Abstract: Below is my senior essay for my B.A. in Latin earned in 2020 at the University of Washington.
Abstract
As the popularity of video games rises, there is increasing discussion on video games as an art form. These discussions inspired me to explore the similarities and differences between the ancient epic, the Odyssey, and a recent popular video game, Assassin’s Creed: Odyssey. The game is inspired and adapted from the Odyssey. The essay will focus on three main aspects of these two works: the relationship between gods and humans, the characters’ freedom of choice, and the creation of immersive environments. The game is inspired and based on the Odyssey, but the developers creatively made changes to the story and the characters. This essay aims to discover the similarities between the game and the epic poem. Then, I will analyze how the modern adaptation of the Odyssey helps us understand different aspects of the Odyssey that were not as obvious. The essay concludes these arguments to show whether video game adaptation of the ancient epic is another artwork that tells a different story, nevertheless, it adapted and inherited the legacy of the Odyssey.
Introduction
The ancient Greek author Homer’s epic Odyssey has inspired many great pieces of artwork and literary masterpieces throughout history. The Odyssey itself is an irreplaceable literary masterpiece that shaped our modern understanding of ancient mythology, history, life, and death. Homer’s Odyssey inspired paintings on a great number of Greek vases; it inspired Virgil’s Aeneid, and the word “Odyssey” has become synonymous with epic journeys. To this day, Homer’s Odyssey continues to inspire, and this essay will discuss the similarities and differences between Homer’s Odyssey and the video game Assassin’s Creed: Odyssey, released in 2018. How much control do deities have over the journey of Odysseus in the Odyssey and Assassin’s Creed: Odyssey? To what extent does the difference of medium – epic poetry and video games – give the characters an illusion of choice throughout their journeys? Does Assassin’s Creed: Odyssey give the players a more holistic view of the ancient Greek environment than Homer’s Odyssey? These questions will be addressed throughout all three parts of the essay and the comparison between the two works will reveal how classical epic can have modern interpretations through the medium of video games.
Homer’s Odyssey narrates the journey of hero Odysseus after leaving Troy to return to his homeland Ithaca. Homer vividly describes the challenges Odysseus faces throughout his ten years of pilgrim on his journey home, including the kingdoms he visits, the mythological creatures he encounters, and the battles he fights. The story simultaneously follows Odysseus’ wife Penelope and his son Telemachus defending their home while they await Odysseus’s return home. The epic poem extensively explores the themes of loyalty and betrayal, love and family, as well as life and death. The journey of the Odyssey follows Odysseus from land to sea and from Earth to Underworld, captivating the minds of readers for centuries.
Assassin’s Creed: Odyssey is a Role-Play game (RPG) where you get to be immersed in the gameplay and choose your path as the game progresses. The game is titled “Odyssey” as it is inspired by Homer’s Odyssey. Although it is not a replica of Homer’s Odyssey, the developers of the game have taken inspirations from the Odyssey and created a story of their own. Players have a freedom of choice within the game to explore and complete their journeys in different ways, different order of story events and a different ending. The story of the game revolves around your character exploring the world that is built around you, and your character’s journey home. While the story is not exactly a copy of the one in Homer’s Odyssey, the idea of a hero finding their way home coincides with it.
To compare Homer’s Odyssey and Assassin’s Creed: Odyssey, this essay will focus on three main concepts that will help analyze the game. The first part of the essay will compare the influence of Athena on Odysseus, drawing examples from the Odyssey where Athena intervenes in Odysseus’s journey by visiting him or sending him a message. I will use the book The Distaff Side as my primary research companion to analyze the issues in this part. These examples from the Odyssey will be compared to the presence of Zeus in Assassin’s Creed: Odyssey. The pictures of the statues of Zeus and the in-game reconstruction of the Temple of Zeus are used to analyze the presence and involvement of Zeus in the game world.
