Ubisoft's pivot to an RPG format might have been a very controversial decision with longtime fans, but the first two parts of the ancient trilogy were very good games in their own right, even if Valhalla did go on to spoil it a bit.
The opening salvo saw us taken to Roman-era classical Egypt in Assassin's Creed Origins, as our protagonist Bayek founds the Hidden Ones with his wife Aya, which would later go on to become the Assassin's Brotherhood.
It's a very important part of the overall story for the series, and the gameplay is generally very solid too. It's also a great game aesthetically, with Ubisoft doing an impressive job of making the long stretches of desert interesting to look at.
That said, there's always room for improvement, and a new ray tracing showcase shows just how pretty the game can look if you've got the hardware to back it up.
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Assassin’s Creed Origins With Ultra Ray Tracing Looks Unreal
Over on YouTube, Digital Dreams uploaded an Ultra Ray Tracing showcase for Assassin’s Creed Origins and it's safe to say that it has absolutely dialled up the visuals to a whole new level.
The game is also running in frankly fairly ridiculous 8K resolution, so it really does feel like you're able to see the smallest specks of pollen as Bayek wanders through the fields.
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The big changes to the visual offering in this version of the game are the lighting and shadow effects, which are considerably more realistic and really drive home the brightness and heat of the Egyptian landscapes.
The textures also look considerably better, with clear upgrades to many of the hard surfaces and living creatures in the game.
Water is another big winner with this game setup, looking much more realistic than the base game.
Despite coming out eight years ago, Origins looks very nice in its own right, which acts as the perfect foundation for dialling up the visuals for those who know what they're doing.
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The major caveat to copying Digital Dreams the next time you load up a game of Origins is that the YouTuber is running everything on a monumentally beefy PC, with an RTX 5090 FE and a Ryzen 7 9800X3D CPU powering his test rig.
That said, you can still get some solid upgrades on the standard visuals by installing an array of mods, many of which won't test your home PC anywhere near as aggressively.
Topics: Mods, Ubisoft, Assassins Creed