To the Halls of Valhalla…
Assassin’s Creed has more recently been one of my favorite franchises, despite not getting on with the series in its rooted beginnings. Origins and Odyssey are tremendous experiences, despite holding onto some of the franchises’ more apparent flaws. While Valhalla maintains those same glaring issues in more ways than one, as well as some pretty severe technical problems at launch, I still found it to be a largely compelling entry in the series for its captivating gameplay, engaging characters, and a world that kept rewarding me around every corner.
Valhalla takes players on an epic Viking adventure that has been built up to throughout the series, rewarding those who have been experiencing each installment of the games, year after year. While some of the context to certain events are vaguely explained for new players, having at least a history with Origins and Odyssey will double down on your enjoyment of the game. In fact, without diving into the “why”, you’ll eventually get the understanding that Valhalla was the starting point in building this somewhat rebooted series of recent games. Honestly, that ending, I did not see that coming.
In Assassin’s Creed: Odyssey, players chose whether to play as Kassandra or Alexios. It wasn’t the first time a female assassin was offered to players, but it was in regards to being that of a main protagonist. Thankfully, Kassandra, who was the better character, was made canon to the events of Odyssey, as is detailed in the notes available in the present-day aspect of this story. This choice of gender is also available here, but you can swap back and forth at any time to get an idea of who you want your Eivor to be, as the gender of the character is never explicitly stated; being explained into the story as Eivor is made up of two competing signals, allowing you to silence one, or have the Animus choose for you.
For my Eivor, I chose female again and while I still feel that Kassandra is the better of the two characters, I still found a lot to enjoy with my lady Vikingr. Eivor, regardless of your choice, will have variable dialogue and gameplay options in the story to make choices that will have some effect on the world around you, and your relationship with Sigurd, your brother, as you are adopted into his family after the death of your parents. While much of the story has you playing as Eivor, moving around Norway and England to build alliances and garner friendships when you’ll truly need them, the underlying narrative is largely about Sigurd, who attempts to dive almost blindly into his fated destiny. Each of the two is cursed by visions that reveal said destinies, and while Sigurd is pulled towards his like a supercharged magnet, Eivor is attempting to alter her fate, a destiny that foretells of a great betrayal.
At first, I wasn’t really feeling much of the narrative, and while it wasn’t anywhere near boring, I wasn’t as engaged as I wanted to be. Even some 20 hours in, I wasn’t sure where much of what I was doing was going to matter in the long run. It wasn’t untill around the halfway mark, some 40 hours in, where I started to grasp what was going on more intently, coming across as impressed but also disappointed it took so long to get this good. Now, at the 80-hour mark of essentially wrapping credits, with still a metric ton of side events and collectibles to track down, the narrative that wraps the game up is absolutely enthralling and had me on the edge of my seat especially when you understand what is truly happening at that moment. While I took away loving the story that Valhalla gave me, I just feel that much of what made me so invested was only accessible after some 30-40 hours in.
My save file right now has 81 hours and 42 minutes, and this resulted in me completing the story, collecting all unique and legendary weapons, the entirety of the special outfit, and its weapon, as well as all legendary hunts. I still have dozens of the smaller bite-size story events to do and more collectibles than I can count left to track down. I’ve pushed through almost the entire skill tree, and have every region synchronized. I’ve also traveled to every attached area around the map, including a location you access through a chemically induced sleep, one that ties into the main story in some rather impressive and surprising ways. I would estimate that full completion of all content to be somewhere around 120-140 hours easy, especially if you plan on completing every single possible bit of what the game offers. So yeah, there is a lot of bang for your buck here.
Now, while an 80-hour campaign is impressive, much of it can and often does feel dragged out. Some of the regions you form alliances with have vastly better stories and events than others, with a vast array of characters that will either become fast favorites or those you simply don’t care for. While each location will often have a quest here or there that “makes” that story arc memorable, these stand-alone stories sometimes only hint at the plot than become vessels for progressing the narrative. While being able to tackle them in largely whatever order you like, the connected web of the story is sometimes only mentioned in a single line of dialogue than anything substantial. Many of these stories usually are built around removing someone from leadership, placing a puppet you can control, or an ally that is likely to be favorable to the help you’ve given them. There are some similarities to what you’ve given to do in each area, but the circumstances and encounters shake up most of what is familiar to make these story arcs stand out in certain ways.