Then, the second part of the essay will focus on each hero’s ability to choose his or her actions. Odysseus’s journey home is filled with challenges and choices, and he seems to have made many decisions throughout his journey, but it is worth arguing that some of the choices are not made by his own decision. On the other hand, Assassin’s Creed: Odyssey, an adaptation of Homer’s Odyssey, is created on a medium that relies on the mechanics, which its hero’s choices are being made for them by the players. At the beginning of the game, the player has a choice of playing as male character Alexios or female character Kassandra, and Kassandra will be the choice of character to discuss and compare with Odysseus. I will be using Kassandra as the main character for this comparison as it will also lead to an interesting discussion on gender identities and gender roles by comparing her to Odysseus.
Lastly, the essay will explore the world-building aspect of both Homer’s Odyssey and Assassin’s Creed: Odyssey. Homer’s Odyssey has created a world with mythological locations and real-life locations in Greece, and all the adventures of Odysseus take place in it. The world- building in the Odyssey creates an immersive environment for the readers or listeners to engage with and invest in the story. Moreover, Erwin F. Cook, in his book The Odyssey in Athens: Myths of Cultural Origins, argues that Homeric Odyssey has shaped the civic rituals in Athens, and the Odyssey acts as a city-state building text for Athens. On the other hand, Assassin’s Creed: Odyssey has realistically modeled landscapes of real-life locations in Greece, and reconstructed models of destroyed buildings. The in-game landscape achieved a level of realism that allows the player to be immersed in the environment and the game. The realistic landscape makes the game more than just a playthrough experience, but also an exploration of the world of ancient Greece.
Part 1 – Comparison of gods
The roles of gods are significant in both Homer’s Odyssey and Assassin’s Creed: Odyssey. In Homer’s Odyssey, Athena poses as an important guide and assistant to Odysseus’s troubles; in Assassin’s Creed: Odyssey, Zeus has a strong physical presence in the game in the form of a huge statue, and symbolically as the Temple of Zeus. In this section, I will use the book The Distaff Side as my primary interpretive partner because of my interest in gender representation in classical literature. Moreover, I will use E. V. Rieu’s translation as my primary reference for Homer’s Odyssey, so all the quotations of the Odyssey will be from his translation.
Athena in Homer’s Odyssey
The Odyssey narrates the story of the hero Odysseus and his journey home to Ithaca and many stories revolves around him as the main enactor of events. The goddess Athena plays an important role in the Odyssey by intervening with Odysseus’s affairs and altering his decisions. In The Distaff Side, Murnaghan points out in her article, titled The Plan of Athena, that “the goddess Athena quickly emerges as the source and the sponsor of the plot that follows” (1995: 61). The assistant of Athena is evident from Book 1, where Athena is convincing Zeus to help Odysseus with his troubles throughout the journey (1.48-50)1:
It is for Odysseus that my heart is wrung, the wise and unlucky Odysseus, who has been parted so long from all his friends and is pining on a lonely island far away in the middle of the seas.
This quotation, it shows Athena’s care for Odysseus and his safe return. She brought this up to Zeus to ask for his immediate action to bring Odysseus home, and Zeus agreed with her. He sent Hermes to the isle of Ogygia. Murnaghan, in her article, claims that the Odyssey
“goes out of its way to identify the story it tells as Athena’s project” (1995: 61), I agree. Early in Book 1 of the Odyssey, Athena desperately urges Zeus to take action to help Odysseus because of his miserable circumstance (1. 85-89):
Let us send our Messenger, Hermes the Giant-killer, to the isle of Ogygia, so that he can immediately tell Calypso, the Nymph with the plaited tresses, of our unalterable decision that the patient Odysseus must now set out for home.
With the conversation with Zeus, and the almost commanding tone in the quotation above, Athena interfered with Odysseus’s affair and requests his return to Ithaka. The voice of “let us”, “immediately”, and “unalterable decision” shows that Athena takes charge in the conversation, and she is stern about the course of actions needed to help Odysseus.
