Assassin's Creed: Valhalla

Dionysos

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So after a rather unorthodox Bob Ross-style art class, Ubisoft have officially revealed the setting and name for the next entry in the Assassin’s Creed franchise. Like the foresight of Odin, most people had a strong hunch that it would be a Viking setting – everyone was right.

The stream, which lasted 8 hours, appears to have created the artwork for the game before our very eyes.

It looks like it’ll be similar to Odyssey in terms of gameplay (naval exploration / warfare and a raven instead of an eagle as the game’s drone mechanic). More will be revealed in a trailer due tomorrow!

Is anyone interested in this?

I still need to finish the DLC for Odyssey (in terms of setting, Odyssey was my favourite game in the franchise to date) but this certainly looks very interesting and I will definitely get this when I can.

In fact I’ve been banned by Linnaete from playing Valhalla until I complete the DLC for Odyssey and other items on my extraordinarily massive moon-wrapping backlog.
 
I'm excited to see the trailer and gameplay footage in the coming day/week. Have quite high expectations coming from Odyssey!

Though with that said the fact that 15 different development studios have worked on this game has me a bit concerned. Logistics aside (how would you even manage to build a cohesive game under a single unified vision when hundreds or thousands of people working on it aren't even in the same building?!), I fear it's gonna be another 200 hour, never ending gameplay dump of ideas that are never really fleshed out as much as they should be, but are thrown in anyway. It's weird to complain about an overabundance of content but Odyssey went completely off the rails and would have benefited from a more concise story and mission structure. But we'll see!
 
I'm interested as long as it's similar to Odyssey in terms of gameplay. I LOVED Odyssey and that really surprised me, because Assassin's Creed is a series I had avoided for a very long time up to that point because they insist on that awful Abstergo narrative, and because it never controlled as well as it should have. It felt like with Odyssey they'd finally gotten movement right - no getting stuck on ledges or being unable to climb things, etc. - and having dialogue options made it more involving than Origins, which I went back to and...well, much as I love Egypt, it just wasn't as good. AC4 was even less so.

About the only thing Odyssey did wrong was it made anything not a basic enemy an absurd damage sponge that took five minutes to kill. Oh, and the repetitive overworld busywork, but that's standard fare for any game of this size and it's better than putting nothing in the world at all like Breath of the Wild. Overall it was a great game with a surprisingly good story - if we completely ignore the Layla parts, anyway - and if Valhalla is a similar game only with vikings I am definitely interested.

I also REALLY hope it's a cross-gen title, because I really cannot afford a PS5 just for this, and I've not had an Xbox One S for very long, so buying a Series X is kinda out of the question as this point. If Ubisoft have any sense whatsoever it will be, but Ubisoft have never had much in the way of sense.

EDIT: It's cross gen, so count me in for day of launch unless it's right next to Christmas and I get it then. Either way, I'm looking forward to it!
 
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Based in the trailer it seems to be a super cool game, but I don't really get any AC vibes from it. But I didn't get from Odyssey trailer either (not played the game yet), so I guess from Origins onward, this is the new trend. I kind of mind it though, I really liked the original AC, but these new ones seem to have nothing in common based on the trailers alone. I'm not saying they aren't/can't be good games, I started Origins not so long ago and I like it! This Valhalla made me super interested, but not as an AC game. I mean it's strange to talk about an AC game not to seem to be AC-ish, but you know what I mean. xD
 
Here is the trailer:


It is looking quite cool. Also I love the nod to the historical revision of Vikings as more than just bloodthirsty savages. I'm assuming that was intended at the beginning when the villains were describing the Vikings as godless barbarians, murdering and killing blindly, etc, while we actually see them rescuing people and playing with their children.

Based in the trailer it seems to be a super cool game, but I don't really get any AC vibes from it. But I didn't get from Odyssey trailer either (not played the game yet), so I guess from Origins onward, this is the new trend. I kind of mind it though, I really liked the original AC, but these new ones seem to have nothing in common based on the trailers alone. I'm not saying they aren't/can't be good games, I started Origins not so long ago and I like it! This Valhalla made me super interested, but not as an AC game. I mean it's strange to talk about an AC game not to seem to be AC-ish, but you know what I mean. xD

The AC fandom is very much divided on this point. Some people love these as games but really wish that it would break away from the Assassin's Creed brand.

Myself? I really don't mind. I'm still quite curious about where the Assassins vs Templars feud will go and I also want some sort of closure on the Precursor storyline. Because of this, I don't mind it being an Assassin's Creed game if it means that I get updates or some sort of ending on some of these chapters, while at the same time I'll be able to enjoy a game based in an historical setting (a rare treat these days).

Odyssey is also amazing and I hope you do play it some day! While they are not 'Assassins' because they predate the historical Order of Assassins, they are pretty much Assassins in all but name. Likewise, the Templars tend to be given alternative names because the historical Templars did not yet exist, but the feud is stated to predate the official formation of both in the mythos of Assassin's Creed.
 
New 'gameplay' trailer. Except it has a distinct lack of any gameplay.


Still a nice trailer though.
 

