Assassin's Creed: Origins will fix the series' map icon problem, says creative director

The best sidequests in PC gaming have historically, for me at least, been few and far between. That is to say: while I've thoroughly enjoyed certain quests in certain games, far too many side ventures eschew narrative reward, often serve as filler, and are ultimately plain boring. This is particularly true in open world games—The Witcher 3 is perhaps the exception—however the Assassin's Creed series is looking to improve its side quest design into the future.

Officially revealed at this year's E3, Origins will reduce its icon clutter by introducing a new "quest system".

Speaking to our Samuel on the show floor, the game's creative director Jean Guesdon said: "That's one of the three main things that we reworked a lot. Traditionally in past Assassin's Creed [games], we had what was called a mission system. So, it was really about missions, but missions are really good to tell a little bit, a chapter, of a big story. So we had a main story and side activities, basically, which were not really supportive of narrative.

"This time we're embracing a quest system, much more [like an] RPG, where you have dozens of them in the world, meeting different people, and each quest this time is a different story. We wanted that first to give a lot of meat to the world, to have the player really understand the world, and it's really allowing us to depict the setting well, because Ancient Egypt is incredible. It's a long lost world—we did a lot of research, and through the quests, we have a [chance] to help you experience that."

Assassin's Creed: Origins is due October 27, 2017. Here's its latest trailer:

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