Athena, in the Odyssey, then becomes a major influencer of the actions taken in the story. The significance of Athena’s control over the Odyssey’s events can be seen in the power dynamic between genders among humans. Because Athena was born from the head of Zeus after he swallowed her mother Metis, Athena possesses the combination of both masculine traits and feminine traits. Throughout the progression of the Odyssey, Athena intervenes with human events, Murnaghan says Athena “neutralizes the threats that the female is felt to pose for the male and enlists female figures as willing participants in stable, male-dominated social structures” (1995: 62). The involvement of Athena in the events of the Odyssey steers the turn of events of Odysseus’s journey. And it poses a special perspective into gender representations within the ancient world, regarding the influence of female deities on human events. Therefore, Murnaghan states the presence and influence of Athena can be acknowledged as the “power of women and equates the successful conclusion of its story with the enlistment of female characters in the male-centered project” (1995: 63).
Zeus in Assassin’s Creed: Odyssey
Throughout the gameplay of Assassin’s Creed: Odyssey, the player explores the islands of ancient Greece, in-game landmarks, and reconstructed sites. Religion and the presence of deities play a major role in the game world, there are buildings, landmarks, main quests, and side quests that contain the main theme of religion and religious activities. Among those significant landmarks in the game, Zeus takes a prominent position in the game. At the starting area of the game, there is a statue of Zeus, named Lightning Zeus (See Figure 1), on top of a boulder, overseeing the entire island. This is the first area of the game, and the statue is at a defining position where it is visible at every angle of the island and wherever you are, making the Lightning Zeus an important landmark of the area, also signifying the fact that Zeus is metaphorically overlooking everyone on the island. Later in the game, one of the areas introduced the site of the Temple of Zeus (See Figure 2), as an important religious site in the game, further solidifying the religious presence of Zeus within the game as a prominent deity figure.
Zeus does not have the same amount of control and dominance over the world and the story as Athena does in The Odyssey. Because Zeus is often shown as an artifact, rather than a Non-Playable Character that will interfere or influence the plotline. He influences neither the character’s decision nor the player's decision for the characters. Nevertheless, the show of strong presence through the display of statues, temples, and other architectural structures throughout the game is another great example of a deity asserting its dominance over the world.
Athena’s influence in the Odyssey is different from the influence of Zeus in Assassin’s Creed: Odyssey. Athena has the power to dominate over the journey of Odysseus, making life-altering decisions for the hero, whereas Zeus is presented as a dominant figure in the game without real power to alter the world or affect the decision-making process of the characters. It is also interesting to discuss the absence of Athena in Assassin’s Creed: Odyssey. Because Athena is a prominent deity in Homer’s Odyssey, her absence raises questions of why the developers decide to omit the importance of Athena in Homer’s Odyssey and put Zeus in her place, appearing to be visually in control, but without real power in the game world. One possible conclusion to this question is that the game is published commercially. Since Zeus usually appears to be the widely known Olympian and to be the King of Gods, it will naturally be more intuitive for average players to have Zeus to be in charge than any other gods.
Part 2 – Comparison of Main Characters
The characters in both Homer’s Odyssey and Assassin’s Creed: Odyssey are journeying through their adventures to return to their homeland. Odysseus in the Odyssey encounters many difficult situations and faces numerous difficult choices throughout the journey. While the liberty of choices is arguably not in the hands of Odysseus, given that Athena has much authority over the decisions of the paths that Odysseus takes in the story, there is still much to discuss about the hero’s choices throughout the story.
This section will compare the actions and decision-making of both characters in Homer’s Odyssey and Assassin’s Creed: Odyssey. The comparison will focus on whether the characters themselves have constitutions over their actions and the consequences of these actions. Different from the Odyssey, the medium and the style of Assassin’s Creed: Odyssey has allowed the player to intervene with the hero’s decisions. Namely, the game itself is within the genre that the players can choose dialogues, make decisions and alter the stories of the main character, resulting in different story progression, depending on whether the decisions have consequences or not.
