I’ve spent the most time fiddling with sliders in Assassin’s Creed Origins’ photo mode than in any other game.
Assassin’s Creed: Origins is the first title I’ve played where I’ve genuinely felt the need for Sony’s mid-cycle upgrade. I’ve been playing Origins on a standard PS4, and despite it still looking impressive on the system, I can’t help but notice the extra incentive to upgrade to the Pro. I imagine God of War will aggravate that itch further. As far as a photo mode goes though, Origins’ effort is commendable.
The control of the camera isn’t as restrictive as Naughty Dog’s iterations, and I have the standard range of movement around central character Bayek in which to situate the camera. It’s easy in Origins to look wherever I want without wrestling the camera, and freedom in a photo mode’s camera makes it easier to closely inspect any detail in the world. The camera controls get a thumbs up from me, but it’s in other places I find this photo mode lacks.
Tinkerer
“Edit Mode” is where you find exposure, saturation, tint, temperature and vignetting. I find myself tweaking those settings in Origins more than any other game, which is a negative and a positive. The colouring of the game itself often feels too flat with the often-used blue tint in Assassin’s Creed games. I’m in Egypt, the sun is beaming down on a golden sandy temple, so where’s this blue coming from? Feeling the need to use these sliders to get the colours and exposure better suited has led me to utilise those settings to my advantage. It’s good, but I’m using them only because the colours and exposure don’t seem right without tinkering.
Often environments are made brighter than they would be, or night time is lighter than it should be, and that’s so players can actually see where they’re going. Following the brightness setting to a tee leaves everything still perfectly visible at night. As such, I’ve felt the need to tweak the exposure a little in photo mode each time, even during the day.
#NoFilter
I’d recommend avoiding filters entirely in Assassn’s Creed Origins. You spend the first few screenshots in any game not just familiarising yourself with the controls, but figuring out where the game graphically shines the most. For Origins, the filters aren’t really that appealing and they’re not really what I want to go for with my images.
In my screenshots below you’ll see colours pop a bit more, and much darker nights and environments. Alexandria is a beautiful place to take screenshots with its long straight roads that effortlessly lead into bridges and back again, and its extensive architecture spread across the city. Alexandria is about as far as I am in the story, and I’ve been there for a few hours as it is. I can’t wait to explore the rest of Assassin’s Creed Origins’ giant map.
Click the images to see them bigger. For full size (1080p), right click and save to your desktop.
