Officially announced at E3 2017, new details of Assassin's Creed Origins pertaining to its "size" have surfaced.

Speaking to Game Informer, the game's director Ashraf Ismail said that while its difficult to compare different projects, he could confirm that Assassin's Creed Origins city is much bigger than 2013's pirate-themed entry Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag Havana, which is arguably the most popular (and for many, the best) entry since Assassins's Creed 2 and Brotherhood.

Ismail specifically said the following about the game's size:

"If I compare it to previous games in the past, I don't actually know the exact numbers [for Origins], but I would say that it's at least twice the size of Havana from Black Flag. At least."

Ismail continues saying that while Origins is apparently pretty large, size isn't really what is important: it's what is inside that counts (a concept a few recent games could learn from).

"Having said that, I don't think of the size of the city is what matters," he explained. "It's really the content, the experience that you have inside of it. It's how alive it is. So we filled these locations with quests, with making each city feel unique to itself, why was it important to Egypt."

Elsewhere in the same interview, Ismail confirms that Origin's map is essentially open right away; however, there's still an introductory sequence that needs completing first.

Further, Ismail also briefly touched upon modern-day parts of the game, which haven't been showcased yet, in favor of focusing rather on the game's selling point: it's ancient Egypt setting. Ismail says the he wants to keep the modern-day stuff mostly under wrap, that way players can be surprised by it.

"I would rather have people be more surprised by the experience," he said. "If [the marketing department] want[s] me to talk about it I'll be more than happy to talk about it."

Ismail continued, teasing that he thinks "people will be happy" with the storyline in Origins (not that he would say anything other than that).

Assassin’s Creed Origins is set to release for PS4, Xbox One, and PC on October 27th, 2017. If you want, you can check out our E3 2017 preview of the game and its rather pricey collector's edition.