Assassin's Creed Valhalla

Assassin’s Creed Valhalla is a third-person action-adventure game with RPG elements, set in a vast, highly detailed, dynamic open world. The story mainly takes place in East Anglia. The protagonist is a Viking named Eivor (male or female—it doesn’t matter).

The game mechanics have been reworked to reflect the era and popular historical views of Vikings as fierce close-combat fighters. One of Valhalla’s gameplay innovations is moving the blade from the wrist to the outside of the arm, and allowing the player to hold a blade or shield in each hand. Graphically, the game uses an updated version of the same engine as Assassin's Creed Odyssey.

Valhalla features a huge, handcrafted open world that includes parts of modern-day East Anglia and Norway, along with special locations such as Kyiv, which the player will visit as part of the story.

England makes up most of the game world and mirrors the landscape of its real-life counterpart: dense forests and broad meadows, lowlands and hills, rivers and swamps, and the North Sea coast. The regional system has been removed and replaced with several large kingdoms at war with one another, while Viking settlers add a global threat.

The impact of human activity is already clear: farming and animal husbandry are well developed, small villages and larger settlements are found everywhere, and there are also a couple of large cities where trade and crafts flourish. Fortresses have been added—heavily defended strongholds with large numbers of soldiers and bosses.

The world of Valhalla is comparable in size to Odyssey, but has more land, as Ubisoft depicts the Vikings’ settlement in England. Its world structure is also more open and does not tie the player to their character’s level. There are few activities at sea; the longship is mainly used to transport the hero and companions, scout, and launch surprise attacks, rather than fight other ships.

Valhalla’s world also includes the northwestern part of Scandinavia, with its harsh climate, steep mountains, and cold waters beneath the majestic northern lights. This part of the world is mainly used for story events.

Eivor, the main character, is fictional, but based on historical figures. He is a fierce Viking, raised on legends of great battles and warrior glory. During the events of the game, he is both a warrior and conqueror, and the leader of his small clan.

But Eivor’s membership in the Assassins is mostly formal: he and the Brotherhood share the same enemies, and he was given a cool blade, but he only partly understands the true purpose of being a member and is focused on his personal interests.

Character progression in Valhalla follows the spirit of The Elder Scrolls 5: Skyrim: the more you use an ability, the better your character becomes at it. The game has more RPG elements, and you can develop your character in several ways and use gear of varying quality. Each piece of gear is tied to a specific archetype—Raven, Bear, or Wolf—with its own combat style and skill tree.

Unlike Odyssey, Valhalla has a new quality system: each item can be upgraded to level ten, which solves the problem of loot balance. Before, weapons and armor dropped too often and took time to manage, which was boring. Now there are fewer items, but you can develop them to suit your tastes. Upgrading requires collecting numerous resources.

As always, the events of Valhalla unfold in the past (the 9th century) and the present. The updated Animus will allow Layla Hassan, whose story began in Assassin's Creed: Origins and continued in Odyssey, to take a deeper look into the history of the conflict between the Assassins and Templars. The present-day events now take up more time.

In the past, in the spirit of early feudalism, there is a fierce struggle for resources. From cold and hungry Scandinavia, local tribes begin migrating across the North Sea to resource-rich, warm England, where a struggle for power is already raging.

People from other lands are met with caution and hatred by the warring kingdoms, and the main character must ensure their clan’s survival at any cost. As the writers see it, the Saxons and Vikings can be both good and bad. The former must be made allies, while the latter must be fought and forced to make peace. So it’s no surprise that, after joining forces with the English, Eivor goes to war against his own Danes, who despise him for refusing to conquer new lands.

At the same time, the main antagonist, Alfred the Great, King of Wessex, seeks to rule England alone and has called for the extermination of the northern peoples. Players can stop this by making their way through a whirlwind of events, visiting every corner of the game world, joining forces with other clans and kingdoms, and uncovering more than one conspiracy that drives a wedge between the peoples and threatens their peaceful coexistence.

Valhalla’s story arcs are more expansive than before, and side quests have been almost entirely removed (it would be strange for the foreigner Eivor to start taking jobs from peaceful locals). Instead, Ubisoft uses “world events” that Eivor encounters while exploring, much like in Red Dead Redemption 2, where some stories didn’t even appear on the map.

The Templars play an important role in fueling the conflict in eastern England, so there’s no way to stay out of the conflict between them and the Assassins. In time, Eivor will find himself at its center.

Much of Valhalla’s gameplay is tied to developing your own settlement by building various structures (barracks, a forge, a tattoo parlor, and so on) and upgrading them over time. This all takes a lot of resources, and players have few at the beginning, so they’ll have to raid settlements and fortresses. The first are easy enough to plunder: break through the defenses, storm the settlement, and defeat its leader.

Fortresses are a different story: they’re protected by massive walls, lots of soldiers, and several bosses, making their assaults large-scale affairs, much like sieges in games such as Medieval: Total War and is divided into several stages. The player kills regular and elite enemies, protects allies, and helps them ram gates, breaking through to the next levels of the fortress until finally taking down the boss. The player will receive more resources for such an assault, and a better reward for Eivor personally.

Another option is to form alliances and trade with local English settlements. But trust still has to be earned, which is reflected in the Influence (reputation) system, based on completing quests and helping NPCs. Some quests can only be completed after building up your Influence.

In their new home, the Vikings will face many enemies, so the combat system has been reworked. In combat, you’ll need to actively defend yourself with a shield, while cutting down hordes of enemies left and right with dual axes/swords. Many pieces of equipment, such as weapons, now have a durability mechanic.

There are several types of weapons, which can be upgraded with special runes that add fire, ice, or lightning damage—a feature of Scandinavian mythology. In combat, the player must use special abilities with different effects; up to eight can be equipped: four for ranged combat and four for melee.

The influence of Dark Souls has reached Assassin's Creed: depending on the difficulty level, timings, parry windows, player health, and the enemies’ alertness and reaction speed will change.

There is no information about a possible co-op mode or competitive online modes in the style of earlier Assassin's Creed games.

It is quite likely that there will only be an item shop like the one in Odyssey, with no effect on gameplay.