In Assassin’s Creed Origins, players have the opportunity to enhance their exploration and combat experience through the management of mounts, such as horses and camels, which play an integral role in traversing the expansive landscapes of ancient Egypt. Here’s a detailed overview of how to control and upgrade mounts within the game.

Controlling Your Mount

Summoning Your Mount
To summon your mount at any moment, simply hold down the right direction on the D-pad (on consoles). This feature allows for seamless navigation across the vast in-game world, enabling quick travel to various locations.

Movement Options
– Direction and Speed: You control your mount’s direction and speed using the left analog stick. Players can choose from walk, trot, or gallop speeds.
– Sprinting: For a speed boost, press the appropriate sprint button—X on Xbox controllers or Square on PlayStation controllers. This allows for a faster traversal when needed, especially during urgent escapes or while racing towards objectives.

Camera Control
Adjusting your view while mounted is done with the right analog stick. This control helps players maintain situational awareness, particularly during combat or while navigating challenging terrain.

Mounted Combat
A distinct feature of Assassin’s Creed Origins is the ability to engage in combat while on your mount. Players can utilize their equipped weapons as they would on foot, allowing for a dynamic combat experience while riding. This feature enhances gameplay by blending traversal and combat seamlessly.

Upgrading and Managing Your Mount

Equipping Mounts
Players can acquire various mounts through gameplay, including quest rewards and purchases. These mounts vary significantly in attributes such as speed and aesthetic appeal. Managing your mounts is done via the gear section in the pause menu, where players can select which mount to equip based on the speed or visual preference.

Mount Speed and Attributes
Although there is no conventional upgrade system involving skill trees or equipment specifically for mounts, the overall performance of a mount can be considered “upgraded” when a faster or higher-quality mount is obtained. As players progress, they can replace existing mounts with better options that provide enhanced travel speeds, making it easier to navigate both the game’s expansive landscapes and its diverse environments.

Additional Travel Options
– Fast Travel: Beyond utilizing mounts, Assassin’s Creed Origins supports fast travel by allowing players to use synchronized viewpoint towers and boats for more rapid movement across large distances. Occasionally, players can also borrow wild mounts to facilitate quick escapes.

– No Mount Skill Progression: The game does not feature a skill progression system for mounts. Instead, enhancing travel speed is accomplished through the acquisition of superior mounts, reinforcing the idea that greater travel efficiency is contingent on selecting the right mount for the task at hand.

Summary
In Assassin’s Creed Origins, players effectively manage and control their mounts using the D-pad for summoning and the analog sticks for directional control and movement speeds, including combat capabilities while mounted. The notion of upgrading your travel speed is tied to acquiring faster, more capable mounts rather than enhancing current mounts through traditional RPG progression, allowing for a straightforward yet engaging travel and combat system within the ancient Egyptian setting.