Assassin’s Creed Odyssey sharks guard underwater locations and give players a terrific fright when combat is started. Odyssey, which released in 2018, took the series to Ancient Greece and depicted a fictional history of the Peloponnesian War between Athens and Sparta, specifically during the early war around 431 to 422 BC. In the game, choose one of two selectable protagonists, Alexios or Kassandra, and play as a mercenary with an eagle sidekick, Ikaros. Odyssey allows for extensive exploration of the ancient Aegean Sea and brings back naval mechanics previously used in the earlier games, and Assassin’s Creed Origins, though ship-to-ship combat was cut from Valhalla, the most recent game.
Greece is an archipelago, so it is necessary to travel between locations by boat, and some locations even appear underwater. These submerged sites include shipwrecks and sunken temples and often contain gold (or drachma in Odyssey), loot, and specific quest items. Players must beware, however, as these locations are often guarded by Assassin’s Creed Odyssey‘s sharks who will attack the player on sight.
While these huge predators are not legendary animals that the player must fight like the Kalydonian Boar, these terrifying sharks will hover around the location swimming peacefully until they catch vision of a player. The game will give a loud audio queue of a sword unsheathing, the camera will shake, and all of a sudden there will be a jumpscare shark attack. The camera angle makes this an even scarier experience, as the restricted view means that only a small area of the vicinity can be monitored at a time. This means that Assassin’s Creed Odyssey‘s sharks can come bombarding from seemingly nowhere in a sneak attack to feast upon unsuspecting players. To make this worse, underwater combat is slow and clunky, as player models tend to flail and take a lot of time to reset in between attack moves.
Assassin’s Creed Odyssey Shark Jumpscares Can Be Avoided
Though it is definitely not one of the hardest battles in Assassins Creed Odyssey, the first possible shark incident occurs in the side quest “Shark the Vagrant” on Kephallonia island. Players must find a sunken temple near the Islet of Zeus, and explore the temple to retrieve a necklace for the vegetable merchants. Here, players can avoid direct shark contact by waiting atop columns that stick out of the water and snipe the predators with a bow and arrow for a quick kill. Alternatively, players can jump straight in and fight Assassin’s Creed Odyssey‘s sharks head-on with melee weapons, though this takes a little bit longer and puts the player in danger’s way.
Despite the sharks, this gameplay aspect of exploring sunken temples adds an interesting element to the game. Parts of the Greek landscape are already in ruins by the time Assassin’s Creed Odyssey takes place as Aegean civilizations span back into prehistory, so players can see Ancient Greece through a different lens. Swimming amongst these ruins is an otherwise peaceful experience, as long as the player remembers to monitor their breath levels.
