Here’s the background on where I find myself with the series: I fell in love with the series with the Ezio trilogy, which were the high points for me, then enjoyed III mostly because of the setting, but was already starting to feel AC fatigue, and by the time Black Flag came out, as much I was enjoying playing it (especially the ship stuff), the fatigue took over, to a point where I didn’t finish it, and I pretty much skipped Unity and Syndicate (I played a bit of Unity this past year). So the first thing that got me interested in the series again was the setting of Egypt — the Roman/Egyptian era that is used in the game is pretty much my favorite historical setting (and I say this as a History major), and so I was very excited to explore that world. Then, when I started playing, I was a bit shocked at how much the game sucked me in — I finished the “story” part of the game (because you can keep playing after, with still tons of things to do post-“ending”) in about 30 hours, in less than a week, with two consecutive Saturdays of 8/9-hour play sessions. On top of the setting, what really got me addicted is the new levelling system and skill tree, which gives more purpose to doing side missions because you want to level up — to be able to deal with more advanced (level-wise) parts fo the map, and also to unlock new abilities. The side missions were also for the most part more interesting than in the past, and I had a lot more fun with the combat than in previous games — although I still sometimes had trouble dealing with swarms of enemies that surrounded me. But man, what a great game — they made the right changes to get me interested in the series again, and I really hope that these new RPG elements are here to stay. I’d say Origins is my new favorite AC game.