Developed by Ubisoft, Assassin’s Creed Valhalla is the newest chapter in the Assassin’s Creed series, following the seemingly endless conflict between the Assassin Brotherhood and the Templar Order throughout various eras of history.
This story takes place primarily in England in 873 AD, and follows a Viking named Eivor and the Raven Clan as they are attempting to make new lives for themselves while making alliances with various kingdoms in England. But their efforts soon draw both Eivor and the Clan into the secret war of the Assassins and Templars, which could determine the fate of England and its people.
It’s been a long time since I’ve played an Assassin’s Creed game, and I used to be such a huge fan of it until the games started to go down in quality. The games I played were: the first Assassin’s Creed, Assassin’s Creed 2, Assassin’s Creed Brotherhood, Assassin’s Creed Revelations, Assassin’s Creed 3, Assassin’s Creed Black Flag (my favorite of the time), Assassin’s Creed Rogue and Assassin’s Creed Unity. Unity was an absolute shit show at launch, and even after the game was mostly fixed for its horrendous issues, it did not save it from being the most pointless and awfully crafted game of the series. I mean hell, most of the voice actors don’t even have a French accent in a game that takes place in France.
I never bothered playing any game after Unity because of the experience, as well as the fact that the newest changes they were adding to future games didn’t really appeal to me. I did watch game movies of the ones I missed out on, and I will say that Syndicate and Origins have great stories, while Odyssey is just fuck all and shouldn’t even be labeled an Assassin’s Creed game.
This finally leads me to Valhalla, and after hearing so much positivity about it as well as some of the appealing things they had included in the game, it caught my interest in the series once again. I wasn’t able to get an Xbox series X but I did get the game for Xbox One, and took the plunge into perhaps one of the biggest and most ambitious Assassin’s Creed games in years. And in all honesty, this is perhaps the best Assassins Creed game that Ubisoft has made in a long time.
You do have a lot of dialogue options and choices that can affect how some characters look at you, or affect how the story progresses, giving a huge amount of replay value for some of the different outcomes and consequences your actions can make. You can even unlock extra quests depending on the choices you make, but don’t worry, some of these aren’t required for achievements.
All the characters are voice acted brilliantly and are all memorable and sometimes lovable. And since this takes place farther in the past, the Assassins are known as the Hidden Ones and the Templars are known as the Order of Ancients, but their war is still there and their morally conflicting values are also still there.
Similar to some of the previous games, the members of the order are not necessarily fully evil, just like the Assassins are not entirely good, and I’m glad that those elements were brought back for this story but in much greater detail, plus the fact that your search for clues on targets you hunt can also affect your confrontations. The major twist involving the grandmaster of the order was seriously surprising and had been cleverly teased throughout the story, resulting in a major revelation that would lead to the historical formation of the Templars.
The main storyline involving conquest and alliances that is interwoven with the Assassin/Templar conflicts is extremely well detailed, having various arcs that are connected and can be affected by the choices you make in it. You have to complete most of the story arcs in order to unlock more arcs, but there are some that are totally optional and can be done after the main story is finished. Or you could also just explore, since there is a lot for you to do in land of England (as well as Norway) with lots of collectibles, side missions and secrets. And these are optional too, but going for them can end up benefiting you in the long run with levels, new skills, weapons and gear.
Oh yeah, I should mention this has a lot of RPG elements, but it’s not as grinding or painful as most RPGs are. You level up very fast in this game, there aren’t too many things to keep track of, and there are no severe roadblocks you’re forced to go through. It may all seem overwhelming at first, but you can get the hang of things eventually, plus you can also adjust the difficulty if needed.
You can adjust the difficulty of combat and stealth individually depending on your play style, which you can adjust at any time, and I’m seriously glad they added that. Combat can be vicious and challenging, depending on what enemies you fight, but you have a variety of weaponry to work with depending on how you want to play. Axes, shields, swords, hammers, long swords, spears; you name it, you can use it, as well as the classic hidden blade that returns after having been removed previously in Odyssey.
The Hidden blade is as perfect, and I love how they really changed the stealth mechanics in this game. They brought back some classic mechanics that I loved from older games, but I also love the newer ones they added, as well as additional ones you can get with unlocked skills.
But perhaps the biggest dealbreaker of this game was the option to turn on guaranteed assassinations. For me a true Assassins Creed game should let you assassinate any enemy instantly no matter what, so the fact that they give this as an option is perfect, because I do not like the idea of doing quick time events to assassinate harder enemies.
I love how the creators really thought of everything in this game and there is just so much I could talk about, but then I’d be here for years.
As for the look of this game, even though I’m sure that it looks better on next gen consoles, this is a gorgeous game. Beautiful landscapes to explore, very good graphics and good cutscenes. The voice acting is also really great, especially from the main characters, and they feel so fleshed out and natural, unlike Unity. Also the music is GODLY!!! I mean, god damn, the music across most of the games has always been good, but I think Valhalla’s music might be my favorite among all the games.
As for issues with the game, I do have some. They aren’t enough to ruin my overall thoughts on the game of course, but they are still worth noting. I have come across several glitches and bugs during my play, but thankfully due to the save feature I’m able to load earlier saves I’ve done to fix most of the glitches and bugs I encountered. Some of them were harmless and made for some pretty great laughs, though there were others that kinda impeded progress, but so far none have been a serious issue.
While all the side activities for the most part are fun and worth the effort for XP and rewards, I absolutely hated the Cairn mini-games, which involve having to stack stones on each other and reach a certain height without falling down. It’s frustrating. and I wish they never added it.
But the biggest issue for me by a mile is the modern storyline. To put it bluntly: I did not give a shit about it, and I kinda feel Ubisoft doesn’t either. Ever since the end of Desmond’s story in Assassins Creed 3 there has been an increasing disconnect from the modern story as the games go on. This modern story once again focuses on Layla, who has now joined the Assassins to find and prevent another world calamity that was apparently only postponed in Assassins Creed 3. Yeah, they kinda pulled a Terminator 3 on that one. I won’t go into further detail, but let’s just say I barely had any interest in the modern story at all, even when it has serious WTF moments. Also. they do include a mention of Covid in the game, which I honestly did not need, considering that games are supposed to be an escape from reality, including our current one.
Bottom line is, the modern story should have been dropped. It really had very little purpose and barely any time compared to the actual story of Eivor, which has far more depth and effort put into it. Despite the issues though, I think this game is definitely worth getting, just for how much it offers. If you love open world games you are seriously going to love this. Assassins Creed fans will also love this installment more than previous ones, especially for how much they included for fans of all the previous installments. I’m going to give Assassins Creed Valhalla an A-.
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