The video game industry is fraught with leaks, and its even more fraught with fake leaks, with more nefarious sorts trying to capitalize on gamers’ thirst for information just to get a little joy. We’ve seen that very recently, with the supposed leak of Grand Theft Auto VI, via a voice actor’s résumé. Of course, the voice actor himself said that wasn’t his résumé and that he’s never used the website in question.
But every now and again, a leak turns out to be true. In the case of Assassin’s Creed Origins, we definitely overlooked one that happened to be dead-on. This one originally came from 4chan back in May, and was later detailed on a Reddit thread. Sure, there were a lot of easily predictable details (releasing later this year, no Nintendo Switch version, etcetera), but the meat of the leak was remarkably on-point. Of course, it came at a time when everyone was so bogged down by leaks of varying veracity, such as the infamous fake trailer created by a French game designer, that no one knew what to believe.
But, here are a few details that only a true leak could have predicted, each of which turned out to be true:
Using the Hawk to Scout
The leak insisted that there would be a new mechanic to look around buildings and whole areas: a hawk. The protagonist would deploy this hawk similarly to a game like Ghost Recon Wildlands or the Owl in Far Cry Primal. This hawk would be used to mark enemies and other areas/objects of potential interest.
Of course, anyone who has seen the gameplay footage that came out around E3 can tell you, this hawk is very real, and it does exactly what the leak said it was going to. The only thing slightly off about the leak was the name of the Hawk, but the leak said the name he had was a “placeholder name.”
No Towers
Because of the new scouting and mapping system, the leak suggested that the signature Towers from Assassin’s Creed games would no longer be present. No longer would you need to climb vast buildings to “synchronize” the map so you’d see all the relevant objects and routes and such. Could it be true?
Why yes. Yes it could. And yes it is. Ubisoft confirmed this change at the same time as the hawk information was released. Sorry to all those who liked to spend their valuable video game time clamoring up buildings and pressing a button, but this leak showed its accuracy once again.
No Multiplayer
Multiplayer, while never being the premier offering of an Assassin‘s Creed game, has been a mainstay in almost every game since Assassin’s Creed: Brotherhood. So, to hear some supposed leaker on 4chan tell everyone it suddenly wasn’t going to be there was just all about anyone needed to throw this leak in the “fake and lame” file.
But, not so fast, as more details came to light about Assassin’s Creed Origins, it became more and more clear that this would be the case, until finally Ubisoft, themselves confirmed it: no multiplayer. Womp Womp.
There Will Be Microtransactions (Unconfirmed, but Likely True)
The leak plainly stated that there would be Microtransactions, but Ubisoft has yet to confirm this explicitly. However, there was something funny about the announcement that there would be no multiplayer, though. If you read closely, they seem to have heavily implied the presence of microtransactions. I’ll put the quote below, and you can judge for yourself.”
“Assassin’s Creed Origins is primarily a single-player experience. We do have online features that are there to enhance that experience. Later in the (marketing) campaign, we’ll get into more details about those online features but it’s primarily a single-player experience” [Emphasis added].
No Naval Combat – (Unconfirmed, but Likely True, to an Extent)
Ship combat was a huge part of Assassin’s Creed III, so much so that they made an entire game out of the concept with Assassin‘s Creed IV: Black Flag. And while Ubisoft has been rather tight-lipped about the exact nature of the ships in Assassin’s Creed Origins, it seems that the primary purpose of the ships is changing drastically.
While the developer has been insistent that the game would feature some form of naval combat, it’s unlikely to be anything like what we’ve played in previous games, likely focusing on smaller, more intimate battles with less firepower, perhaps even more of the cinematic variety. This is based on their lack of public commitment to any one stance or the other. They want the middle ground, which is to say “it will be there, but … “
