According to the Steam statistics, we've played Assassin's Creed Odyssey for over 124 hours now, and we don't think we're even halfway through.  True, we're at Level 38 out of a possible 50, but judging by the numerous quests, we're nowhere near 79% complete.  

In the course of the game, you have to identify, hunt down, and assassinate 43 members of a deadly cult, from front-line field operatives to the ruling junta.  They're trying to overthrow the Athens city-state, but so far we're only managed to take out 15 of them. Now, it's possible that in the late stages of the game, we might be taking them out en masse, but at the rate we're going so far, we might be playing for another 250 hours before they're all dead.

On another quest, you have to slay eight mythological beasts, such as the Nemean Lion from the labors of Hercules.  They're each and every one formidable foes, and so far, we've only killed three of the eight (although we did take out the Nemean Lion this weekend).

And on yet another side-quest, there are 39 mercenaries out on patrol that are paid to pursue and kill you for a bounty after you've committed a "crime," such as killing a cult member or slaying a mythological beast.  They're also formidable foes, and the best advice is usually to just run away when they show up, but we've managed to fight back and defeat several of them so far, although at least 22 of them are still out there looking for us and more join their ranks every time we play.

But all of these aren't even the main storyline.  The game's not about serial elimination of cultists, beasts, and mercenaries.  Today, at around the 120-hour mark, there were a few major-character deaths - total surprises each - that suggest the central narrative still has a long, long way to go before resolving itself.  

All this is meant as praise for the game - one of the metrics that determines a game's "value" is hours played versus cost, and Odyssey is coming out very high in that category.   We've spent more hours in other games, but that was due to multiple play throughs - we don't recall spending this many hours on a single run as this game seems to have in store for us.  

In unrelated news, it rained most of the day today, and Eliot and I watched a fox for a good 30 minutes trying to find a place to keep dry in our backyard.  Last night (another non-sequitur), inspired by the Colin Stetson video that we posted last week, we watched the 2018 horror movie Hereditary. It was scary as hell but also completely original and gut-wrenchingly emotional - we recommend it if you want to get scared witless by a psychological horror film that will later leave you pondering the meanings of life.  Just good luck getting it out of your head when it's over.  And the Colin Stetson soundtrack is incredible - almost another character in the film.