Odysseus in Homer’s Odyssey
Odysseus is the main hero in Homer’s epic the Odyssey and the King of Ithaka. After the Trojan war, he fights to defeat all the challenges to return to his homeland Ithaca. Odysseus encountered characters, including Scylla, the Sirens, and Kirke, all of whom will force Odysseus to make difficult decisions. In the case of Kirke, Odysseus entered the home of Kirke when he was trying to rescue his men from Kirke’s spell. With the protection of the herb moly, delivered by Hermes, he was able to evade the spells of Kirke, but remained at the home of Kirke for a year, forgetting his duty to return to his homeland Ithaca (10. 467-470)1:
My gallant company were not difficult to persuade. We stayed on day after day for a whole year, feasting on lavish quantities of meat and mellow wine. But as the months went by and seasons passed and the long days returned...
During the year of staying at Kirke’s place, Odysseus remained as Kirke’s lover as a result of turning his men back to human form. Odysseus has the choice to leave the island of Aeaea, where Kirke lives, and to return home to Ithaka, but he did not make up the mind to return to home until his men decides to convince him to set sail home (10. 472-474):
“What possesses you to stay on here? It’s time you thought you Ithaca, if the gods mean you to escape and get back to your ancestral home in your own country.”
Odysseus then leaves the island of Aeaea and Kirke and make their way to Hell. The journey started by Kirke asking him to make his way to Hell to “consult the soul of Teiresias” (10. 492). The assistance of Hermes shows that Odysseus could not have completed the rescue mission by himself, so he needs the aid from the gods. Then, he remained at Kirke’s for one year after he saved his men, not thinking about his duties, only enjoying the wine and luxuries. Afterwards, he sets said to leave the island because he thinks his men “exhaust me with their complaints” (X. 485) to return home. Lastly, even if he wants to return home, his journey is steered towards Hell by the words of Kirke. Odysseus has little constitution over his own decisions and barely a mind of his own throughout this series of events. It shows how much external influence can alter the actions of Odysseus. Therefore, it is hard to determine how much constitution Odysseus has over the journey he makes throughout the Odyssey.
Doherty points out in her article, Sirens, Muses and Female Narrators, most of these female characters in the Odyssey poses a threat or danger to the return of Odysseus, they believe that “female figures constitute a series of threats or false goals for the male hero, the Sirens, like Kalypso and Kirke, must be relegated to the margins of the human world and resisted with all available means” (1995: 81). This argument makes Odysseus’s circumstance seems inevitable and he could not have escaped such danger. Therefore, Odysseus lacks the authority of choice, so it appears he can only decide on how he can escape these dangers and threats, putting him in a rather passive perspective in these situations. It is interesting that even though Odysseus is the narrator of the stories of Kirke, he appears to be in a passive position throughout his encounters with Kirke. With the help and intervention of Hermes, Odysseus was able to evade the threats posed by Kirke – threats that would otherwise be harmful to Odysseus.
Kassandra in Assassin’s Creed: Odyssey
At the beginning of the game, the player can choose to play as either male character Alexios or female character Kassandra. Throughout the game, players will be given dialogue choices in conversations, and action choices in other situations. Players can make their own choices, and some choices will result in different consequences, whereas others will not.
The choices being made in Assassin’s Creed: Odyssey are governed by the players and therefore changes the course of action of the character within the game. Depending on the player, different choices will be made and therefore, the story will be altered and the gameplay will also be different for each player; so if the player decides to adopt a different strategy for the game, the outcome and the story will turn out differently.
For example, in Figure 4, a screenshot of in-game content, there are three choices available for players to choose, as one can see the golden texts at the bottom right corner of Figure 4. The chosen text is indicated by the white ornament around the block of text. In Figure 4, the middle text option is chosen. These dialogue options, in this example, Kassandra can choose to tell a dying soldier who or what is responsible for a tragedy. The player can choose between “Spartan honor is responsible”, “War was responsible”, or “You, Brasidas, were responsible”. Dialogue options have no in-game consequences in these decisions. From my playthrough experience, all three of these decisions will result in the same dialogue and there is no difference in the result. This is an example of a dialogue choice that does not affect the gameplay, it only affects what the characters say to other NPCs (Non-Playable Characters). On the other hand, in Figure 5, there is a red skull symbol next to one of her choices. The red skull marks that choice will result in a character’s death and the action will have consequences to the gameplay. If the players choose differently, they will have different plotlines. In this case, if the first choice with the red skull is chosen, Kassandra will not be able to reunite with her father at the end of the game. The first choice will also prompt a fight with another character.
