After cruising through the Legacy of the First Blade DLC, I finished the last DLC in the over 100 hours in this journey. The AC Odyssey Fate of Atlantis DLC is the better of the two. Like the previous DLC, it has a 3 episode structure. Also like the first DLC, the first episode is the worst. Regardless of those episode 1 speed bumps, I’m glad I completed this long journey.
The Fields of Elysium are Beautiful, but Tedious
The end of the Atlantis questline from the main game left me hanging with Kassandra passing off the Staff of Hermes to Layla Hassan. That tease of having the key to open Atlantis paid off in the AC Odyssey Fate of Atlantis DLC, mostly.
Either as the beginning or the prelude to episode one, was a fetch quest. After shipping Kassandra off to a few tombs to find symbols, it was a hand off to Layla to solve the last piece of the puzzle to open the gates of Atlantis. The interesting part of the otherwise tedious process was fetching part of the code from Deimos’s memories. A memory of him killing an artisan which severely messes with Layla’s head.
Once the gates of Atlantis are open, it was a bit disappointing. I expected to enter a forgotten city, but it was just a throne room housing 3 rooms of simulations. Would have liked to explore the ruins before jumping into those simulations.
Episode one revolved around the simulation of Elysium, basically Greek heaven. It was an entirely new map with beautiful fields of flowers and Greek architecture built on high ledges. “Hermes wing” teleporters helped speed up ascents to many of those locations. A beautiful mix of giant sculptured faces and water falls forms a ring around the entire map.
Elysium Missions Dragged on in the Fate of Atlantis DLC
Although I enjoyed meeting the simulated versions of Greek mythological figures like Persephone, Hermes, Adonis and Leonidas, their missions for me were not particularly fun. Plenty of them felt monotonous with plenty of whittling down Persephone’s grip on Elysium. The setting around them looked great, but many other things were annoying.
The worst was the Kolossi who appeared as statues until fights broke out near them. After that they shot ability sapping laser beams at me and teleported around. They were annoying and forced me to take the steal approach most times to avoid the annoyance. I really hated them.
What didn’t help was most missions were the same tired Nation mechanic from the main game. Kill guards, steal treasure and burn resources. Not really a fan of a lot of that at over 100 hours played with AC Odyssey. Felt like padding to the main story of the Elysium episode runtime.
There were a few unique ones to add powers to the Staff of Hermes and offer overpowered god upgrades to some abilities. That part I liked.
The overall missions structure without that padding could have been great. Each missions offers choices to support one of the main characters for control of Elysium. I helped them all out a bit, but mostly Adonis since he is human and wanted to leave. My choices led to fights with both Leonidas and Hermes. It at least seemed other choices could have a different outcomes.
In the end, I finally slogged my way through the missions and entered the gateway to Hades.
Going to Hades, the Underworld
Before I could truly begin my descent into hell, I fought the mythical Cerberus. That 3 headed hound of Hades was a tough fight, at first. Once I figured out how to best avoid his flame attacks, I made him roll over and play dead forever.
As you can imagine, Hades was not a fan of that move and tasked me to find new guardians for the gates of hell. The Underworld in episode 2 was all fire and brimstone colors. It was very different from all the vibrant colors of Elysium. All the dead residents were dirty, burnt or somehow uglier than the characters in Elysium.
Despite the dire setting of Greek Hell, the missions and characters were enough for this to be my favorite of all the episodes for the AC Odyssey Fate of Atlantis DLC. Not sure what that says about me, liking the Hell setting more than the Heaven one. I think part of it was the Underworld episode deals with characters seeking redemption. All while spoiled Elysium people were complaining about paradise.
I enjoyed several missions for Charon, the ferryman of the dead along the river Styx. He offered plenty of loss souls who Kassandra could help move on. In addition to those, I also reunited with fallen friends like Brasidas and Phoebe. There were also fallen enemies like El Penor and other members of the Cult of Kosmos.
