They changed the overall game design in Assassin’s Creed Origins, but not out of goodness of their hearts. The game’s new direction was more compatible with microtransactions.
Was it? The primary thing they’re selling through MTX is player and weapon “skins”, which were already a thing in the past games (they didn’t sell them, IIRC, but realistically they could’ve). I guess the booster packs and stuff like that wouldn’t really work without the RPG leveling, although I question how profitable those really are.
This new RPG approach allows them to:
-
Adjust the “grindness” of the gameplay, requiring the player to kill a lot of enemies on sidequests to actually start being a threat to normal enemies. If the player rushes to the story missions without level grinding, enemies will feel like damage sponges.
-
Make the previously insta-kill hidden dagger ineffective if the level of the player character is too lower that the enemy level. They do this so the player don’t have lethal options if they bypass the grinding.
-
Introduce a loot-based economy, with crafting mechanics sprinkled on top. This is another aspect of grindness to make the player waste time before going to the main event (the story missions).
All previous points offer clear avenues for Ubisoft to sell MTX: XP boosts, premium loot though MTX, etc.