5. Assassin’s Creed: Odyssey (2018)

Odyssey reminded me of Brotherhood. Like that game, It took the base tech and gameplay from the previous game, Origins, and built a bigger world with it, complete with new mechanics and ideas. And like Brotherhood, Odyssey was great even if it felt a little too much like Origins at times.

I had an awesome experience with Odyssey, and it is one of my favorite games in recent memory. But it also felt even less like an Assassin’s Creed game than even Origins. There was a bigger focus on loot, RPG mechanics, and special abilities. A lot of this stuff felt out of place in an Assassin’s Creed game, and I get it. For diehard fans of the older games, Odyssey was a step too far away from the classic format. No hidden blades, no Templars or Assassins, and no big assassinations. But I think the franchise is flexible enough to expand beyond the classic format. These experiments may not always work—see Chronicles—but I don’t think Assassin’s Creed games all need to hew to the exact same formula.