Assassin's Creed Origins: The Curse of the Pharaohs DLC

DB
May 20
3 min read

The myths of Ancient Egypt deserved better than this.

Bayek in shadow as a ritual fire burns behind him - from Assassin' Creed Origins: The Curse of the Pharaohs DLC

Here's what I've been watching and playing over the last seven days...

MOVIES

After finding out Godzilla Minus Zero is due out in six months' time, I thought I'd revisit this film to remind myself of how good it was and wasn't disappointed.

My opinion remains almost exactly the same too: I still don't think the VFX are quite as great as everyone makes out, but they're still pretty great and the human story more than makes up for it.

GAMES

Assassin's Creed Origins - The Curse of the Pharaohs DLC

Story summary: Bayek discovers a curse has descended upon Thebes, transforming the region into a living nightmare. To lift this curse, Bayek must investigate its cause while fighting beasts once believed to be just legend. (IMDb)

I've finally made it through all the Assassin's Creed Origins content I own and, after finishing The Curse of the Pharaohs, I'm very glad about it because I did not enjoy this piece of DLC at all!

I wasn't a fan of the mythology-based stuff in Assassin's Creed Odyssey's expansion - The Fate of Atlantis - either, but that was still much, much better than what's here.

The biggest issue I have is unfortunately the core story of the game, with an Apple of Eden being used by a mystery person (who you'll figure out well before the game 'reveals' it) to resurrect legendary Pharaohs.

That sounds cool enough, and it isn't actually the story I have an issue with, but the boss fights - including against these resurrected enemies - are fucking dreadful.

They have massive health pools, you do very little damage to them and their attacks take off set chunks of health rather than doing set amounts of damage, so the gear you're using as Bayek is pretty much irrelevant.

No joke, there are plenty of enemies that have attacks which take off 80% of your health automatically, regardless of how much health you have.

I get that the developers might want to challenge players in this final chunk of content, but these fights end up being nothing more than endurance events rather than tests of skill.

Honestly, unless you think the combat system in Origins is absolutely your thing and spending an age on boss battles slowly whittling down their mammoth health bars sounds like a dream, then you can very easily skip this DLC.

The Curse of the Pharaohs just wasn't fun at all for me, which is a shame when delving into Ancient Egyptian mythology, with some design choices leaving me baffled. [3/10]

TV

Star Wars: Skeleton Crew

Series summary: Four kids make a mysterious discovery on their home planet that leads them to get lost in a strange and dangerous galaxy. (IMDb)

Episode 1, “This Could Be A Real Adventure”

A decent enough start, although who knows what the opening sequence had to do with the rest of the episode.

Episode 2, "Way, Way Out Past The Barrier”

Another okay episode, although this is moving very slowly so far – two episodes in and it feels like the story might finally get started… next episode.

Episode 3, “Very Interesting, As An Astrogation Problem”

Okay, this was a genuinely fun episode and it really feels like the story is full steam ahead – but why did it take 3 episodes to get to this point?

With a long weekend coming up, I'm hoping to finish the season for next week.