Assassin’s Creed Odyssey is “a big core single-player experience”, not a service game

It’s safe to say that every big publisher is attempting to find their own long-term success in the games as a service sector, and Ubisoft is no different. But if you’re worried about service systems taking over its single-player offerings, don’t worry: you can, at the very least, be safe in the knowledge that Assassin’s Creed Odyssey is safe from being mutated into a hobby game. Talking to us at Gamescom 2018, Odyssey’s creative director Scott Philips says: “We're a big, core single-player experience. We want to keep the game alive and we want people to keep coming back to it, so we've planned quite a lot to keep people engaged once we've launched. But games as a hobby is more like Rainbow Six Siege, where you’ll play that every week with your friends. Odyssey is more like you’ll play a big bunch of it, and then we'll keep it alive for a longer period of time as we add new things.” Phillips emphasises that, despite huge service-game powerhouses like Rainbow Six Siege dominating people’s time and the gaming scene as a whole, there’s still a big market for people who crave more traditional games. “I think there's still a big audience for that.” he says. “I know for me personally that's the kind of thing I want to play, so I'm happy to have made that kind of thing”