One of my favorite arcs was when I was to remove a King from their throne in order to place someone more akin to an alliance in his place. This somewhat early on mission has you teaming up with the sons of Ragnar; Ubba and Ivarr to see that happen. When you meet Ceolwulf, a man who is to be your pawn on the throne, you will then eventually meet his son, Ceolbert; a very intriguing and honest young man. Now, while the story of Ceolwulf ends with him atop the throne, this arc doesn’t end there and instead bleeds into a lot of the narrative of future quests. This is where the story has some very memorable moments, as you have to deal with the crazy nature of Ivarr, who is so bloodthirsty, that his actions move the story in some interesting ways. In fact, Ivarr might be one of my favorite characters in the story, as he is involved in some of the more bloody actions the story dives into. It is this interconnectedness that makes the game really stand out, as seeing the efforts of your alliances and friendships progress is truly satisfying, even when characters make some foolish mistakes and place them on the other side of your axe.
Eivor’s journey is often engaging, seeing them grow and adapt to this strange new land, but there is a large lack of choice in how that happens. Each region will end with an alliance regardless of your choices. Sometimes you may end up with a different person on the throne through those choices, but you will always succeed in the end. Had these regions come with a risk of going horribly wrong and making an enemy instead of a friend, it would have created more political tension to ensure I was weighing my options carefully than simply moving to a spot, attacking, partaking in conversation, winning the day, and then going home victorious each and every time. This forced victory can often make your inclusion feel weightless as if Eivor, and therefore the player, feel as if you are just going through the motions than actually shaping this new kingdom. Some characters, for as important as they are, fade from the narrative once you are done with them, but thankfully, many of them remain right to the end, an endgame that sees much bloodshed as you attempt to finish conquering the map.
From early on into the story and right through to the end, you’re going to be tracking down members of The Order of the Ancients. This is a system that returns from Origins, and Odyssey, and is frankly, my favorite addition to this franchise. These secretive targets are unlocked as you track down clues, or sometimes just encounter them out and about. While this mysterious Order is a rather enjoyable narrative trip, the game does a lot wrong with making too much known about certain characters since the shadow-work to disguise them is laughably bad, allowing me to easily deduce who certain members were by simply just looking at them. It’s also a shame that many members of the order are just complete nobodies that don’t factor into the story whatsoever. This bit of spoiler territory also works its way into the character indexes as well, as checking out the entry about the “Builder” right after you’ve met them, will simply show you the true story about him just right there, even before you figure it out. Had these instances been cleaned up and better hidden, then I likely would be been more impressed with this system.
Traversing the massive open-world will feel very familiar to that of what Odyssey and Origins offered, as it follows the now established formula to a T. You can run on foot, on horseback, or via boat, however; there isn’t really boat combat this time around as the amount of open water present is far less than the previous games; likely a result of the long-awaited and possibly canceled, Skull and Bones, to place your desire for open water combat there, whenever it comes out, I guess. Given the ability to synchronize areas all over the map, and the ability to simply summon your Clan for a raid anywhere near water, I rarely used the boat once I started to open up new areas or at least direct routes to new territories. Though, getting my own personal boat cat was something that did make me at least go say hi from time to time. In typical Assassin’s Creed fashion, you’ll still be parkour running and wall-climbing with the best of them, although, Eivor feels far more sticky to surfaces than I ever remember Kassandra ever being. I found I was getting caught up on walls and ledges far more, and even something as simple as trying to quickly enter through a window to be more of a hassle that I remember. I still wish it was easier to pop off a ledge or off a parkour route, or even just simply let go, without the character simply standing there, bouncing against the animation, or trying to climb everything they can on the way down. Again, this is one of the hang-ups that I have with the series, and Valhalla just doubles down on a lot of it.
As you work to make a home for yourself and your clan, you can raid settlements to earn resources needed to build new shops, homes, and other structures that all aid you in the long run. Your settlement is more or less a static system where all buildings have a place where they go, as opposed to allowing you to craft your own village, something I think that would have made this system feel more personal to my Eivor, but I digress. The settlement system is a great addition here as it gives Eivor a place to call home, talk with members of her clan, and hire other player’s Viking mercenaries as raid companions; some of which look cool as hell. You’ll also be able to invite other characters to live at your settlement, making those relationships feel more than just empty dialogue. Speaking of relationships, Eivor will have access to a few people that she can commit to some form of a relationship with. While some are merely just flings, there are a few, and I really mean “just a few” that feels like something more than just a fleeting series of conversations and a fade to black when you’re getting it on. It’s a shame that despite the game having a Mature rating, and even an option for nudity, that the romance scenes aren’t more than just a camera blocking kiss or showing time pass outside the main hall as your sharing your bed. Bioware, for example. has had a history of showing proper and grown-up relationships in their games, and that was years ago.