In Homer’s Odyssey, the choices being made by the hero or for the heroes are mostly governed by an exterior force. In Kirke’s place, Odysseus has the choice between staying and indulge in luxury and returning home to Ithaka to resume his responsibilities. In the Odyssey, there is influence from the Athena and Hermes, as well as from external threats and dangers from female characters throughout his journey. In Assassin’s Creed: Odyssey, the choices are being made for the hero by the player. However, the sense that the player is controlling the character is a variation of decision-making imposed by the difference of the media of the story. When the medium is an Action Role-Playing game, the premise is to give control to the players. However, the decisions of quests and adventures to different places are governed by Kassandra, which is designed by the game developers. The significance of choice in Assassin’s Creed: Odyssey relies on the genre of the game; when the medium of the story is poetry, it does not reinforce the importance of choice as much as a video game. Odysseus’s lack of choice is governed by the nature of the relationship between the gods and human races. In both Homer’s Odyssey and Assassin’s Creed: Odyssey, both heroes are presented with an illusion of the freedom of choice, and the choices are made for them to move the story forward and reveal the heroism within.
Part 3 – World Building and Environment
The construction of the world and the environment is crucial to the world of video games. In the world of Assassin’s Creed: Odyssey, the reconstructions of ancient Greece and many historically significant buildings in the game world are critical for the immersion of the story, but also a great example of how the study of antiquity cooperates in the video games industry. Both Assassin’s Creed: Odyssey and Homer’s Odyssey build worlds. Throughout the entire game of Assassin’s Creed: Odyssey, the 3D reconstructions of the environment and architecture of the world is refined to the last of the detail, creating immersion for the players to dive into the surroundings and the culture of ancient Greece. According to scholar Erwin F. Cook’s book, The “Odyssey” in Athens: Myths of Cultural Origins, Homer’s Odyssey includes descriptions and passages of geographical environment and cultural references that help the readers reconstruct the fantastical world of the Odyssey as well as a projection of the culture and environment of Athens.
This part of the essay will display and compare the construction of worlds in both Homer’s Odyssey and Assassin’s Creed: Odyssey. With examples from each work, I will analyze the importance of world-building for each of the works.
Homer’s Odyssey
While the story of the Odyssey illustrates the journey home of the hero Odysseus, the epic poem does not neglect to construct a fantastical world for this epic journey. In this world, Homer brought geographical locations in Greece, historical figures, and mythical creatures in all these books to life. Homer’s Odyssey creates a world where the hero faces a decade of challenges and eventually finds his way home and the environment. At the very beginning of the book, Homer illustrates a world to the Muses about the journey of Odysseus and the lands and seas that he is going to venture across in Book one (I. 1-11):
Tell me, Muse, the story of that resourceful man who was driven to wander far and wide after he had sacked the holy citadel of Troy. He saw the cities of many people and he learned their ways. He suffered great anguish on the high seas in his struggles to preserve his life and bring his comrades home. But he failed to save those comrades, in spite of all his efforts. It was their transgression that brought them to their doom, for in their folly they devoured the oxen of Hyperion the Sun-god and he saw to it that they would never return. Tell us this story, goddess daughter of Zeus, beginning at whatever point you will.
In this passage, Homer speaks to the Muses for inspirations and describes Odysseus’s circumstances. The purpose of this section is to pay tribute to the Muses, so that they can provide Homer with inspirations with his work. Another purpose of this section is to give the audience or the readers a context within which the Odyssey takes place. This section can be seen as the foundation of the rest of the Odyssey, and it sets the tone and mood of the epic. Homer also referenced Athena, “goddess daughter of Zeus” (I, 11), to put the story in the perspective of Athena, and inform the readers that Athena is involved in this story. This section provides a rich world-building experience in the first couple lines of the epic for the readers. It immediately gives the context, the synopsis and the premise of the story at the beginning. Therefore, it effectively creates an immersive environment for all readers and audiences.
