Now that the game has been announced and we can see some of the footage, I think I can sort of guess some of the historical stuff we can expect to see in Origins.
The dialogue that we hear in the game's 29 Minute Walkthrough has some of the crowd mentioning "The New Ptolemy" as being a kind of bad guy.
This new Ptolemy is a reference to the fact that the male rulers of the Ptolemaic dynasty all called themselves Ptolemy (really helpful lot). So a "new Ptolemy" means new ruler.
This new Ptolemy can only be Cleopatra's brother-husband Ptolemy XIII or Ptolemy the 13th who was Co-Ruler with his Sister from 51 BCE to 47 BCE, or Four Years.
The most important thing this moron did was ordering the death of Pompey the Great. Pompey after losing the Battle of Pharsalia came to Egypt with Caesar in pursuit. Since Caesar had established himself dictator by then, and Egypt was a client of the Roman Republic, Ptolemy XIII more or less decided to help Caesar in advance by executing Pompey.
Now obviously in the game, that means you get to assassinate Pompey and cut off his head. This incident is a spark that creates the alliance between Cleopatra and Caesar, and starts a civil war between Cleopatra and Ptolemy XIII which leads to a lot of battles between the Ptolemaic army and Caesar's legions, a Siege of Alexandria (which saw the burning of the Library) and a Battle on the Nile Delta. Ptolemy XIII supposedly died in one of these skirmishes apparently by drowning...but within the game that could mean he would be an Assassination Target.
How Bayek intersects in this story I am not sure. One thing though is that Cleopatra ruled Egypt as a single ruler for some 18 years. So more or less, if Cleopatra is a bad guy then the story can only be one of failure and defeat for our hero. And considering the footage, I think Bayek will be a "Curse on Both Houses" guy. So he will at various times help out one side and then another faction. Cleopatra I think will be kind of aloof, shrewd and manipulative, and convince Bayek to ally with her, and this will also Bayek potentially some face time with Julius Caesar.
Now maybe there is one side Bayek would fully support, and that is Arsinoe. Cleopatra's less famous kid-sister. There's hardly anything known about her, albeit under her rule, the army do a good sport against the Romans who succeeded only after reinforcements arrived in time to save their hide. After she won, Arsinoe was a hostage of Cleopatra and kept alive and Caesar apparently tried to spare her. Then years later, Cleopatra ordered Mark Antony to kill her. So that would be a good reason for the Assassins and Bayek to turn against her and canonically whack her in the end.
But I don't think we'll go that far. I think AC: ORIGINS will focus entirely on the Early Part of Cleopatra's Reign and Rise to Power and it will end with Cleopatra and Caesar's victory. I think the sequel, or DLC, or annualized title next year will go there. Ubisoft obviously spent a lot of money building these assets and they have a formula for making many games in the Ancient World. So maybe a sequel will deal with Ancient Rome and Caesar's assassination since that's way too big and complex an event to deal with in this game. It needs a separate Ancient Rome game.
Yeah, there's too much stuff to cover if they go fully into Cleopatra. Their main focus is clearly the architecture and fantasy of Egypt.Originally Posted by Sigma 1313 Go to original post
Ending on 47 BCE around the time Cleopatra becomes fully in charge gives us plenty of stuff for the era and time period. We get to see a bit of Caesar, we get some awesome battle scenes. Going beyond that will make the game too depressing and not too interesting...
To be honest, I would be disappointed if they visit Greece during the Roman Era, or Bayek's time. They should go to an earlier era.
And Rome during the Liberators civil war will not be interesting because the so-called Liberators were chased out of Rome and they died in battle in Greece. So there's not a lot of Rome worth seeing in that time. Architecturally, Rome in the Republican Era would be boring because it's like New York in Rogue and AC3, you won't see any of the interesting monuments, buildings, settlements, architecture. All that comes only in the Imperial Era and almost nothing from the Republican Roman era survives.
It would be cool if they decided to do Multiple Roman eras and settlements at once. Especially if we can go to Sicily or Pompey. Sicily is an area that is made for AC and it has never been done. And Roman-era Sicily was a quite special time and place. Lot of stuff happened there.