Assassin’s Creed Odyssey – How to Recruit Ship Lieutenants

In Assassin’s Creed Odyssey, players can recruit and hire new lieutenants to gain bonuses for their ship and crew. Hiring the best and most capable lieutenants takes time, but it is well worth the effort if you plan to spend most of your journey out at sea. This guide will go over what you need to know to find, recruit, and hire new ship lieutenants in Assassin’s Creed Odyssey.

How to Recruit NPCs

Once you gain access to your very own ship, you will be able to hire new lieutenants to lead your ship crew. There are two ways to recruit potential lieutenants in Assassin’s Creed Odyssey. The first is by completing missions for various NPCs that you meet along your journey. Upon completing their quest, certain NPCs will agree to join your ship, where they can be hired as a lieutenant.

The other more cumbersome method for obtaining new ship crew members is by recruiting hostile NPCs that you encounter during combat. This involves knocking out an NPC without performing a lethal blow. If you kill the NPC, then they obviously can’t be recruited. Instead, you’ll need to sneak up on them to knock them out using the left analog stick (L3). While they are knocked down with a small bit of health left, you can approach their body and press L3 again to recruit them to join your crew. 

If you’re looking for a long-range approach, then you’ll need to use Paralyzing Arrows to knock out enemies from a distance. These non-lethal arrows will temporarily tranquilize your target, allowing them to be recruited. To obtain Paralyzing Arrows, you must unlock the Arrow Master skill within the Hunter skill tree. After unlocking the skill, you can then craft the arrows from your inventory.

Scan with Ikaros

Ikaros can help you identify the best and strongest NPCs to join your crew. Before encountering a group of hostiles, fly over with Ikaros and zoom in to look at each of the NPCs that you are hoping to recruit. Zooming in with Ikaros will reveal the skillset of the NPC so that you know whether the person is a rower, archer, etc. This way, you can efficiently target and recruit specific NPCs to join your crew without trying to recruit every NPC you encounter.

Usually, strong enemies make for strong lieutenants in Assassin’s Creed Odyssey. However, stronger enemies can also be harder to recruit, as a stealth takedown won’t necessarily be enough to knock them out in one go. Stick with the Paralyzing Arrows to knock down stronger, more resilient targets.

How to Hire a Lieutenant

Once you have recruited several NPCs, you must hire the ones you want as your ship lieutenants. To hire a lieutenant, open your inventory menu and navigate to the Ship tab. Under the Special Lieutenants section, you can view the NPCs that you have recruited, as well as the bonuses they provide for your ship. Select the NPC you want to promote and press the Hire button to assign them as a lieutenant. 

It’s important to note that you will start out with only one slot to hire a lieutenant for your ship. To unlock more lieutenant slots, you will need to upgrade your ship’s Hull, which is shown on the squares on the left side of the Ship tab. 

Lieutenants can come in several different rarities: Common, Rare, Epic, and Legendary. The higher the rarity, the better their bonus attributes usually are, and the stronger your ship and crew will become. Ideally, you should try to hire Epic or Legendary lieutenants whenever possible. 

Now that you know how to recruit and hire new lieutenants for your ship, you should be well on your way to becoming a formidable naval captain in Assassin’s Creed Odyssey. For more gameplay tips, visit our Assassin’s Creed Odyssey Guide.