Homer also succeeds in building the environment of Hell in Book 11. In Book 11, Odysseus visits Hell in the accord of Kirke, to meet with Teiresias. He meets his mother in Hell and then followed with this detailed description of Hell (11. 37-42):
And now the souls of the dead came swarming up from Erebus – brides, unmarried youths, old men who had suffered greatly, once-happy girls with grief still fresh in their hearts, and a great throng of warriors killed in battle, their spear- wounds gaping and all their armor stained with blood.
This chosen section of Book 11 contains a detailed description of all the people who are in Hell. Homer packs this description with humans who were once alive, so the impact is stronger because of the immediate comparison between living Odysseus and these dead people. Odysseus is terrified by the sight, and Homer describes Odysseus’s fears as such (11. 42-44):
From this multitude of souls, as they fluttered to and fro by the trench, there came an eerie clamor. Panic drained the blood from my cheeks.
Both sections have mentioned “blood” in “their armor stained with blood” (11. 41) and “drained the blood from my cheeks” (11. 43). However, these two instances of “blood” are different because the former is associated with death, and the latter is associated with life. The blood from the armor is the indication of how these soldiers died, or at least the circumstances in which they died. The blood from Odysseus’s cheeks is the indication that he is a living being in the land of the dead. Therefore, the contrast of “blood” in this context has an immersive element because this detail brings out the horrid of death and Hell. These descriptions make the idea of Hell more vivid in the audience’s minds, therefore succeed in building Homer’s world of Hell.
Assassin’s Creed: Odyssey
The world created in Assassin’s Creed: Odyssey includes all the islands, lands and seas that are available for the player to explore throughout the game. The official website of Assassin’s Creed: Odyssey refers to the mission of unraveling the environment as to “explore an entire country full of untamed environments and cities at the peak of Greece's Golden Age. Visit Sparta and witness Athens in its full glory, tread in the footsteps of legends like Odysseus and Hercules and uncover the secrets of Greece”3. The game itself includes real-life locations of Greece, such as Kephallonia Island (Cephalonia Island), the Attika Peninsula (Attica), Peloponnese and so on. These real-life locations within the game increased the level of realism in terms of world-building and strolling around the islands as the player also get to witness the details of all the models and the environment as a backdrop of the entire game. For example, Kaphallonia Island in the game has created a beautiful landscape through 3D modeling and the textures used in the game have closely reflected the real-life environments (See Figure 6). With the help of computer graphic technology, Assassin’s Creed: Odyssey contains landscapes and an environment that resembles real life, making the game more realistic. This realistic environment allows the players to immerse themselves in the environment during gameplay and it makes the player imagine that they are in ancient Greece.
Another world-building property that increases the realism of the game is the reconstructions of architectural landmarks of different locations. In Assassin’s Creed: Odyssey, with 3D modeling technology, they have reconstructed the beauty of architecture, such as Temple of Apollo in Korinth, and the Temple of Zeus in Olympia, restoring the glory of these architectural structures in ancient Greece. In Figure 2, a photo of the reconstructed Temple of Zeus in the game, the creators of the game detailed the construction and appearance of the Temple of Zeus, Olympia. As shown in Figure 8, the reconstructed 3D model and the floor plan of the Temple of Zeus, Olympia, the reconstruction in the game in Figure 2 is similar to the one in Figure 9. The Temple of Zeus illustrated in Figure 2 have more colors and fuller decorations than the one in Figure 8; the one in Figure 2 also has a raised platform with stairs at the base of the temple, which does not exist in real life (See Figure 8). I speculate the addition of the raised platform is due to the core movement mechanics of the game involves extensive parkour maneuvers. Having a raised platform and stairs give the players more opportunities to climb, jump and parkour through the terrains, so the gameplay is more entertaining.
