The Odyssey is probably going to end up as the biggest film of 2026 by the end of its theatrical run. And, while I’m not a fan of it whatsoever, its reach and dominance in pop culture is already firmly set.
In fact, it’s reaching so far as to turn Homer’s original works into something of a hot topic, with people either jumping into various translations of them or opting for derivative works set in Ancient Greece—like the aptly named Assassin’s Creed: Odyssey.
As reported by Rhys Elliott, Alinea Analytics’ chief of market analysis, Christopher Nolan’s epic adaptation boosted AC: Odyssey to levels not seen in years, allowing it to reach 233,000 daily active users within 10 days. On the day of the premiere, Assassin’s Creed: Odyssey sat at around 122,000 daily active users across all platforms, meaning Nolan’s film almost doubled its player count.
Nolan's The Odyssey has given Assassin's Creed Odyseey its most engagement in years (@alineaanalytics)
— Rhys Elliott (@superhys) July 29, 2026
The Odyssey hit cinemas on 17 July, and the cultural spillover into games was pretty immediate. Players naturally connected the film’s classical Greek setting to Ubisoft’s 2018… https://t.co/hHXLkWI472 pic.twitter.com/RUJBPFU7L4
Elliott broke down the numbers by platform, showing that on Steam alone there was a 26 percent increase in interest, while PlayStation almost doubled and Xbox “exploded” with 134 percent more players than prior to the film’s release.
While a lot of people didn’t purchase the game, considering its availability on Xbox Game Pass and PS Plus, many were very eager to hop back into it or give it a first try via these subscriptions. Ubisoft, as Elliott explains, also played into the hype through calculated social media posts that drove players back into its imagining of the Ancient Mediterranean world.
Odyssey is often praised as the best of Assassin’s Creed‘s RPG era, not least because Ubisoft’s worldbuilding and environmental design tend to bring historical locations to life like nothing else, easily making this AC title the definitive way to explore classical antiquity.
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