Despite what you might have heard, Assassin's Creed Origins will have towers and viewpoints, they just won't offer quite the same sync function as previous games.
Speaking to Assassin's Creed Origins' creative director Ashraf Ismail, he clarified that viewpoints are back but "for the pure purpose that we felt it was a nice homage to the series." This time though they don't "unfog the map" like they used to, you have to now physically explore to do that. Instead they add question marks to highlight areas of interest you haven't found.
There's some functional aspect to viewpoints then, but it's more about paying homage to the series and laying a foundation for the future. In most previous Assassin's Creed games you can usually identify sync points by the eagle circling overhead. In Origins that's not the case because it hasn't happened yet - instead you're training and upgrading your own eagle, Senu, to scout and unlock the land, and setting up the mythology of the eagles protecting viewpoints that comes later. As Ismail point's out, "that's why it's an origin!"
You can find out more about the viewpoints, the new exploration system and loads more in our in-depth interview with Assassin's Creed Origin's Ashraf Ismail.