Homer’s Odyssey and Assassin’s Creed: Odyssey create worlds in vastly different ways. Through Homer’s words, he creates fantastical worlds of the living, the world of the dead, and the world of mythical beings. The detailed description of scenes in the Odyssey creates an immersive environment for the readers to dive in – the description of Hell in Book 11 is an example. Homer also laid the foundation of the story very well in Book 1, giving the audience a premise to follow the story by speaking with the Muses. In Assassin’s Creed: Odyssey, world- building is more visual than verbal, like Homer’s Odyssey. The creation of the world greatly relies on the developers’ 3D modeling and the artistic skills to construct landscapes and buildings in the game. The realistic art style in the game makes the game immersive for players to walk through. The landscape in the game is rendered so beautifully that it almost resembles the real- life landscapes. Furthermore, the reconstruction of ruins in the game also contributed to the immersion. There are landmarks in the game that existed in real life. The developers reconstructed the sites to what it could look like in the past, giving the players the allusion that they are roaming in ancient Greece. Whether it is creating fictional worlds from words or building a digital world with realistic artwork and reconstructions of historical sites, both Homer’s Odyssey and Assassin’s Creed: Odyssey achieved realism in their world-building. The world-building aspect in both works contributes to the immersion of the audience or the players.
Conclusion
Despite the differences in the media, Homer’s Odyssey and Assassin’s Creed: Odyssey share many similarities. These similarities lie in their depiction of the relationship between gods and humans, the freedom of choices in characters, and the creation of environments. The relationship between gods and humans in Homer’s Odyssey is represented by Athena and Odysseus. Athena intervenes with Odysseus’s story from the beginning of the Odyssey. She convinces Zeus to help Odysseus to return home, directly influencing Odysseus’s journey. Similarly, gods play a significant role in Assassin’s Creed: Odyssey. The prominent position of the statue of Zeus on Kaphallonia Island assets Zeus’s dominant position in the game. However, in Homer’s Odyssey, Athena has real power over the fate and destiny of Odysseus’s. She can influence Odysseus’s course of the journey and directly talk to Odysseus and his son, Telemachus. This is a major difference between Homer’s Odyssey and Assassin’s Creed: Odyssey. In the game, there is no direct influence from the gods to the human players. The course of the journey is determined by the gameplay and by the player’s decisions. The interactions between the gods and humans are minimal, even though some sites and statues religiously represent gods. It is unclear the reason behind this game design decision because Athena plays a major role in the Odyssey; nevertheless, Assassin’s Creed: Odyssey’s developers choose to neglect her role in the game.
Compared to the character Kassandra in Assassin’s Creed: Odyssey, Odysseus Homer’s Odyssey seems to have less liberty over his choices. As a video game character, Kassandra’s actions are chosen by the player due to the nature of the medium – video game. In the Odyssey, even though Odysseus is narrating his own story, it appears Odysseus does not have much authority over his own choices. The evidence can be seen in the interactions between Odysseus and Athena, Hermes, and Kirke. In the examples provided in the passage, Odysseus does not have much constitution over what he does or where he goes. He relies on the help of Hermes on the island of Kirke. Without the influence of magic or potions, he also neglects his responsibilities as a king for one year. He only returns home when his men remind him of his duties and then he leaves the island with the help of Kirke. From these cases, I can fairly conclude that the choices presented to Odysseus are less than ones presented to Kassandra, in Assassin’s Creed: Odyssey. However, both characters have choices throughout the story, but they have few opportunities to make choices for themselves. Kassandra’s choices are made by the players, and Odysseus’s choices are mostly made by the gods. Therefore, they are both presented with an illusion of choice in their respective stories, regardless of their medium.
Lastly, both Homer’s Odyssey and Assassin’s Creed: Odyssey aim for realistic world- building for their stories. Through descriptive details of different worlds that Odysseus visits, Homer creates a realistic and fantastical world. Assassin’s Creed: Odyssey creates a realistic world through 3D modeling technology that recreates ruined historical sites and landscapes. Both works intend to immerse their audience into their world. Even though they achieved such immersion through different methods, the levels of realism are comparable. I believe both works can be and should be appreciated in various ways.
