 Macadonia, one of the 40 or so regions in Assassin's Creed Odyssey, played a nominal part in the game's main story campaign, a rather large zone for the 30-45 minutes spent in a single conquest battle and several dramatic cutscenes. Strange, I thought, but I neededn't have worried. Not that I actually did, but for the sake of argument, Legacy of the First Blade uses one of Odyssey's largest territories to good effect, turning Macadonia into a condensed version of many of the main game's main mechanics. The character focus in this DLC is on Darius, the eponymous First Blade, called so because he's the very first person in history to use the Assassin's Hidden Blade. You know the one if you've so much as seen an Assassin's Creed trailer from the last 12 years, springs up very sharp used to stop people. Darius is an old Persian Assassin responsible for the murder of King Xerces. While past his prime, he and his son Natakis are struggling to survive and evade the order of the Ancients, the Persian's own version of the Cult of Cosmos. Now safely dismantled by Cassandra, at least in my first playthrough, Darius's skills are the equal of, or even surpass, those of Cassandra. While of two First Crossblades when they meet at Cassandra certainly seems to be willing, by the time Natakis puts an end to the fight, Darius is no joke. He also displays debatman-like ability to disappear in the middle of conversation, leaving his ill-humoured lucky Cassandra with all the heavy lifting. Darius is a cipher, though he reveals bits and pieces of his history throughout the first episode. There's always a hint of something left unspoken, an element of hidden knowledge. The revelations keep coming as the conflict between Darius, Cassie and Natakis on one side and the order of the Ancients on the other intensifies. It works because it's tried and tested and also because the leader of this branch of the Ancients, the Hunter, has a legitimately daunting presence, which is more than I can say about every single member of the Cult of Cosmos. Several games he plays with Cassandra lead to one of the more memorable scenes in the Hundred Hours I've spent playing this game, Cassandra staring at the tree from which victims of her blade are hanging. There are one and all, no-name soldiers, Athenians and Spartans alike. It's a moment of forced reflection which questions her humanity. The obvious coarseness of this scene only serves to make the conversation options a monster and I'm not a monster, deliver a somewhat strong gut punch. In many ways, Hunter was a condensation of what worked well in the main storyline of Odyssey. Family drama, the search and destroy so familiar from the time spent hunting the Cult of Cosmos, the requisite ship combat quest, a pair of boring treasure hunts and a lot of animal life slaughter, bears, wolves, eels, snotting on four lasers safe whether due to Cassie's desire to have a romantic dinner with the bland Natakis or because the Hunter is an animal lover. It doesn't matter either way. I thought it was okay, fine enough, fresh enough to continue playing while past the point I'd usually leave an open world game like this one. One thing left me feeling off. The animation, the voiceover, they all seemed like Ubisoft worked and hunted with some serious budget cuts. Anyway, I played on further and next up in the series I'll talk about Episode 2, Shadow Heritage and there is plenty to cover most of it though with certain controversy towards Shadow Heritage's end which has been discussed to no end since January of this year. Anyway, thank you guys for watching. Please like, share, subscribe, leave a comment down below what was your impression of Episode 1 of the Legacy of the First Blade hunted? Bye!