With the release of Assassin’s Creed Shadows, the franchise has received a re-evaluation from critics and fans alike. The most divisive games are being seen in a new light. As the franchise continues to evolve, iterate, and reinvent itself, some of the previous titles are being appreciated for what they are and how they shaped the series into what it is today. No game better embodies this reappraisal of the Assassin’s Creed franchise than Assassin’s Creed Odyssey.

Across the internet, many fans of the franchise are returning to the controversial title and finding it timeless. When Ubisoft started doubling down on this new RPG direction for the franchise, it found a new appreciation for its design. Origins, Odyssey, Valhalla, and now Shadows make up this new era for the franchise, and many players consider Odyssey the best of this specific style. As time goes on, Assassin’s Creed Odyssey’s reputation only grows. Where initially it was criticized for not being Assassin’s Creed enough, it is now seen as the best iteration of modern Assassin’s Creed.

Today, Odyssey Is A Complete And Polished Experience

The Post-launch Content Truly Elevates The Title

On release, Assassin’s Creed Odyssey was anything but a complete experience. In 2025, you can access multiple bundles that will give you the main campaign with another saga of content to complete afterward. The “Legacy of the First Blade” and “The Fate of Atlantis” are worth your time. But even if you just want to experience the base game, it has received plenty of updates and patches since its initial release. If you bounced off the title due to bugs, those problems are solved in today’s build of Odyssey.

A post-launch patch allowed for a smooth 60 frames per second on this generation of consoles. This patch makes the title more responsive, which goes a long way in combat and exploration. The title always had beautiful landscapes and art direction, but now that it's guaranteed to run well on modern hardware, it's much better. Playing Assassin’s Creed Odyssey in 2025 allows you to enjoy it at its best.

An RPG Defined By Its Options

As for gameplay, with all of its expansions and content, Odyssey is one of the most flexible Assassin’s Creed titles. The combat is Origin’s combat but better, with its skill-based abilities and various weapons. The game offers the player many different ways to engage with its combat systems. You can follow tradition and build a pure assassin or dabble in an upfront gladiator-like combat style. Even a Ranger build is viable.

These options to approach the title however you see fit isn’t only tied to combat. The game offers two exploration modes that allow for a modern experience with waypoints and another that allows you to learn the layout of the land and find things on your own. No matter what you’re looking for, immersion or fun. In Odyssey, you can explore both options, and still have a great time.

Customization Is King

Players Forge Their Narrative

Where Assassin’s Creed Origins flirted with the idea of RPG mechanics, Odyssey dove headfirst into an ocean of RPG game design. A significant draw for RPGs is player choice and customization. As soon as you load into your first hours of Odyssey, you can play Alexios or Kassandra. While the community considers Kassandra the canon protagonist of Assassin’s Creed Odyssey, the beauty of an RPG is that you can tread your own path.

Embracing these RPG mechanics is what allows this entry in the franchise to shine. If you’re returning to it after finally accepting that this is the direction the franchise is going in, you’ll find a lot to appreciate. Odyssey laid the framework for many of the good parts of Assassin’s Creed: Shadows. The choice-driven design brings a lot of replayability to the franchise.

A Massive Game You Can Tackle At Your Pace

Odyssey’s main story takes about 50 hours. Completing every piece of content stretch the time required. Luckily, the game is designed to be enjoyed in whatever way makes sense to the player. This includes completely streamlining the content and prioritizing its narrative. You can turn this game into a 150-hour epic where you explore every island and environment for any secrets or lore you can find. Or you can treat it like a 40-hour action RPG and have the same amount of fun.

Odyssey's Setting Is The Best Part Of It

A Genuinely Stunning Playground

Assassin’s Creed Odyssey’s open world is top-notch. As the open world genre becomes increasingly saturated, uplifting those who attempt to shake up the formula or polish the common pitfalls is important. To make an open world feel great is to make it feel alive and lived in. Assassin’s Creed is not the most historically accurate franchise out there, but it does have its moments and shocking historical depth. Assassin’s Creed Odyssey like a virtual tour of ancient Greece.

A Masterclass In Historical Fiction

Assassin’s Creed tries to stay true to history while using the gaps to tell a new story. You’ll run into actual historical figures like Socrates, but of course, his story in Assassin’s Creed Odyssey is a dramatization and shouldn’t be taken as fact. However, these dramatized instances in the historical setting make it even better and even more worth your time when revisiting it. There’s a camp feeling to Assassin’s Creed and its narratives, and Odyssey fully embraces it, as other entries try too hard to be taken seriously.

Odyssey Walked So Shadows Could Run

An Essential Step In The Franchise's Journey

There is a rumor that Assassin’s Creed Shadows will be the last RPG-styled game in the franchise. As a spiritual predecessor to the most recent entry in the franchise, a lot of Odyssey’s DNA is present in Shadows. On launch, Shadows received a slightly worse reception than Odyssey did. For those interested in where the newest entry may’ve faltered, it's the perfect entry to pick up after finishing a Shadows playthrough. Upon closer inspection, it's staggering how deep the comparisons go and how the two titles are almost foils of each other.

A common criticism of Odyssey is that its mechanics leave a bit to be desired for fans of the classic entries in the series. However, its strong point is how great its characters and story are. Shadows is the exact opposite. It refined the base mechanics so much that some consider it the best stealth effort in the entire franchise, but unfortunately, its story and characters are critically panned. While both have their reasons for playing, if you dropped Shadows because you couldn’t connect to the characters, perhaps Odyssey is what you’re looking for.

An Odyssey Worth Completing

Odyssey uses Greek mythology to bolster its setting and narrative; it gave us the largest world to play around in and laid the blueprint for both Ubisoft Quebec titles that came after it. There is no better time than now to give Odyssey a second shot. It has aged beautifully in the last 7 years. Its controversial features are some of the best parts of modern Assassin’s Creed; We just had to give it time to grow on us.