I have explored the world of both Homer’s Odyssey and Assassin’s Creed: Odyssey and learned to appreciate both works in different ways. Homer’s Odyssey narrates a journey home with vibrant characters, gods and humans, and realistic worlds. Assassin’s Creed: Odyssey creates an unforgettable experience by adapting Homer’s Odyssey into a story of their own. The exploration and discoveries in these three parts of the essay answer the initial questions proposed in the beginning. From this comparison, it is fair to say that Assassin’s Creed: Odyssey steered away from the Odyssey in terms of adaptation but the change of medium of the story helped my understanding of the Odyssey. As a modern adaptation of the Odyssey, Assassin’s Creed: Odyssey took the liberty to create its own story but remains true to the Odyssey in its world creation, the illusion of choice given to the main character, and the involvement of gods throughout the journey.
Endnote
Translation taken from Homer: The Odyssey, translated by E. V. Rieu. Citation: Rieu, E. V. 1991. Homer: The Odyssey. England: Penguin Books.
Video source: Mr. Hinde’s Classics Channel. 2019. “Temple of Zeus Olympia – Assassin’s Creed Odyssey [Ancient Greek Temples]”.link.
The references are taken from The Distaff Side. Citation: Cohen, B. 1995. The Distaff Side: Representing the Female in Homer’s Odyssey. New York: Oxford University Press.
From Assassin’s Creed: Odyssey official website: Ubisoft. 2018. “Assassin’s Creed: Odyssey Available Now on PS4, Xbox One, PC | Ubisoft US”. Ubisoft: https://assassinscreed.ubisoft.com/game/en-us/home.
References
Christesen, P. and Machado, D. 2010. “Video Games and Classical Antiquity”. The Classical World 104.1: 107-110.
Cohen, B. 1995. The Distaff Side: Representing the Female in Homer’s Odyssey. New York: Oxford University Press.
Cook, E. F. 1995. The Odyssey in Athens: Myths of Cultural Origins. Ithaca: Cornell University Press.
IGN.com. 2019. “Assassin’s Creed: Odyssey - Choices and Consequences”. IGN: link. Mr. Hinde’s Classics Channel. 2019. “Temple of Zeus Olympia – Assassin’s Creed Odyssey [Ancient Greek Temples]”. YouTube: link. Parks, N. 2008. “Video Games as Reconstructionist Sites of Learning in Art Education”. Studies in Art Education 49.3: 235-250. Patay-Horváth, A. 2013. “The virtual 3D reconstruction of the east pediment of the temple of Zeus at Olympia an old puzzle of classical archaeology in the light of recent technologies”. Digital Applications in Archaeology and Cultural Heritage 1: 12-22. Rieu, E. V. 1991. Homer: The Odyssey. England: Penguin Books. Ubisoft. 2018. “Assassin’s Creed: Odyssey Available Now on PS4, Xbox One, PC | Ubisoft US”. Ubisoft: link.
Photo References
Figure 1 “Lightning Zeus.” 2019. Assassin's Creed Wiki. Accessed December 13. link. Figure 2 “Sanctuary of Olympia.” 2019. Assassin's Creed Wiki. link. Figure 3 “Terracotta Calyx-Krater (Bowl for Mixing Wine and Water).” 2019. The Met. link. Figure 4 Billcliffe, James. 2019. “Assassin's Creed Odyssey - Torment of Hades: Ending, Choices and Puzzle Answers Guide.” VG247. June 13.link. Figure 5 “The Wolf of Sparta - Assassin's Creed Odyssey Wiki Guide.” 2019. IGN. link. Figure 6 Bodio, Tangi, and Pierre Fleau. 2019. “Athens - Assassin's Creed Odyssey.” JeryceDia. link.
Figure 7 Temple of Zeus. From Northeast. Photograph. Olympia, Greece. Bryn Mawr College. Figure 8 Patay-Horváth, A. 2013. “The virtual 3D reconstruction of the east pediment of the temple of Zeus at Olympia an old puzzle of classical archaeology in the light of recent technologies”. Digital Applications in Archaeology and Cultural Heritage 1: 12-22.
Comments