Assassin's Creed Odyssey

The Myth Behind the Story Itself

The game's mythology isn't limited to its monsters. The main plot is built on a mythic family structure. The player's character, Kassandra or Alexios, is a grandchild of the Spartan king Leonidas through their mother Myrrine. They carry his broken spear, which turns out to be a Piece of Eden, an artifact of the Isu, the advanced civilisation the series invents. The sibling who becomes the masked champion of the Cult of Kosmos is called Deimos, after the god of terror who rode with Ares (see Phobos and Deimos). The name Kassandra deliberately recalls the Trojan prophetess Cassandra. The opening scene, where a baby is thrown from Mount Taygetos, draws on Plutarch's account of Spartan elders exposing weak infants at a place called the Apothetae near that mountain.

The game also uses the Greek habit of tracing powerful families back to gods and heroes. Its legendary bloodline plays the role that descent from Heracles played for the real Spartan kings. Both royal houses of Sparta, the Agiads and the Eurypontids, claimed Heracles as their ancestor.

Legendary Beasts, Heroes and the Fate of Atlantis

Beyond the boss fights, the side content borrows heavily from myth. The Daughters of Artemis questline sends players after "legendary animals" named for famous mythic beasts, including the Nemean Lion, the Erymanthian Boar, the Cretan Bull and the Calydonian Boar. These are the animals of Heracles' labours and of the hunt in which Atalanta drew first blood. In myth these were unique creatures killed in the heroic age, centuries before the Peloponnesian War, so finding them alive in 431 BC is the game's own invention.

The Fate of Atlantis expansion (2019) goes furthest into myth, across three episodes. In Fields of Elysium Persephone rules a paradise version of Elysium with Hermes as an ally. In Torment of Hades the player serves Hades in the Underworld and has to deal with Cerberus. In Judgment of Atlantis Poseidon governs Atlantis. Here the gods are revealed as Isu figures in a simulation. The Persephone who dominates Elysium differs sharply from the ancient Persephone, the reluctant but respected queen of the dead whose abduction explains the seasons. Atlantis itself is not a Greek myth in the usual sense. It comes from Plato's Timaeus and Critias, written about a generation after the war ends in the game, and it was a philosophical parable, not a story that circulated in cult or poetry.

History Versus Myth in the Game's Fifth Century

The real fifth century BC was a time when educated Greeks were starting to question myth. Herodotus, who appears in the game as a companion, collects legends but often reports competing versions and says which he finds believable. Thucydides, the war's real historian, explicitly avoids "the mythical" in favour of evidence. Socrates, whom the player meets in philosophical side quests, was executed in 399 BC partly on a charge of not recognising the city's gods. That world existed alongside ordinary worship that took the gods very seriously. The game captures that with its shrines, oracles and festivals, though not with real monsters.

Several historical episodes are recreated quite closely. The plague of Athens (430 BC) and the death of Pericles in 429 BC both appear, though the game changes how he dies. Historically he died of the plague. So does the Battle of Amphipolis (422 BC), in which both the Athenian Cleon and the Spartan Brasidas were killed. Real figures include Aspasia, Alcibiades, Phidias, Hippocrates and Aristophanes. For other games that use Greek myth, see Greek Mythology in Video Games and the Hades game guide.

Ubisoft also released a combat-free Discovery Tour: Ancient Greece mode in 2019. It turns the map into guided tours on daily life, religion, philosophy and cities, curated with the help of historians, and many teachers use it in class.

Further reading

• Thucydides, History of the Peloponnesian War: the eyewitness account of the war in which the game is set, including the plague, Pylos and Amphipolis.
• Herodotus, Histories: the Persian Wars background, including Leonidas and Thermopylae, from the historian who appears as a character in the game.
• Plutarch, Lives of Pericles and Alcibiades: ancient biographies of two of the game's most prominent historical figures.
• Donald Kagan, The Peloponnesian War (2003): a readable single-volume modern history of the whole conflict.
• Plato, Timaeus and Critias: the only ancient sources for the Atlantis story that the Fate of Atlantis expansion builds on.

Frequently asked questions

Is Assassin's Creed Odyssey historically accurate?

Its cities, landscapes and many events and people are based on real evidence, and it starts in the real year 431 BC. The mythical beasts, the Isu storyline and the main character's family are fiction.

Are the gods real in Assassin's Creed Odyssey?

Not in the traditional sense. In the Fate of Atlantis expansion Hades, Persephone and Poseidon appear as Isu beings in a simulated Elysium, Underworld and Atlantis, not as Olympian gods.

Which mythological monsters can you fight?

The main mythical bosses are Medusa, the Minotaur, the Sphinx and a Cyclops, along with Cerberus in Fate of Atlantis. Legendary animals such as the Nemean Lion and the Calydonian Boar appear in side quests.

Was Kassandra a real person?

No. Kassandra and Alexios are invented, but their grandfather Leonidas was the real Spartan king who died at Thermopylae in 480 BC.