feels like a carbon copy of the main game, with some incredibly boring Layla sections. There were 1 or 2 points in the new DLC that gripped me, the 1st happening around an hour into the episode and the next somewhere near the end, everything in-between was just busy work. After 80 odd hours with the game, I don’t want to be doing the same thing for another 10.
Overall, Episode 1 of The Fate of Atlantis gets a 5/10, combining both the disappointment of anything new and the stale taste of Odyssey the Atlantis DLC doesn’t do enough to keep the game afloat. The new skills are very circumstantial, with myself only using 1 as it helped with the story, adding in the new equipment and rapid fire it only gives you more things to look at or fill your hotbar. If you still love the main game then this DLC will sate your appetite, but if you’re looking some new mechanics you may be disappointed.
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