Assassin's Creed Odyssey's Exploration mode kills quest markers, and it's about damn time

The problem with a lot of open world games is that they feature increasingly enormous, beautiful settings ripe for exploration, then stick a big blinking icon on your map telling you exactly where to go next. You can ignore these, of course, but you won't. You'll wander blindly from quest marker to quest marker, obediently doing what the developer tells you, because that's how these games are designed. They don't want you to get lost. They probably fear it.

Assassin's Creed Odyssey, on the other hand, actively encourages getting lost in this vast, beautiful rendition of ancient Greece. When you start a new game you're presented with a selection of two modes: Guided and Exploration. The former is the standard open world system of picking up a quest and then being told exactly where it is on the map. The latter, however, is much more interesting—and the game even makes a point of saying that it's the best way to experience it. When you talk to someone