If there's something I'm happy with, it's this. This was my core issue with Odyssey - it felt padded and bloated without needing to be! There was so much to do - yet I found half of it lifeless to do. Narrative payoff lessens if it takes traveling over half of Greece to find it, imo.

Maybe this could help Valhalla have a more punchy, solid story.

It's a beautiful rendition of Greece, no doubt, but it's just so large! There's a reason why people probably shouldn't buy extra large pizzas to themselves - sometimes there's just too much.

Other than that, I'm cool with the direction they're taking. I expected Vikings but I didn't expect they'd set the bulk in England. I still have some very faint hopes of a dalliance to Dublin. It's totally unlikely... But maybe!

Also: I found Bayek and The Misthios, both Kassandra and Alexios, interesting enough. Here's hoping Eivor can keep the trend going.
 

If there's something I'm happy with, it's this. This was my core issue with Odyssey - it felt padded and bloated without needing to be! There was so much to do - yet I found half of it lifeless to do. Narrative payoff lessens if it takes traveling over half of Greece to find it, imo.

Maybe this could help Valhalla have a more punchy, solid story.

It's a beautiful rendition of Greece, no doubt, but it's just so large! There's a reason why people probably shouldn't buy extra large pizzas to themselves - sometimes there's just too much.

Other than that, I'm cool with the direction they're taking. I expected Vikings but I didn't expect they'd set the bulk in England. I still have some very faint hopes of a dalliance to Dublin. It's totally unlikely... But maybe!

Also: I found Bayek and The Misthios, both Kassandra and Alexios, interesting enough. Here's hoping Eivor can keep the trend going.

Scaling Valhalla down is probably sensible.

While I love Odyssey and love that it was long and the map was large (they didn’t even include all of Greece yet they made a grand chunk of it accessible), I know that it put a lot of people off. I took a break of about a year after completing the core game (after 110 hours) because even I was burnt out from playing it. It does make me sad that this was to be the only semi-serious access point for many people into the period of classical Greece in a video game context. Most of the time people do Greek myth but not Greek history. With the burnout people felt added to the fact that the mythological monsters as optional super-bosses ended up overshadowing the historical elements in the minds of some players (because this catered for what people expected from Greece in popular culture) it makes me sad that people's access to the historical period might not have been as smooth as it could have been.
My full opinions are said better here at page 80 :argor:).

For me the original story was its weakest part though. It’s not that the story of Alexios or Kassandra was bad, but it wasn’t a strength for me. More than anything I loved exploring Greece more and meeting historical characters and experiencing Ubisoft’s version of historical events and locations. They did an incredible job with this on the whole (I'm still meeting historical characters now even in post-game and I've been reminded how they have succeeded in adding some clever Easter eggs for those familiar with the period).

The game's problem was that it was as if Ubisoft had created an exquisite wedding cake and then attempted to force one person to eat it all by themselves in one sitting. It was an overload of too much. Too much to do. Too much to see. Too many quests.

All of that said, I'm very happy that they decided to go overboard like this on my favourite historical period. That means I get to spend longer running around in my era. But if they'd done it with Valhalla instead? As much as I like Vikings, it isn't my favourite era and the game might not land as well with me. That must be how many people felt playing Odyssey where classical Greece was either a period they were not yet familiar with, or one which they didn't like anyway.
 
These are the first I’m seeing the trailers and I’m loving them. I’m definitely going to get it when the next generation of consoles release. I have in the last year purchased and played a bit of Assassins Creed Origins and Odessey. Both had awesome backstories that lead back to way before the original Assassins Creed game which I loved so I’m hoping Valhalla does the same and ties i. With the series roots throughout the game.
 
Oh they already have been on record saying it’s their biggest game yet. Original comments about it being smaller aren’t accurate
 
Oh they already have been on record saying it’s their biggest game yet. Original comments about it being smaller aren’t accurate

I see. :hmmm:
That could be a great thing, or it could be another risky thing. For the reasons several people gave up on Odyssey.

Another interesting thing is that they've also apparently revealed that they shall be bringing back the ability to blend in with crowds. I hadn't actually noticed its absence in Odyssey, but now that I've been told that I do miss it. Hopefully the feature will be more realistic than it had been in the past.
 
New (same) trailer.

It is the cinematic trailer but with the female version of Eivor.

 
It is looking quite cool. Also I love the nod to the historical revision of Vikings as more than just bloodthirsty savages. I'm assuming that was intended at the beginning when the villains were describing the Vikings as godless barbarians, murdering and killing blindly, etc, while we actually see them rescuing people and playing with their children.

Today is the first time I've seen any footage / trailers for Valhalla and this was probably the the main concept that pulled me in. It feels very much a case of the side that wins the war, will dictate the historical perspective and narrative.

As much I would like to play Origins and Odyssey, I don't want another significantly lengthy game in a backlog that I am starting to work through now, so I will probably jump back in to 'Assassin's Creed' with Valhalla. It may turn out to be a blessing in disguise as I'll come back into Assassin's Creed completely fresh to their new direction. I think the last Assassin's Creed I played was Assassin's Creed III - although, I am aware of the debate as to whether these titles should be considered as part of that franchise.

Even thirteen years down the line, Ubisoft are doing a stellar job with their trailer-song collaborations.
 
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