Fall Friend and Foes in the Fate of Atlantis DLC
Phoebe’s missions were a great way to truly say goodbye to her and help her to a final resting place in Elysium. It was brutal how she died in the main game, so this felt like a nice redemption arc for her relationship with Kassandra.
Brasidas’s missions centered around all the mistakes that led him to reside in the Underworld. One of the most memorable bits was following the boney pointing arms of corpses to a mission objective. Much like with Phoebe, it was a chance to redeem another strained relationship separated by death.
El Penor was an interesting twist. Once a backstabbing enemy of Kassandra, he served as an important helper to navigate the Underworld and gain more upgrades to the Staff of Hermes. His help did lead to more enjoyment of the episode, so I chose to forgive him in the end instead of tossing him to an eternity of suffering.
As an important part of my journey through hell was finding stolen pieces of the Armor of the Fallen. It didn’t just offer protection, but also granted passed to various gates in the Underworld. To collect all those pieces, I fought and killed enemies from the main game in their undead form. I loved the look of the armor and the lore behind it upped the ante for wanting to collect it.
With all that behind me, my final task to escape the Underworld was to find and defeat champions to coax them to defend Hades’ gates. It was a nice touch that I recognized the names of some of these champions, like Achilles and Perseus. Although I completed the missions Hades set out for me, I knew he wouldn’t let Kassandra go without a fight.
He might have been the toughest fight of the DLC for me. My usual go to combos were hard to accomplish when so many of his attacks forced me to keep my distance. My impatience to finally see Atlantis in the final episode led me to take a few attempts to defeat him. Definitely a bit too tough on the Steam Deck controls, but my gaming PC was the path.
Judging and Destroying in the Fate of Atlantis DLC
It was only with Poseidon’s help that Kassandra was able to finally escape Hades grasp. I found it refreshing that he seemed the most caring of all the previous rulers of the episode realms. His overall mission for Kassandra was to help lead by providing justice to Atlantis as the Justicar.
The look of Atlantis did not disappoint. Beautiful towers of marble surrounded by water. Advanced technology almost seemed to leak into those marble structures. Plenty of statues of aquatic life to be found in most entry ways. No surprise a wall of water surrounded the entire city.
There were plenty of missions to decide what type of justice various situations deserve. One that really sticks out was a murder that revealed a werewolf. I chose to spare the poor soul who promised to seek help to control the condition, but I have no idea if they killed again. Seems like a lost opportunity to make me regret my decision.
Gaining Advanced Knowledge in Atlantis
One of the big game mechanics of Atlantis was to seek out advance knowledge via various pieces of technology throughout Atlantis. Most of the good stuff was in guarded areas with those stupid Kolossi enemies, so I’d use plenty of stealth kills to get through.
Those pieces of knowledge were required to advanced through certain areas, so I flew the eagle outside of the area to map out where everything was. I then just made a b line for each. Gathering them was fun other than the times a screwed up and awakened the Kolossi.
The overarching story was trying to find a way for humans and the Isu to get along. Many of the Isu treated humans like animals. So I’m not sad the whole thing ended in the destruction of Atlantis. The Isu were killed, but humans escaped via boat. It was Poseidon’s wish the entire time.
It was for sure better than the first episode, but the Underworld was still my favorite of the 3. The overall ending of the AC Odyssey Fate of Atlantis DLC was a bit weird too. Layla managed to kill her doctor friend (maybe?) and cripple the enemy chasing, but that’s it. Not seeing how others on the team will react to what she did, was just odd that it ended like that.
Looking Forward to What’s Next for Assassin’s Creed
After all the missions and DLCs, Assassin’s Creed Odyssey is my new favorite of the series. I actually don’t even want to look at the actual number of hours in game. Really wish they had cut a lot of the meh side missions and stuck with just the great ones.
That is why I look forward to Assassin’s Creed Mirage’s much smaller map and length. Basam is an interesting character whose backstory I’ll love to unravel. For now though, it’s deciding between Baldur’s Gate 3 or Starfield or both.