Assassin's Creed: Origins game director Ashraf Ismail spoke last month about the game's cities, Memphis and Alexandria, saying that the studio put in a hefty amount of research about ancient Egyptian society so it could properly "bring Egypt to life." More recently, he told GamesRadar that the game's factions will be a big part of that liveliness too, not because of their richness and diversity, but because they really like to fight.
"There are quite a few different factions in the world, and keep in mind that these factions are really living in the world,” Ismail explained. “We don’t have anything that is a spawned event, you know, ‘because you’re 50 metres away we’re going to spawn this fight here for you.’ These are NPCs that have a schedule, that have an agenda, that criss-cross paths, and if they happen to be enemies they’ll fight, if they happen to be allies they’ll hug each other. So this is really the world living.”
Those factions will include the Ptolemies, revealed in June as a Greek dynasty that's occupied and ruled Egypt for ages; the rebels, who original Assassin Bayek sometimes works with; and bandits, a bunch of generally cutthroat jerks who are in it solely for themselves. And when they throw down, you can jump in and help out whichever side you like—or you can let them work it out for themselves, and then move in afterwards to take advantage of the aftermath.
Assassin's Creed: Origins is slated for release on October 27. Read about how Ubisoft is simplifying its murderous moves, but also making them cooler and more fun, right here.