Egypt's fascinating history, mythology, and architecture have been inspiring artists for generations, and video game developers are no exception. There have been many great games based on this particular setting.
In this article, Gurugamer is going to showcase the top 5 best games based on Ancient Egypt.
1. Assassin's Creed Origins
You follow Bayek of Siwa, an Egyptian badass and the last Medjay of Egypt. He is on the quest to avenge the death (I know) of his young son at the hands of “masked ones” – an order of proto templars who you chase around all through Egypt. Along the way, you will meet characters such as the brotherly Phanos, the cowardly Ptolemy, the seductress Cleopatra, and the conniving Julius Ceasar. The story is weaved in long and drawn-out quests whose payoff makes it almost worth it.
The vast expanse of Egypt is breathtaking. From the populated cities to depilated caves, from the mysterious pyramids to the historic Alexandria, every inch of recreated Egypt oozes care and detail. It’s further complemented by the game's excellent lighting system, where you can feel the dizzying warmth of the sun as you run or cart over the land of this new playground. The water physics was the best of 2017 and 18, and even 20.
Combat has been completely overhauled in this game. The counter-kill maneuvers of the previous titles have been replaced by a hitbox mechanic. The combat is complemented by different classes of weapons including Staves, spears, regular swords, khopesh, dual daggers, maces, and heavy swords. Each weapon has a unique weight behind it and provides a different way of playstyle.
2. Predynastic Egypt
The historical aspect of the game is marvelously made, and it's its best selling point: if you like history and especially Egyptian history, you will enjoy the game and the various information contained in it.
Regarding the game itself, it's a different story: Predynastic Egypt is a turn-based strategy game more similar to a board game like Risk/Risiko than a proper video game like Civilization: you merely move your workers on the map, deciding which type of resources they have to work, and that's it. Sure, it lacks the depth of other strategic games, but it's still a very nice, unpretentious game.
It's not for everyone, though: Predynastic Egypt can be very difficult (the tutorial is extremely short and doesn't fully prepare for what lies ahead) and unforgiving; on the higher difficulties, that means that you'll have to follow some precise strategies to ensure victory, severely limiting your game freedom.
3. Strange Brigade
Strange Brigade (SB) is a single-player and co-op third-person shooter set in the 1930s. The discovery of Seteki's Tomb (ancient Goddess of the dead) by a British expedition threatens the entire world because of a curse. The Brigade, composed of the world's finest adventurers, is called in to put an end to this threat - while recovering other powerful artifacts that may fall into the wrong hands. Not only brawn but as well brains will be essential to success.
While primarily a shooter, SB has a strong emphasis on secret hunting and puzzle-solving. Each stage has multiple primary and secondary enigmas to solve, mostly as combination doors of different types. On top of that, collectible Cats and Jars give additional rewards if all are found across a location. Adventurers will ideally spend an equal amount of time between fighting undead hordes and solving puzzles / finding secrets - this gives gameplay frequent pacing variations that prevent it from being too much one-sided.
Each of the four available adventurers has different passive and active skills, that suit them best for close or long-range combat - other than different applications. For instance, only one of them is able to open Glyph Doors found in levels. All the brigade members have the same guns, but also four unique active abilities each - unlocked with skill points gained by finding a certain number of Relics (secrets) in levels. These active skills are often very useful or powerful especially if combined with accessories or other members' own skills. There is a decent variety of weapons and character skills to try.
4. FOREWARNED
This is EASILY one of the best games I have played. Imagine crossing Phasmophobia with a Tomb Raider game. I only have 12 hours in Forewarned, because my friends can't play often due to the immersive horrors/scares (which is *good*). I don't even have a VR headset and the sound of Necreph's chains already scares the absolute hell out of me (something literally no other game, movie, or book has ever managed to do).
The development team has done an absolutely incredible job of updating the game with new features. Although it may be possible that this game's framework is the cause, many of these updates feel like something that could not have been trivial to implement - yet they are done so roughly once a month and completely blow other studios' roadmaps out of the water.
The communication of upcoming changes is spot-on, and there is clearly an open ear given to the community. Development is perfectly balanced between adding new content and improving existing content, both graphically as well as technology based on customer feedback.
5. Nancy Drew: Tomb of the Lost Queen
This series really shines when it immerses you in a specific culture and educates you about it, using that knowledge to solve culturally-themed puzzles. I loved the puzzles in this one, and as a huge fan of Ancient Egypt, this one was incredibly interesting - having to learn hieroglyphics was great fun, using that to decode messages and names was great, and I'd replay this again just to do that. I love the language puzzles in these games, I wish more games did that, reminds me of Heaven's Gate where you need to decode an entire language based on patterns, etc.
If there's one criticism I had several times in the game, especially in the first half, was the story - there were many times when I was taken aback that Nancy wouldn't mention critical things to people, even if they were life-threatening, or there was a huge logical gap in dialogue where questions or subjects that really should have been mentioned just were completely ignored. That said, when it does work, it's nice and juicy and you can immerse yourself in puzzling out what's going on and going through the suspects.
One part of the story and atmosphere did shine, however, where I got such an intense sense of mounting danger, with no one around but the current revelations so threatening that I was convinced that Nancy was about to die. She suddenly felt so incredibly isolated, in the middle of nowhere, in an already dangerous place, surrounded by people she couldn't trust. Nothing immediately happened but the feeling was intense. I was very impressed, I don't remember the last time I felt something like this.
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