Assassin's Creed Odyssey Will Edit Most Recent DLC Following Controversy

Assassin's Creed Odyssey
(Image credit: Ubisoft)

Ubisoft's latest DLC for Assassin's Creed: Odyssey was called “Shadow Heritage” and it managed to court quite the controversy due to a story development that takes place with the two main characters, Kassandra and Alexios. Well, after the storm mellowed following an apology from the director of the game, Ubisoft decided to address the controversy and make some edits.

After releasing the DLC and courting a lot of negative feedback, Ubisoft decided to address those concerns over on the Ubisoft forums, where a community manager apologized for upsetting fans and said that some changes would be made to the DLC to address those concerns. Specifically, Ubisoft will be altering a cutscene and changing some of the dialogue in the Shadow Heritage DLC. According to the community manager this will be done to reflect some of the choices players make in relation to the non-romantic storyline.

Additionally, the developers will also be altering the trophy and achievement for completing the cinematic (although it seems kind of pointless to have a trophy for something that doesn't require much active participation from the player), and it will be present with the other changes as part of the 1.2 update for the DLC.

The community manager doesn't give a time frame on when these changes will be rolling out, other than that it will be available in the “upcoming patch.” Does that mean it will happen before the next episode is released or as some sort of a hotfix? The post doesn't necessarily clarify that point.

What is clarified is that, for the next DLC episode, titled Bloodline, Assassin's Creed: Odyssey fans will have more consideration made from the developers for the choices and paths that were made throughout the base game. How much the DLC will actually cater to those choices isn't explicitly explained, but I'm sure we'll find out once the DLC becomes available.

This all started because of what happened at the end of the Shadow Heritage expansion. Spoilers Ahead if you haven't played the DLC or need a quick refresher of what got the controversy started. Basically, the DLC ended with Alexios or Kassandra hooking up with either the son or daughter of Darius, the first of the proto-Assassins (since the actual Brotherhood didn't begin until Assassin's Creed: Origins). Alexios or Kassandra (depending on who you're playing) ends up creating an offspring with the character they hook up with. You don't get a choice in whether or not they do get with the other character, and instead the story just plays out – regardless of your past romantic choices – with Kassandra starting a family with Darius' son, or Alexios starting a family with Darius' daughter.

The child they make is supposed to be the start of the lineage that eventually leads up to the original Assassin's Creed starring Altair and Desmond Miles. Ubisoft clumsily attempted to corral the storyline back into place so it makes sense for the lore's timeline, but in doing so they invalidated all of the past romantic choices made by the players throughout the base game.

So, a lot of players were angry about those choices being invalidated and questioned why Ubisoft would even implement such romantic choices if they were going to be forced into a relationship with a preset character in the DLC? It makes sense as a complaint, based on the fact that Ubisoft heavily promoted Assassin's Creed: Odyssey as a true RPG experience built around player choice, but the company definitely should have taken more care in recognizing that if the story was going to make sense in any capacity, there would have to be some sort of sensible continuity to make the genealogy make sense for the prequels to eventually link up with the original trilogy.

Hopefully, the edits that will be made can help fans accept this storyline a bit more.

Will Usher

Staff Writer at CinemaBlend.