Assassin's Creed Origins' combat has been redesigned from scratch for the first time in the series' history

Assassin Creed's combat has been a very familiar dance since the series launched. Now, Assassin's Creed Origins is changing fighting for the first time. 

In our in-depth interview with Assassin's Creed director Ashraf Ismail he explains that the old game's twinned animations have been replaced with a new hitbox system. 

The game previously used paired animation to bring the hero and enemies' swords together, something Ismail says was used repeatedly as subsequent installments used "the same foundation." For Origins he decided to ditch everything the series had done before in order to use more Dark Souls-like hitboxes, and replacing paired animation with more realistic collision detection. "When you swing your weapon, wherever you are, it’s going to swing. If you hit something, they take damage. If you hit nothing, well... you probably just opened yourself up, so you have to be careful," he explains. 

You can get more info on the new combat and everything else Ashraf Ismail told us about Assassin's Creed Origins in this big interview

Leon Hurley
Managing editor for guides

I'm GamesRadar's Managing Editor for guides, which means I run GamesRadar's guides and tips content. I also write reviews, previews and features, largely about horror, action adventure, FPS and open world games. I previously worked on Kotaku, and the Official PlayStation Magazine and website.