In previous Assassin’s Creed games, skill and the right equipment was all you needed to take down nearly any enemy you encountered from the very beginning. Assassin’s Creed Origins changes things up with an RPG-style leveling system, and if you aren’t within a couple of levels of your opponents, you will find yourself dead on the floor in no time. But fear not! If you focus on the right activities, you can keep Bayek on pace to the proper level in very little time, and you will be ready to conquer all that Origins has to offer. Here are the things you need to know when leveling up.
Do side missions
If there is anything you should take away from this guide, it’s this: Do every side mission you can. As you explore Assassin’s Creed Origins’ massive Egyptian setting, you will come across many, many optional missions, which send Bayek out to help out townspeople, kill key enemies, or even hunt wild animals. Not all of the side activities available in a region will be suitable for your current level, but seek out every one with a suggested level within two of your own. As you do them, your level will go up, and some of the previously impossible side missions will be ready to complete. Make sure you return to previously explored locations after you have leveled up, as well, as many of them will have missions that were far too difficult for you the first time you reached the area.
In general, we recommend venturing to the area where your next main quest takes place and completing as many side missions as you can before actually taking on the next bit of story content. If you do this consistently, you will rarely find yourself unprepared for the level recommendation of an upcoming main mission. This is particularly important once you find yourself tasked with taking out the second batch of key characters (following the “Snake” mission) as a few of them will be five or 10 levels too high for Bayek.
Don’t waste your time killing enemies
There are a lot of enemies roaming the roads and farms of Assassin’s Creed Origins. While it may be tempting to stop and assassinate as many as possible as you make your way to your next objective, this is generally a waste of time. The experience you earn for killing an enemy is minuscule, even after unlocking special perks to increase the rewards for specific types of kills. Plus, you can very rarely kill more than one enemy without alerting a whole mess of guards, and you wind up stuck for several minutes fighting a huge crowd or trying to escape.
Even the enemy camps you find — which contain officers who give additional experience — aren’t generally worth the time it takes to complete them. The reward for killing the officers and finding all the loot isn’t bad, but you earn more experience doing missions or exploring the open world.
Don’t forget the towers
As we mentioned in our beginner’s guide, just because you no longer need to climb towers in order to spot key areas and missions doesn’t mean they aren’t important. Towers will earn you about 200 experience points just for climbing them, and you often find them along the paths you were already taking.
In general, the towers are much shorter and less complex than those in other Assassin’s Creed games, so you maybe need a minute to reach the top. You don’t need to go out of your way in order to find a tower, but the little bonus bits of experience you get for synchronizing will add up, and can often get you to the next level without having to complete a full mission.
Complete papyrus puzzles
An easy, fun way to earn some extra experience points is to complete the papyrus puzzles you find scattered throughout towns and key structures. These are simple riddles lead Bayek from the point where he finds them to a relatively close location where he will find extra treasure — often a piece of powerful gear — as well as a nice chunk of change and experience points.
If you completed all the available side missions in an area and still feel like you could gain another level, make sure you haven’t skipped any of the puzzles. You can check on their completion status any time you’re in a town by pressing the left analog stick.
Invest in the right skills with each level
In addition to making sure you’re always ready for your next mission, it’s important to make sure you’re steadily putting points into Bayek’s skill tree. With every level earned, you gain one ability point that you can spend on three different types of skills: Warrior, Hunter, and Seer. Each branch features a fairly natural progression, but it’s important to keep in mind the skills you’re picking up, as well as what skills you’re working toward: Depending on how you choose to play, not all skills are created equal, so make sure you’re expanding your skill set in a way that works for you. On that note, we have some recommendations based on the skills we found to be most important.
Warrior
The Warrior tree is, unsurprisingly, focused on direct melee combat. Of the three available trees, this should be your first priority, as it’s impossible to make it through the majority of the game without engaging with enemies directly.
You should invest your very first skill point in “regeneration,” which gives you the ability to regain health while you’re still in combat. In addition to being essential in combat, it is a prerequisite for many of the other skills in the Warrior tree. Next, choose “charge heavy attack,” which gives you an extra-powerful version of your heavy attack after holding down the R2 or RT button. Against enemies with full-size shields, this is the only way to stagger them from the front.
Hunter
None of the abilities in the Hunter tree are as crucial as those in the Warrior tree, but there are a few you should acquire fairly early on. “Assassination loot” will save you the trouble of having to manually pick up enemies’ loot after assassinating them from stealth. “Assassination XP” gives you an experience bonus for every target you assassinate without being detected. Both of these cost two skill points, so you will have to gain four levels in order to unlock them.
Seer
Like the Hunter tree, the Seer skills are not absolutely necessary from the very beginning, but there are a few that will make your life a whole lot easier as you raise your level. Get “dawn and dusk” as early as possible: The skill, which lets you manually change the time from day to night and vice-versa, comes in handy in several side missions early on. We also recommend the “salesman” skill, which gives you more money for selling items As you loot bodies and find item chests, you get plenty of trinkets to sell to local merchants. Maximizing what you get from shops for that swag will help you upgrade your gear, so your weapons are as prepared as you are.
