"It's A Video Game!" - Assassin's Creed: Valhalla

Well, it took over 100 hours a in span of maybe two months, (Baby Andy takes a lot) but I more or less beat the main iteration of Assassin’s Creed: Valhalla… yeah, I got one last mission, but that gotta wait. Just guess what’ll go in the “CONS” section. Anyway, this should do it for me in terms of mainline AC games. AC: Liberation is still out there, and can be played on PS4 now. Still, I think I’m petered out on the world of the Assassins for now.

Assassin’s Creed Valhalla was released toward the end of 2020. My initial interest for Valhalla was “whelmed” mainly because it was coming out at the same time Cyberpunk 2077 was being released. Shockingly, the Ubisoft game wasn’t the one that has been lambasted for being broken. I mean, I ran into a fair share of bugs, but something tells me that Cyberpunk 2077 could’ve killed my base PS4. I ended up buying Valhalla back in April for a bit of a discount.

Assassin’s Creed: Valhalla takes place during the hey-day of the Vikings, and the year is 985 C.E. You play as Eivor Varinsdottir, aka “The Wolf-Kissed,” a male or female raider who gets pulled into the centuries-long conflict between the Hidden Ones and the Order of Ancients. Led by their adopted brother, Sigurd, Evior and a legion of followers from Sigurd’s clan leave Norway and head to England to start a new life. It’s there where Eivor has to make alliances with the different providences in the land. You end up doing a lot of things like brokering alliances with kings and jarls, taking out hidden members from the Order of Ancients, traveling to Asgard (kinda?), building your home, and flyting! A whole lot of flyting!

I almost got my Eivor looking like an old friend from the college days. Hodge, you finally made it to the big leagues of gaming!

In the present day, you’re back as Layla Hassan. It’s been a couple of years since the events of Odyssey, and Layla’s been through it a bit. The Staff of Hermes she found hasn’t done her any favors. She now has Shaun Hastings and Rebecca Crane helping her operate the Animus. The Earth is also going through something that’s causing the environment to change. An unknown message has led the three to New England where they find Eivor’s body. Through this, they’ll find out what’s happening and how they may be able to help save the world.

 

PROS

This was good, but not perfect. Valhalla does its best to be a merging of old-school and new-school Assassin’s Creed. We’re closer to the timeline of the first game (past sequence-wise), so we start to see some familiar things. We also start to see how the Order of Ancients evolved into the more modern Templars. The game basically does what Black Flag did years ago in that your character is pretty much thrown into the middle of all of this without exactly picking a side. I mean, Eivor is pretty much “Team Hidden One,” but that’s more because of the link to his brother, Sigurd. Besides, the Order of Ancients are complete tossers!

As for our main character, I liked Eivor. They felt like a more honorable version of Edward Kenway. I mostly played as male Eivor because I thought the voice actor was just better. Eivor’s not only dealing with the Assassin/Templar conflict though. His main goal is to make alliances with the surrounding providences in England. You’ll also be running into random stuff, finding hidden treasure and trinkets, joyriding via boat, and even having romances. Yeah, Odyssey went into that a little bit, but you never got to keep them as a lover. Eivor still has the usual customizable armor and weapons, and you can also customize Eivor quite a bit with different haircuts and tattoos. You also have your own homestead to customize and build up similar to the older games.

For the first time in a while, the present day story is not too bad. We’re back as Layla Hassan, and we get some returning companions in the form of Shaun Hastings and Rebecca Crane. Mind you, it takes a minute to recognize their faces, but it’s them! Layla herself is also better here even though we don’t get much with her here. I will say that the way her story concludes is a bit subpar. It brought back memories of how a certain Miles met his demise… heck, it almost fits considering the person who’s tied to all these events in the game.

Combat is pretty much unchanged from the last two entries. You got the usual scheme set up and some pretty cool special moves. One thing I noticed is that instead of flaming weapons which was kind of a norm for the last two are part of the special move packet now. That does make thing seem more real since you usually don’t have axes constantly on fire. While the combat doesn’t flow as well here, it is pretty cool and brutal. We get some amputating/beheading animation here. As I said earlier, the developers tried to incorporate old-school stealth here, and that works out well. We even get the return of the “Hooded Monks who Walk Around Anonymously”.

The world itself is massive… if a little too massive. Each province in England has something to do. They also vary quite a bit or at least they did to me. Exploring this time around was pretty good especially since they’ve added a feature that helps out with that. It’s like Ubisoft’s still taking notes form games like The Witcher 3 and Red Dead Redemption 2.  Outside of England itself, you have a few other provinces to travel to like Norway, bits of other lands, and a couple places that you’ll have to see for yourself. There is one place you’ll travel to that ties into some past AC games. The graphics are good for the most part, but will say that this didn’t feel as polished like the previous two. The music was good, but nothing stood out too much.

 

CONS

Layla, you weren't always my favorite, but they did you wrong, girl.

The first issue I have to throw up here is the dang length to this game. I was already tiring of the length with Odyssey, and now this game makes it even bigger? I haven’t even finished the last mission for Eivor yet, and it’s not because I just became a father either. The game’s monotony got to me, and I needed something familiar (ie, Mass Effect) to get back to. I get the idea of making exploration a major aspect of the later games, but Valhalla really pushed it for me.

It also didn’t help that you didn’t know which missions were main missions and which weren’t. I ended up going through every province without really knowing which missions are part of the main story line. The last couple of games laid that clear. Even Odyssey with its confusing mission layout had that right! You could also get into some repetitive missions or fetch missions. I know that’s a staple for these games, but I think it got to me here. While I did like the combat, I’ll admit that it didn’t flow too well here.

Oh yeah, Shaun and Rebecca didn't look too flattering here. It's either age or some unfinished graphics.

Story-wise, things are fine. I will say that there were certain arcs that weren’t that good, but overall, most of them were good. While I do like most of the present day storyline, I will say that it kinda went off-the-rails towards its end. Basically, Layla meets a conclusion here, and I didn’t like that. While I wasn’t the biggest fan of the character, part of that reason had to do with the fact that she didn’t get a whole lot of screen time. It’s something that I am beginning to dislike a bit about the modern AC games. The present day story gets forgotten about. As for her “replacement,” that was kinda interesting. You’ll see what I mean whenever you get there.

I probably got hit with the most glitches here with this iteration of AC. Ubisoft is still not immune from this. I even ran into a couple of game-breaking glitches that were one-part funny and one-part annoying. You’ve probably seen it already, but for whatever reason, Evior will suddenly shoot into the air and pretty much stay there. He either got Raptured by the All-Father Odin or something like that. It would randomly happen too. Other than these things and some small nitpicks, it’s still a good game overall.

………………………………………

Overall, Valhalla is a good game, but I’m beginning to feel what most old-school AC fans have felt. This feels too overblown with it trying to compete with other RPG/adventure games. I’ll finish that final mission one day and get to some DLC, but for now, I think I’m done. Add the fact that Ubisoft is doing weird stuff with future AC games (see the Infinity debacle for more), and my days with the franchise might be coming to an end. I can’t say for sure though. Either way, it’s been a fun ride. Next time, I think I’m finally going to get this one AC post I’ve wanted to do. Until then, Peace, God Bless, and be careful out there.

So, why am I fighting frost giants in Asgard? You gotta see for yourself.