Assassin's Creed Origins adding tourism mode

Assassin's Creed Origins [official site] has lavishly recreated (and reimagined) large chunks of Ancient Egypt so we can stab men to bits amidst beautiful scenery. But wait, if you simply wish to admire the world without getting into scraps or being nagged about objectives, that will be an option. Ubisoft today announced that they'll add a free-roaming 'Discovery Tour' mode to Origins after launch, letting players explore the whole world "free of combat, storyline or time constraints". It'll also include guided tours from historical experts. For this occasional video game tourist, it sounds splendid.

Discovery Tour will arrive in Origins through a free update expected to launch some time in early 2018. Today's announcement explained more about the tours:

"In addition to the 'free roaming experience', the The Discovery Tour by Assassin's Creed : Ancient Egypt will also offer guided tours that focus on different aspects of that time period (the Great Pyramids, the mummification, Cleopatra, Temples and priests, Daily life etc) and also a little about the science of Egyptology and how the team integrated this into the immersive world. Like in a museum, each tour will be composed of several stops (e.g.: the different states of the mummification process) that will bring information on each specific subject. Tours have been curated by specialists that helped us bring a more academic knowledge to the experience. It will be possible to explore Egypt with several different avatars, which will mostly be unlocked by the completion of tours."

This does sound great. Assassin's Creed games have such wonderful worlds but they can be difficult to enjoying explore when missions and guards keep interrupting.

I'll be so glad to get to pay appropriate attention to worlds that are crafted with such care. Ubisoft senior level artist Caroline Miousse dedicated two years to making the Notre-Dame for Assassin's Creed Unity. Two years on one building. Two years!

Assassin's Creed Origins is due on October 27th. Ubisoft are cutting it close if they intend to announce the traditional PC delay they do so like to give their open-world collectathons. Gosh, might they intend to launch this on time? That would be nice, as Adam's Assassins Creed Origins preview from E3 quite liked what he saw.