Two epic historical games, one handy box. Assassin's Creed Origins Some gamers might have felt a little long in the tooth when they realised that it had been a full 10 years since Altair first introduced us to the world of Assassin's Creed, but Origins was, nonetheless, the 10th major game in the series (something like the 20th, if you include all the spin-offs). To take us into the series's second decade, Ubisoft Montreal (specifically the team behind Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag) went back to before it all began with Assassin's Creed Origins. Players will journey back to Ancient Egypt to play as Bayek, a protector of Egypt who will get caught up in the sweep of history and who will ultimately go on to for the Assassin's Brotherhood. It is, in other words, the birth of a legend. The headline here, of course, is the vast open world of Egypt that players get to explore. Origins is set in a time when the great wonders of the ancient world such as the pyramids and the Sphynx were already old and the Egyptian way of life was becoming marred by the arrival of Ceasar. This is the playground that Bayek inhabits, ranging from the Mediterranean Sea to the tombs of Giza, from lush oases to harsh deserts. The way you'll approach this world has changed, too, with Ubisoft leaning harder into action RPG elements to level up, loot, choose their abilities and customize their own deadly assassin. Combat has been changed, too, and shifted away from rapid button hits toward a subtler model that favours the precise timing of blocks, dodges and rolls so that you can create an opening through which to strike. Travel back to watch everything you love about Assassin's Creed being born and shape the course of history in the process! Assassin's Creed: Odyssey It's fitting that for what might be Ubisoft's most ambitious Assassin's Creed game the publisher went to the place and time that basically invented the epic - ancient Greece. Fittingly, it starts with one of the most epic of all epic heroes, Leonidas (you probably met him in the film of graphic novel 300) and the story just gets bigger as you take on the role of one of his grandchildren, Kassandra or Alexios (and let's take a moment to give Ubisoft a thumbs-up for letting us choose a protagonist for the first time). From there, it's on to the meat of Assassin's Creed - roaming a massive open world, blending stealth, combat and parkour as you take on the Cult of Kosmos (a moody proto-Templar organisation), delve into mythical Greece and unravel the connection that your family has to it all. Ubisoft is promising upwards of 100 hours of content for those wanting to dig deep into the game, and the studio has leaned even further into the RPG elements it dabbled in with Origins in 2017. You'll find certain level-gated missions that you'll struggle with if you don't have the relevant experience, and a wealth of ways to build up XP. That includes procedural missions, if you want to get into them, which despite not being scripted are related to where you're at in the game and what you've been doing. Sailing makes a return, for those who've really got those itchy feet, and for those with a spot of bloodlust there are epic 'Big Battles' which pit 300 soldiers against each other! So, yes, Ubisoft really is promising an epic with Odyssey.