Assassin’s Creed Origins The Curse of the Pharaohs DLC Review

The second big expansion for Assassin’s Creed Origins, this one titled The Curse of the Pharaohs, has been released. But was it worth the wait?

As you start the game you receive the titular mission called The Curse of the Pharaohs and have to go to one of the guilds in Siwa, Memphis or Alexandria that can take you to a land cursed by the Pharaohs.

After receiving a letter from Amunet with rumors of a relic, Bayek sets off to find it. But as he steps off the ship in the new region of Thebes he finds a city under siege by a curse. Amunet mentions “four years have passed since we laid the last to rest” meaning this is set four years after the The Hidden Ones DLC. Then Amunet talks about capturing a messenger that gives her news on another artifact and says that Bayek should go and find it.

When Bayek walks off the ship he walks into a man called Sutekh welcoming him to Thebes. A mist descends and something appears, Sutekh then tells him it’s the Pharaoh's Curse before running away and Bayek goes to fight the Pharaoh’s Shadow.

Once you kill the Pharaoh’s Shadow a message comes up saying “Pharaoh’s Shadow Banished the curse was lifted”, and just as you think that's them gone, sadly they’re not. With the first mission underway you need to go and speak to Merti, but on the way you come across Sutekh again who is surprised to see Bayek survive the curse. He says he will be spoken about throughout Thebes, but Bayek throws a coin to bribe Sutekh to make sure no one speaks of him.

After starting the first mission you receive two more main missions: one to investigate the black market, and the other to go and investigate the origin of the curse. I ended up getting distracted running around clearing the question marks dotted all over the map and also clearing the huge map that is made up of six areas.

As in the main game you get the same objectives of looting treasure, clearing camps and synchronized spots. At one point I ended up losing count of how many missions and side quests I had collected and accidently completed on the way. Investigation missions are the same as before, though I did get lost on a few and wondered where the next spot to look at was. There is a lot more to do in this DLC than in The Hidden Ones.

There are the normal animals like lions, crocodiles and hyenas, and also GIANT Radscorpions. Yes like the ones in the Fallout series, and damn they can move fast. They’re also scary looking and spit venom at you.

Hidden across the map are four tombs, Tomb of Queen Nefertiti (found as part of a mission), Tomb of Akhenaten, Tomb of Ramesses the Great, and Tomb of Tutankhamun. These tombs transport you to The Afterlife, where you defeat the curse of the Pharaohs.

To upgrade yourself in The Curse of the Pharaohs, you need to kill the giant scorpions. They will give you shards of a star, which you need to collect for upgrades to your Breastplate (Health), Stabilizer Glove, Quiver, Hidden Blade, Tool pouch and Bracer. I found it was harder to get these unless you were high level.

Another change was that this time around instead of coming across Phylakes (bounty hunters), you now go after Anubis Shadows. They are basically the same as Phylakes, since they are hunters who are after Bayek.

I reviewed this on the PS4 and the graphics are as always nice and smooth, with no issues - not even with getting stuck in the wall or mountain like in The Hidden Ones DLC.

I really enjoyed The Curse of the Pharaohs, because it was a lot of fun to explore the brand new map. The team at Ubisoft really outdid themselves with how beautiful the Afterlife looked, and the new enemy types.