Nolan’s TheOdyssey is out in theaters today, bringing to the big screen a depiction of Homer’s epic poem that we all probably read some of in high school, and that everyone suddenly has very strong and strange opinions about.
Depending on your level of scholasticism and how long it’s been since you read any part of The Odyssey, it’s possible this film serves as a reminder to you that this story is actually pretty cool. It’s got monsters and gods and romance and betrayal and death and violence and a cool dog and ultimately, a happy ending (for most). It’s an adventure tale! We play video games! We love those! So when you walk out of the theater, it’s possible you’ll be feeling a sort of breeziness in your chest. A yearning, one might say. A hunger for an Odyssey of your own.
Here’s a quick list of some games that might give you that lovely Odyssey feeling post-film. Or just generally, if you want that sort of thing anyway and don’t have time to read a whole-ass epic:
Assassin’s Creed Odyssey
Let’s just get this one out of the way, shall we? You knew it’d be on this list. It’s the absolute best-known and beloved video game that takes place roughly in the ballpark of The Odyssey‘s place and time. Technically, it’s set several hundred years after The Odyssey was written, and several hundred more after The Odyssey was meant to take place. But it’s still Greece, with the same gods, a lot of the same culture and traditions, and plenty of references to the events in and around The Odyssey. And critically, the story is about a protagonist on an journey (often over ocean) to find their family, which certainly has some thematic resonance with The Odyssey‘s core as well.
Hades
Okay, here’s the other obvious one you knew would be on here. If you’re into all the shenanigans with Greek gods like Poseidon and Athena from The Odyssey, you probably have already picked up Hades, and if not, what are you doing? Get on that! Not only is it a sick roguelike hack-and-slash, but it’s got a fantastic story featuring all the hotties from Greek mythology, and if you play the sequel, Hades 2, Odysseus himself is even in it! He’s, uh, been through it by the time you meet him, but he’ll allude to a lot of the events of The Odyssey (obviously, it’s his own dang history) as well as tell a hell of a story about what’s happened to him since.
A bunch of God of War games
The entire original trilogy of God of War for PS2 and PS3, along with several spinoffs, are set in ancient Greece, and given Kratos’ penchant for violence, he doesn’t seem that far off from Odysseus’ whole deal. Odysseus himself is a playable character in God of War: Ascension‘s multiplayer mode. You’ll run across various Greek gods familiar to readers of The Odyssey, as well as various mythical monsters that might be familiar like sirens and cyclopes. Granted, you’ll need older systems and copies of the games to actually do any of this, so you might be better off checking out the most recent God of War release, Sons of Sparta. Unusual for the series, it’s a sidescrolling Metroidvania that serves as a prequel to the whole rest of the series, set in ancient Greece, and starring a younger Kratos. The infamous Circe is in this one! She upgrades your gear and does not turn you into a pig.
Total War Saga: Troy
There are actually quite a few historical strategy games that might be the right vibe to pick up after The Odyssey, but Total War Saga: Troy is among the best. It’s literally set during the Trojan War—you know, the one Odysseus was sailing home from—and includes Odysseus as a faction leader alongside a lot of other folks who either appear or are mentioned in The Iliad and The Odyssey: Ajax, Achilles, Agamemnon, Menelaus, Hector, Paris, and a load of others. The main downside is that Total War is focused on, well, war, so rather than getting up to things like adventuring and monster slaying, you’re going to watch the Greeks and the Trojans tear each other up in battle.
Immortals: Fenyx Rising
Bet you forgot all about this one, huh? Immortals: Fenyx Rising really came and went there back in 2020, but it’s genuinely a lovely game. It follows a young Greek, Fenyx, who is shipwrecked on an island where a bunch of the Greek gods have been mysteriously turned to stone. Fenyx works to rescue them, and along the way fights the spirits of famous Greek figures including Achilles, Heracles and, yup, Odysseus. Immortals is like Hades in that it’s largely focused on the gods and mythology of it all, but it’s also a really cool, vibe-y exploration game where you’ll be mucking about in ruins with cool pillars and arches and such, and also will definitely fight a cyclops.
The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker
I know it doesn’t really have anything to do with Odysseus or Greece, but I wanted to include The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker purely for the sailing. Odysseus’ journey is largely over a wide, treacherous sea, and I don’t think any game does it better than Wind Waker. There are so many Scylla and Charybdis moments in this game it’s unreal, and like Odysseus, Link will be getting blown about between different islands a lot. It just feels right!
The Forgotten City
Originally a Skyrim mod, The Forgotten City is an excellent mystery game that actually takes place in a much later era than The Odyssey, and in a Roman city, not a Greek one, though there are some ancient Greek elements that crop up throughout the story. But while the actual setting doesn’t quite line up, the exploration of the relationship between humans and the gods, and what that means for morality, is critical to The Forgotten City in similar ways to how it crops up in The Odyssey. This is a good one to play if you were into the human and human-god relationships in The Odyssey, or are interested in its overall moral philosophy (or just think Odysseus kind of deserved what he got).
Kingdom Hearts, for some reason
Before I wrote this list, I Googled “video games set in ancient Greece” just to make sure I didn’t miss any obvious ones. There is, funnily enough, a Wikipedia category dedicated to precisely this, and along with a bunch of the usual suspects, there are….most of the Kingdom Hearts games? Seemingly because they all contain a level themed after the Disney film Hercules, which is set in a fictionalized ancient Greece? Anyway, I just thought that was funny and figured I’d put it on the list. Though maybe Kingdom Hearts actually would be a good game post-The Odyssey, or at least the first one might be. It’s a game about a guy and his buds sailing around on a ship, just trying to get back home to their friends and family, right?
When my editor pitched me on doing this list, Rime was the first game that came to mind, and ended up being the reason I accepted the assignment. I love Rime. It’s a 2017 puzzle game by Tequila Works in which you play as a boy washed up on an island, who seems to be trying to find his lost father. It’s a beautiful story, told without words, and the game’s repeated imagery of ocean, abandoned island, and ruin, alongside its story of the love between a father and son, are very The Odyssey, even if there are no explicit references to Greece or the epic poem. Rime is a game about grief, of which The Odyssey has loads, and I think this is a really good one for those who found that the emotional moments in the film or poem were what resonated with them the most. And it just does a great job of capturing that sense of adventure and mystery, of being stranded in a place that you know nothing about, but that seems to be magical and scary and beautiful all at once.
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