The seeds for Assassin's Creed Origins were set after Black Flag. The same team would be tasked with soft rebooting the franchise. After Unity, that team was disbanded, and thus, 2016 would be the first year since Assassin's Creed II without an Assassin's Creed game. Instead, there were only two teams developing now - one at Ubisoft Montreal, and the other at Ubisoft Quebec. Each had 3 year development schedules, with there being 2 Assassin's Creed games in 3 years. Like 2016, 2019 was also a "gap year" for the series.
To sum up the journey so far, the franchise has constantly evolved throughout the years, but there have been a few broad eras. The first game stands alone as something of a unique proof-of-concept. The series first found its identity with Assassin's Creed II, a formula that carried over to Brotherhood and Revelations, forming the Ezio trilogy. Of course, there were a fair few additions between these games, but broadly, they set the formula.
Assassin's Creed III went a rather different route, the first game to offer a single, vast open world, but it still retained some of the gameplay and mission design of the previous games. Black Flag built on III's ideas, and was the first game in the series that emulated the modern open world style in every way. Indeed, it felt more like Skyrim than Assassin's Creed II.
And then, there were Unity and Syndicate, which went in another direction altogether, offering urban open worlds more like the Ezio trilogy. The emphasis on stealth wasn't like the Ezio trilogy though, they still had their own flavour.
Assassin's Creed Origins
That brings us to Origins, which does yet another U-turn for the series. Developed by the team that made Black Flag, Origins goes back to the vast open world formula. By this time, in late 2017, there was an explosion of open world games, many of them RPGs. The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt, Fallout 4 and Horizon Zero Dawn were huge hits, and Origins took ample inspiration from these. Of course, it's worth nothing that Black Flag itself was one of the first iterations of the modern open world game. Worth mentioning that all of these games owe a huge debt to Skyrim.
Origins still featured scripted missions and a linear story, but in every other way, it was an open world RPG, with a firm focus on exploration. And boy, Origin's Egypt was sensational, and marked a high water mark for the series. Indeed, it remains one of the finest open worlds in gaming history. After the challenges with Unity, the engine was in a great state too, offering some of the best graphics on the market with stable performance. Due to the way the current gen consoles are built - heavy on GPU but very poor CPU and storage, the detailed urban worlds of Unity and Syndicate were ill-suited. Instead, the vast open world covering a lot of rural space as in most open world games was definitely the better fit to get the most out of current-gen consoles.
While many of Origins' other aspects never quite lived up to its exceptional exploration, it was solid across the board. A major return to form for a series many had started to grow tired of. Assassin's Creed was back!
Assassin's Creed Odyssey
I have written detailed reviews for Odyssey and its DLCs on my blog here, you can find my in-depth thoughts there. I enjoyed the game a lot, but here, I'll provide a little more context for its development how it lines up with the series' evolution.
Where Origins was a prequel for the entire series, Odyssey's announcement surprised me by being a prequel to a prequel. Developed by Ubisoft Quebec, this was only their second game after the unexciting Syndicate. Of course, they had quietly been building up the studio, moving some of the old AC developers from disbanded teams, as well as the wider industry.
Odyssey leverages Origins' engine, even reusing some of its assets and general style, to build the largest open world yet. It's excellent, though I'd argue it falls just short of the majesty that is Origins' Egypt. Some of you may know I'm a RPG fan. They had done it. Finally, Ubisoft had turned Assassin's Creed into a full blown open world action RPG. At this point it was as much of an action RPG as The Witcher 3 was, including branching narratives, dialogue choices, and everything. It was a gradual move, but it was always getting there.
The future
It does seem like Ubisoft has finally found a winning formula. 2 studios, 3 year development, 2 Assassin's Creed games every year. Valhalla promises to be another step forward, bringing some new elements to its open-world RPG-like formula, though it does seem like this will be less of a typical open world RPG than Odyssey. Thus far, it does seem like they will certainly address some of the criticisms levelled at Origins and Odyssey - chiefly, bloat - with a more focused experience. We shall see. I'm optimistic for the future of the series, though I do feel at some point it's going to slow down to an Assassin's Creed game every 2 years. It'll be for the best.