Assassins Creed Odyssey

There is something very off about the pacing near the end of this story arc. During Alexios's conversation with Kassandra while she is in Athenian prison, I managed to convince him that they were both abandoned (the second time I did the cutscene ) and he seemed to thaw a bit towards her, at least.

Then, a few short missions later, I'm sailing across the stinkin map to talk to Brasidas and join him in another battle, where he dies with little fanfare or reaction from Kassandra, and where Alexios shows no sign of remembering their earlier conversation, no hesitation over what he is doing, no acknowledgement of any kind. And then Kleon shoots him in the back, which Kassandra also doesn't react much to.

Kassandra kills Kleon, and he goes down easier than any mercenary I've had the displeasure of meeting. The next quest pops up saying that Kassandra needs to go back to where it all began, and I think, this must be where the game ramps up to its climax, where Kassandra realizes what must be done to save her family and end the cult, and begins to execute her plan. It felt a lot like going to Cerberus HQ in ME3, or the Arbor Wilds in DAI. You just know shit's about to go down.

I wasn't at all surprised to see Alexios on that cliff, but I was kind of shocked speechless that all it took to turn him from murderous rage to "group hug" was Kassandra apologizing for not saving him when she was 9, and showing him the spear.

After everything they went through, all the cult's brainwashing, that was it.

I realize Kassandra's earlier actions influenced the ending as well, but since Alexios doesn't seem to acknowledge any of that at the beginning of the cutscene nor in the scene before, it just didn't work for me. At all.

Then, I was sure that while the family arc ended strangely, surely now we were still ramping up to the actual end of the game. Kassandra and Alexios were now going to work together to hunt down the leader of the cult and bring them to an end.

But nope! Cheesy family dinner that felt totally out of place at that point in the game, some mostly-friendly rivalry between Alexios and Stentor, and a pop-up about NG+

WTF?

I still need to hunt down the remaining cultists, plus find (defeat? kill?) three more mythical beasts for Real Dad, but I just...I don't even know. Did anyone else feel this way? Am I missing something here?