Assassin's Creed Odyssey: Cloud Version (Switch) - Second Look

by Danny Bivens

How is the cloud version holding up a few months later?

Having Assassin’s Creed Odyssey on the Switch has been awesome. I’ve already put around 80 hours into the game and have just been having an overall great time with the game. The gameplay is fast and fluid, the story is interesting and there is just a lot of content here. Of course, if you’ve already read/watched my video review of the game, you know all of this. It’s been right around two months since the game released so I figured now would be a great time to go over some of the finer details of this version of the game.

There is one important thing you need to know about Odyssey on Switch before you even think about throwing down a fistful of cash. The game is region locked to Japan. If you’re living outside of Japan, aside from MAYBE using a Japan based VPN, you won’t be able to play it. There’s no real solid information out there as to why this is, especially considering the other two cloud games on the system from cloud provider Ubitus, Phantasy Star Online 2 Cloud and Resident Evil 7, are accessible to players outside of Japan. My guess and the most likely answer probably has to do with the laggy experience most people had playing the game overseas. Perhaps as just a precautionary measure to keep people from complaining about performance (and the price) Ubitus/Ubisoft decided to region lock the game. Send your hate mail to Ubitus or Ubisoft for further complaints.

As we detailed in our “How To Buy” video on our YouTube channel, there are several things you need before you can play this cloud version. Unlike consoles or the PC version, you will need the 44 MB launcher in order to play the game. But, before you do that, there is one thing that you should keep in mind. Assassin’s Creed Odyssey: Cloud Version on the Switch isn’t yours to own. The game is being sold as a 730 day (two year) rental for the regular retail price of the game (which is ¥9,072, the same as on PS4, Xbox One and PC in Japan). After the two year period is up, you will no longer have access to the game. If you’re okay with all of this, you’ll be good to go. Additionally, save data is directly tied to the cloud, so players don’t have to worry about losing their progress. Also, updates are done on the server side, so that’s another thing that players don’t have to worry about.

While additional DLC is making its way to other platforms, that content is currently not available for purchase on the Switch version. According to Ubisoft’s FAQ for the Switch version of Odyssey, plans for downloadable content is currently undecided. Other things as well, such as the in-game store and the ability to use Orichalcum (you can use this now), are currently disabled in this version. Conversely, in an interview with Ubitus conducted by Famitsu (and translated by the good folks at Nintendo Everything), Ko Midoro, director of game development, went on to say, “We’ll [also] be handling the release of future downloadable content so that players will be able to enjoy the same experience as on other platforms, so please don’t worry about that.” So, yeah. I’m still trying to figure out what that all means. As of right now, all of the free updates that come to the game are there. It’s just the new story arcs (Legacy of the First Blade and The Fate of Atlantis) that aren’t available for purchase at this time. If that changes, I’ll be sure to add an update to this article.

In terms of performance, as long as you have a decent internet connection with low latency, you’ll be good to play this game off of the cloud. I did find that while playing over Wi-fi and cellular that the game can run a bit on the choppy side. When asked about performance in the  Famitsu interview, (Nintendo Everything), Midoro went on to say:

“No that (the performance) wasn’t a problem. We changed the user interface to better suit the Switch, but the game runs on the same basic spec and with the same data exchange as the PC version. On our side too we are working now on optimizing the networks to ensure users have a lag-free experience. The recommended network is 802.11ac 5GHz for Wi-Fi and if possible we would recommend using a LAN adaptor for a wired connection. But we’ve also conducted tests in-house with a 4G wireless connection, and as long as the network is strong there should be no problems playing that way.”

I’ve found most of what was said to be true. When trying to play on a 2GHz connection on my Wi-Fi, I ran into some significant issues with lag and stuttering. Trying the game on 5GHz yielding much better results. Playing on mobile was…well, it technically worked, but I don’t want to spend all of my time playing the game via the 4G connection in my area even though data speeds and latency aren’t bad. I’ve had the best results with a wired connection, where the game ran pretty flawlessly.

Assassin’s Creed Odyssey: Cloud Version continues to show that cloud based gaming has some serious potential. The way it’s being handled in Japan might not be ideal (like only “owning” the game for two years), but it’s a great testbed and just a cool game to have on the Switch.