Having an open world as big as it is, means putting substantial content around it to make exploring and discovery feel worthwhile, and Valhalla has this in spades. The small bite-size story events are just long enough to remain interesting, but short enough that you can easily put away half a dozen as you trek about. There was talk about how Vahalla wasn’t going to include side quests, and while that is more or less true, it’s not exactly what that means. Yes, there are side quests, but these events are not tracked in the same traditional sense. Sometimes you’ll show up, find two men arguing about their grain business, and then set it all ablaze while the two men are fighting, or that time where I had to get a turkey to chase me up the hill to its owner. These “side quests” are more like in-world events than quests; similar to how The Witcher III handled some of theirs; another bit of evidence that this series has since been given the Witcher treatment starting with the release of Origins.
The sense of discovery you’ll have is also very engaging, as there are sometimes little visual indicators that something is nearby, and while you can keep spamming your vision mode to figure out where, sometimes you’ll stumble across something that leads you deep into a cave, often containing its own little story as you piece together notes you’ll find. There are countless puzzle rooms or various treasures to find, legendary hunts as you tackle large and imposing creatures, and a vast array of armor sets and mysterious weapons that can truly add a spark to combat, literally. Now, much of the treasure and secrets can be visible from the map but figuring out where that cave entrance is, or what house has some object to move to find the ladder that leads down to them is where a lot of your time is going to be spent exploring. You do have a bird that you can use to fly above, but it’s oddly missing some key features like tagging enemies that made me hardly ever use it. That and the snapping back to Eivor made me often lose my place of where I was looking around at in the first place.
Eivor is going to have access to a few locations to explore as you attempt to gain favor with the numerous kingdoms that comprise England. You’ll start your adventure in Norway, and while you’ll travel to a few interesting locations, much of your time will be trekking across the England countryside. There are castles, farms, cities, and a variety of mysterious locations, with several fights to take part in, that give this open-world a true sense of wonderment. Each populated city has a series of mini-games, from a dice game that I still can’t believe I even won a match in or a drinking game that I absolutely adored. You can also take part in Flyting, a series of Viking Rap battles that can sometimes lead to interesting conversations; it’s also an easy way to make money too. You’ll also be able to track down new shops to sell off trinkets to maybe afford that new haircut, tattoo, ship customization part, or some decorations for your settlement. And, as always, Ubisoft has a real-money store that is packed with more flavor to those same components with a series of more flashy items.
The combat in Valhalla feels more weighty and for good reason. Vikings were brutal in their savagery, and you’ll have a wide range of attacks to compliment it so. From a variety of axes to swords, to spears and a bow, you’ll have a wide range of tools to get the job done. You can complement those weapons with abilities like hurling a series of axes, dipping your arrows in poison, to summoning a wolf into battle, seeing it rip out the throat of someone unlucky to get on your bad side. Eivor will have a stamina bar that is consumed as you attack and dodge, but oddly enough, it is never consumed when you sprint. This causes combat to feel more methodical, but as I am not a fan of stamina bars in general, it’s one addition here that I am not too favorable on. That said, combat is still very enjoyable when you find a rhythm of weapons and abilities that can make you a total badass in some dire encounters. Being an Assassin’s Creed game, Eivor also has the ability to stealth and perform assassinations, even if she isn’t technically part of the Brotherhood. She flirts with the idea a few times, but as the Vikings were really not known for being a quiet bunch, it’s still an interesting thing to see one attempt to become something of this nature. The stealth systems in play are what we’ve seen before, hiding in bushes and atop buildings, so whether you adapt this playstyle or go in guns.. uh.. axes’a’blazing is up to you.
To aid Eivor in their progression, you have an astrological skill tree as seen above that benefits nearly every aspect of their person. From increasing their health, stats of certain armor houses, to even certain skills like being able to slow down time after a perfect dodge, all go a long way to making them vastly more efficient in combat. As you complete quests or through other challenges, you’ll earn skill points at an alarming rate. You’ll then follow a skill tree line that moves around the map, granting you certain bonuses as you work your way through to the bigger and more impressive abilities. At just over 80 hours of play, I have less than 20 nodes left to purchase, causing me to find footing nearly everywhere on the map in a large capacity. As I push through the remaining bits of content across the map, It’s likely that I’ll be able to fully map out the board, giving me access to everything.
