Ubisoft’s newest production, Assassin’s Creed Valhalla, is an immersive open world experience about the Vikings of the 9th century A.D. The depth of Valhalla’s story along with an expansive set of side quests and events to complete creates a wonderful tapestry for players to dive into. The player follows Eivor, a warrior searching for meaning after a childhood tragedy, with their brother Sigurd and his crew on a quest to pillage and plunder England of its treasures.
The story has three different arcs. The first is located in Norway, where Eivor must fight for survival in the Raven Clan and then set sail for England. The second arc is with Lydia, the operator of the Animus, and her team at a gravesite dig in New England in the United States. Lydia has left the corporate world of Abstergo and joined the Assassins in their quest to discover what happened on Eivor’s adventures. There are many emails to read and voice recordings to listen to on her laptop that expand this part of the story while also giving an in-depth back history on the previous games in the series. Upon entering the Animus, a device that allow for the user to experience the memories of the deceased through a DNA strand that has been found, the player is given a choice between being male, female or letting the Animus choose the outcome. This selection is made each time upon entering the Animus while the player is continuing Eivor’s story arc. The third story arc is the Asgard arc which is started by building a Seer’s Hut in your settlement of Ravensthorpe and going into a dream world where you see the events through eyes of the Norse god Havi. This is by far the best arc in the game and has a ton of really great moments.
The way Valhalla moves seamlessly between each of the story arcs and makes them feel as one is a fantastic accomplishment in writing and storytelling. As Eivor discovers new territories, certain storylines present Eivor with a vision of the Norse god Odin who provides the player with advice on certain irreversible game choices along while expanding on the main story. The story keeps players wanting to move to the next territory to see what happens.
Aside from the main storyline, there are many quests and events to find and complete. These are:
- Flyting – A duel of rhyming, cadence and wit for silver. Match Eivor’s opponent’s rhyming and phrasing to build up the charisma skill that allows the player to unlock new talking options for certain conversations.
- Drinking Game – Beat opponent for silver in a race to see who can skull their drink the fastest. This game is all about timing and balance.
- Orlog – A dice-based duel. The point of it is to take all of the opposing side player’s life stones before Eivor’s are depleted. This is one of the best side games since the Gwent card game of the Witcher series.
- Wealth – Each area Eivor visits will have wealth to collect from opening chests scattered around the world. This includes both gear and other treasures like ingots that are used to upgrade gear at the blacksmith.
- Artifacts – Roman Masks and other collectibles that can be used are found in different locations. These normally require Eivor to access a hard to get to area or to complete a jumping puzzle.
- Mysteries – Eivor will need to complete side quests or other conversations to complete these challenges.
In undertaking the main missions, side quests and general exploration players will utilise various weapons and skills to dispose of their enemies which can be upgraded and adapted over time to meet their preferred play style.
Armour and weapons are gathered by finding wealth chests or from buying them from a shopkeeper and upgrades to current armour and weapons can be made at the Blacksmith using carbon, nickel or gold ingots. Armour and weapons can also be enhanced with runes that are found throughout the world.
Skills are the equivalent of levels and skill point usage all in one. Skill points are earned from completing story and side quests and gaining experience. The player can choose to spend points among the melee, ranged and stealth trees. Once Eivor reaches the end of a section a new portion of the skill tree opens up, providing the player with the ability to pick up skills for the preferred play style as they become available.
Abilities are additional high-powered skills that are learned by finding knowledge books and completing certain quests within the game world. These abilities are critical to winning tough fights and are utilised by using adrenaline. Abilities are split between ranged skills like Piercing Shot and close combat skills like Blinding Rush and players can assign four of each ability type to each set of attack or ranged buttons depending on the situation. For certain Order fights and other bosses, the player will need to have the right abilities active in order to gain the advantage or do maximum damage.
The amount of difficulty settings that can be customised in Assassin’s Creed Valhalla is quite extensive and can easily meld to different playstyles. The options include:
- Exploration Difficulty
- Adventurer – More icons will guide you toward your rewards. Opportunities are visible from further away.
- Explorer (Default) – Feedback on world map opportunities and regular information on the compass. This is the level that this review was completed on and still required a bit of exploring to find gear and wealth chests and other artifacts.
- Pathfinder – Minimal HUD and World Map information for a more immersive experience.
- Combat Difficulty
- Skald (Easy)
- Vikingr (Default) – This is the level that this review was completed on and the player may find this level a bit too easy at the beginning, but it picks up in difficulty as you traverse through England’s territories and reach the Asgard arc of the story.
- Berserkr (Hard)
- Drengr (Very Hard)
- Stealth Difficulty
- Apprentice (Easy)
- Assassin (Default) – This is the level that this review was completed on and it was fairly easy to get around sight traps and get the drop on enemies from behind. The later skills acquired in the stealth tree allow for multiple assassinations in a row which was a great aspect for those hard to get around dual guard locations.
- Master Assassin (Hard)
The player will need to decide at the New Game selection screen the Exploration and Stealth difficulty as these are not changeable later on like the Combat difficulty is.
Assassin’s Creed Valhalla is a single player open world game that is meant to be enjoyed over many countless hours, with playthrough times being in the sixty-five plus hour ranges for finishing the story including most of the side quests and dialog on normal difficulty.
Assassin’s Creed Valhalla is not a family friendly experience. With a large amount of mature content and relationships, the game it is best experienced with no children around. The player can pause at any time, including during most of the cutscenes, if parenting tasks become a priority.
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Rob for One More Game
8 – Great – This is a standout game where some minor changes would make it amazing. You could easily justify your purchase of this game.
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Assassin’s Creed Valhalla was reviewed on an Xbox Series X and is also available on Xbox Series S, Xbox One, PlayStation 5, PlayStation 4 and Windows PC.
The publisher kindly provided review code for this title. All thoughts on this game are ours and ours alone.