{"id":632377,"date":"2020-11-13T15:45:21","date_gmt":"2020-11-13T20:45:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.denofgeek.com\/?p=632377"},"modified":"2020-11-13T15:45:23","modified_gmt":"2020-11-13T20:45:23","slug":"assassins-creed-valhalla-review","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.denofgeek.com\/games\/assassins-creed-valhalla-review\/","title":{"rendered":"Assassin’s Creed Valhalla Review"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Despite releasing 12 Assassin’s Creed<\/a><\/em><\/strong> installments since 2007, Ubisoft is still finding ways to keep the series fresh, and the latest sequel, Valhalla<\/a><\/em><\/strong> is one of the best titles yet. Is it a revelation for the series? No\u2014there are very few new ideas presented here. But it\u2019s a polished title with solid gameplay and a story that is exceedingly coherent for an open-world AAA title.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In Assassin’s Creed Valhalla<\/em><\/strong>, you play as Eivor, a fearsome Viking in 873 AD who lost her parents in battle, a moment that left her literally scarred and hellbent on getting revenge against the warlord who slaughtered them. It’s important to note that the game gives you the choice to play as a male or female version of Eivor at the start of the game, but you\u2019re also given a third option that allows the Animus to \u201cchoose\u201d the gender<\/a> for you based on the memory being recollected. Theoretically, the game is then supposed to switch between male and female throughout the adventure, but despite letting the Animus choose, I remained female for most of my play time. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

After an hours-long intro that sees you exploring and kicking ass across the mountainous terrain of Norway, Eivor and her brother Sigurd set out on a longship to start a new settlement of their own in England, where a majority of the game takes place. The game\u2019s story is as violent and unflinching as you\u2019d expect considering the milieu. Eivor and her crew of Vikings go to war with other clans, and she of course carries out missions on her own in traditional Assassin\u2019s Creed<\/em><\/strong> fashion. The game centers on you expanding your clan\u2019s influence across England\u2019s four kingdoms, forging alliances and collecting resources to build up your riverside settlement.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cCollecting\u201d is a kind word for what you\u2019re actually doing\u2014Eivor and her clan are brutal warriors who raid any settlement they come across, pillaging and annihilating their way to land dominance. As you travel the English channels in your longship, with a simple button press you can initiate a raid on any settlement you see, which is great fun. As you invade, you work with your crew to find treasures and resources to send home, and the game does a good job of highlighting the camaraderie aspect of the raids via a fluid stream of dialogue between Eivor and her fellow warriors. Conquest Battles return from Odyssey<\/a><\/em><\/strong> in the form of Assaults and are larger scale raids on gigantic fortresses that feel pretty epic and are tied to the main narrative.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Raids and Assaults are naturally where you\u2019ll engage in the most combat, which is the backbone of this title more than any other in the series. Eivor can wield any combination of swords, shields, flails, maces, axes, and more in her two hands, and you can unlock a host of abilities to unleash hell upon your foes. There are melee abilities, which allow you to rush enemies and slam them into walls or throw them off cliffs, throw a barrage of axes at their skulls, grapple and fling them into other enemies, and much more. And then there are ranged abilities, like one that lets you slow down time to land perfect shots, take direct control of a fired arrow\u2019s trajectory, mark multiple targets for a quick projectile assault, etc. Abilities are unlocked by finding hidden scrolls across the game world or via the game\u2019s sprawling skill tree, whose myriad nodes afford you stat increases and various buffs as well.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Release Date: Nov. 10, 2020
Platforms: PC (reviewed), XSX, PS5, XBO, PS4, Stadia
Developer: Ubisoft Montreal
Publisher: Ubisoft
Genre: Action-adventure<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

There are a ton of different ways to enact violence in the game, with each weapon and ability bolstered by sweet-looking character animations. The combat is fun and fluid, but it also lacks a sense of tactility, that crunchy, disgusting feeling of impact you get in games like God of War<\/em><\/strong> or even Doom Eternal<\/em><\/strong>. There\u2019s floatiness to the melee combat that is hard to pinpoint but definitely made combat a little less satisfying than I would have liked.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There\u2019s also stealth gameplay, of course, which is typical Assassin\u2019s Creed<\/em><\/strong> fare. I still enjoy sneaking up behind enemies in the tall grass and offing them quickly before their buddies can glimpse me, but the melee and ranged combat in this game is so effective and paramount to the experience that I found myself using stealth far less often than in other games in the series, which I suppose is appropriate since, well, Eivor is a fearless Viking who smashes skulls for a living.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Exploration is a crucial component of any open world game and in this regard Assassin\u2019s Creed Valhalla<\/em><\/strong> is fantastic. I loved galloping across the countryside on horseback and drinking in the painterly locales and then splattering the blood of my enemies all over them like a mass-murdering Jackson Pollock. A sign of a great open-world game for me is how much I find myself just wandering around and engaging in whatever quest or activity happens to come my way as opposed to fast-traveling around like crazy just to plow through the main story and get it over with. In Valhalla<\/em><\/strong>, I was an avid wanderer, which is a testament to just how compelling a game world Ubisoft has created.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Maybe the best thing Assassin\u2019s Creed Valhalla<\/em><\/strong> has going for it is the game world\u2019s sense of continuity. Because you\u2019re constantly analyzing England\u2019s territories on so many levels, it starts to feel like a place that\u2019s not just enormous, but full of people, events, kingdoms, and machinations that all affect and push and pull each other.\u00a0On an intimate level, you\u2019re exploring the English countryside and its rivers and tributaries on foot. On a more macro level, you\u2019re examining the kingdoms on the alliance map, slowly expanding your influence. And then there\u2019s your hunt for different members of the Order and the many artifacts scattered around the world. Each of these activities connects you to the game world in a different way and deepens your understanding of it, and it can become deeply immersive.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

My favorite activities in the game are the various \u201cmysteries\u201d you encounter, little self-contained stories featuring bizarre characters and situations. I loved searching these out because they are so weird and funny and entertaining that they almost overshadow the main story. One involves a confused warrior who has no idea that he\u2019s got an axe buried in his skull (his name is Axehead, adorably); another sees you aiding a ship captain who thinks he\u2019s raiding villages with his crew when, in reality, he\u2019s delusional and alone in a field with an empty longboat, wolves circling him, threatening to eat him alive.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But as for the main narrative, it\u2019s well executed on several levels. It\u2019s a tale of fate, loyalty, glory, and murky morality, with Eivor having to make tough decisions as to how she grows her settlement and how she navigates her relationship with Sigurd and his followers. The characters are really well written and each have a distinctive personality, like the psychopathic but oddly relatable Ivarr and the desperately loyal Dag, Sigurd\u2019s oafish right hand. The joint performances by the voice actors and animators are terrific as well, and the dialogue sounds natural.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\t

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