Adding to your skill tree are ruins that you can equip into your gear that boost things from adding more health, fire resistance, to just simply more armor. As you upgrade your weapons and armor through resources, or via your blacksmith back at the settlement, weapons and armor will increase how many ruins they can hold, and for some items, their appearance will change as well. Ruins can be easily swapped out when you get new gear, and will even detail what item they are already slotted into. Armor sets have unique perks when you equip enough of a set, and there are so many weapons to collect and mix and match, especially when you gain the ability to dual wield heavy weapons, that you can easily find a build that will make you an absolute powerhouse. As for my favorite weapon, well.. let’s just say when Sigurd wants to open that big door, take a left instead.
Ever since Origins, the amount of time spent in the present-day storyline has been significantly reduced, making the series less about what is happening now and focusing more on the time period the core game takes place in. While much of what happens in Valhalla greatly affects the present day, the game smartly uses the brief moments to convey only what they need to. You’ll also have moments in the game where Layla will “visit” England in Eivor’s time period through a series of platform challenges as I’ve shown above. You’ll climb up structures, pull and hit switches, all to complete a series of them that shows a pretty interesting scene that contributes to the larger story at play here.
Thanks to a recent patch, The Series X version can now run at 60fps with a bit of a compromise to resolution, or 4K at 30fps. Considering the game is already a visually stunning experience, the added framerate is the vastly recommended option, making it far more fluid in combat and exploration. Before the patch, the Series X version did give me a lot of screen tearing, but since the update, I’ve yet to see it rear its ugly head. Now, it’s been reported that the PS5 version does currently run better, but this is also due to the development team having more time with the platform and we should be seeing similar results across both platforms as time goes on. Now, all the graphical terminology aside, Valhalla is a very pretty game, with vast countrysides, huge cities, and a fantastical element we’ve yet to see in the franchise, at least to this extent, that is present here in all its glory. Lastly, the Series X loads the game in just seconds, as opposed to the almost minute and some on the One X. It’ll be interesting to see an Assassin’s Creed game in the future that is built to fully take advantage of the hardware as it does have the trappings of a console transition game, but that’s still not an overly bad thing given how good it runs on the new hardware.
Now, while much of my praise has been overwhelmingly positive, mostly anyway, the game has some major issues. I’ve had it freeze several times, instant resume just simply not work, and bizarre things like the camera spinning around to face enemies or characters on it own. This caused so many moments where I was spotted or unable to respond to a stealth kill in time. I’ve had Eivor not want to climb, or simply jump towards a ledge and not grab it, to my character just being unresponsive. I’ve had dialogue not play out, characters invisible during cutscenes, to jerky animations as I simply grab an axe that is leaning up against a table. Now, given the state of the world and that many of the hundreds of people making this game likely had to work from home for at least some of its development, I can let a lot of this slide. I mean, it has had to be a nightmare to put out a game of this depth during a pandemic, but the state of the game at launch was pretty rough regardless. Now, this latest patch has certainly addressed a lot of issues and my experience post-patch has been vastly better, even if Eivor is still a tad unresponsive sometimes, and I still find it a bit off-putting that any assassination still has your target stop in their animation for you to simply kill them, but overall, the game is going to see improvements to address at least the more game-breaking things.
Assassin’s Creed: Valhalla despite its issues is a vastly enjoyable experience that I really ended up enjoying. The story, once it picks up, is superb, with an ending that sets up the future of the series in very unexpected ways. Eivor and their journey from Norway to England does get lost in some of that story., but the gameplay and characters are what really hold this adventure together, alongside some meaty and visceral combat that always entertains. Ubisoft clearly has a formula that they are intent on using for their games, making them feel familiar in a lot of key ways. I’ve really enjoyed Origins and Odyssey despite their flaws, and while Valhalla doesn’t look to address as many of them as I’d of liked, it still honors the franchise and all its glory.
Developer - Ubisoft Montreal Publisher - Ubisoft Released - November 10th, 2020. Available On - Xbox One, Series X/S, PS4, PS5, Windows PC. Rated - (M) Blood and Gore, Intense Violence, Nudity, Sexual Themes, Strong Language, Drugs, and Alcohol. Platform Reviewed - Xbox Series X Review Access - Assassin’s Creed: Valhalla was purchased by the reviewer.