Assassin's Creed Origins Gameplay: Hungry Hungry Hippos, Brutal Combat and a Murder Mystery

Having been on hiatus for a year, the Assassin's Creed series is back with Assassin's Creed Origins, and it's bringing along more than a few changes to the well-worn formula. Ubisoft Montreal is doubling down on the RPG aspects for this Ancient Egypt-set entry for starters, while the combat has been completely rebuilt, making it something more akin to The Witcher or Dark Souls in how it handles.

There's a gear system in there too, with outfits, individual pieces of weaponry and upgrades to discover and unlock, as well as materials and resources to harvest. Marry all of that to the largest Assassin's Creed map yet, as well as all of the trappings you'd normally expect from an AC game, and you have the makings of what could be the most ambitious and unfathomably deep entry in the franchise since it first began a decade ago.

Recently afforded the opportunity to play four hours across a small portion of Origins' map, we got a sense of the size and scope that the new Assassin's Creed is shooting for, with an ecosystem of (mostly vicious) animals, vast, gorgeous environments to explore and countless missions to pursue. Here's what we learned: hippos are complete and utter bastards. Check out our 4K gameplay video below to find out more.

Assassin's Creed Origins launches for Xbox One, PlayStation 4 and PC on 27th October 2017.