Assassin's Creed Valhalla trailer is pleased to report that, yes, Vikings can have wrist-blades, too
Aux Features Games
Having found ways to demonstrate the global ubiquity of hoods and wrist-mounted hidden daggers across eras ranging from Ptolemaic Egypt and Classical Greece to 15th Century Italy and 18th Century America, Assassin’s Creed has set its stabby, sometimes-stealthy sights on the late Viking Age for its next entry, the predictably-named Assassin’s Creed Valhalla.
The game’s announcement trailer doesn’t include footage of Valhalla being played, but its CGI introduction does launch a vicious raid to capture the hearts of Vikings and The Last Kingdom viewers by offering a few minutes of old-timey violence featuring Viking warriors and Alfred The Great’s armies beating the hell out of each other. There’s some good stage-setting included around this, too. The montage sees a pre-Danelaw Alfred giving a speech that demonizes the Scandinavian invaders over clips of them being regular people and, for those more interested in Assassin’s Creed conspiracy-soaked frame story than its historical trappings, the blade-popping reveal that the main Viking character is, indeed, a member of the Assassins.
Collider rounded up a bit more context for the clip, quoting a press release that names the game’s hero as “Eivor, a fierce Viking warrior raised on tales of battle and glory” and the setting as an “open world” that includes “the harsh and mysterious shores of Norway to the beautiful but forbidding kingdoms of England and beyond.” Like the last two Assassin’s Creedses, Valhalla will include “RPG mechanics” as well as new-ish sounding systems like settlement-management that the ability to raid enemies. Sadly, there’s no word yet on whether Valhalla will also feature extensive self-grooming mini-games or multi-hour abstract sequences spent showing the internal thoughts of Vikings agonizing over whether or not to embrace monotheism.
Valhalla is set to release this fall for PC, PlayStation 4, Xbox One, Stadia, and, we imagine, those new Sony and Microsoft consoles.
[via Collider]
39 Comments
I’m both excited and unexcited about the announcement. On the one hand, I love Assassin’s Creed lore. It’s weird and whacky. The combat in Odyssey was a blast, even though I missed the Hidden Blade something fierce early on. The story wasn’t great, but Kassandra was. Origins was great, too. I even preferred it to Odyssey, and so I’m cheered by its developers being behind this. I like the marriage component and the settlement building could be fun, maybe. On the other, I’m not exactly thrilled by the setting. It doesn’t feel fresh. I think there are other periods that could have been more conceptually interesting. I can see how: the ravens are your bird drones this time because Eagle Vision’s gone. There will be ship combat. You’ll probably get Thor powers because the Æsir will be the Isu. Skill-trees and so on. I’m hoping that the wrist blade means we’ll have assassination’s and stealth back, but Vikings weren’t famous for that. My dreams of a game set in Tenochtitlan will have to wait, I suppose.
You and me both. Playing an Aztec (or Inca, or Mayan) assassin fighting against the conquest? Yes. Fucking. Please.
It makes so much sense for Assassin’s Creed’s lore that I can’t believe they haven’t done it yet. I’m hoping Valhalla at least gives me back my most-wanted feature: the codex. I don’t care if they’re not as fun as when Shaun was writing them. I want to read!
You’re right! It’s got everything: power-hungry fucks to kill, a rich and varied world with cities and natural verticality, and a setting where integrating the precursor narrative actually makes sense. The biggest hurdle would just be the difficulty of the research involved to get it right even a little bit, since most primary sources we have are colonial and the archaeology has posed more questions than it’s answered. Of course, that’s also why I want the game so bad.
Thank god I’m not the only one. I spent HOURS reading those codex entries. I actually felt like I learned something with name and event memorization. But Origins cut it out for Discovery Tour and it’s never been the same.
Same here. I find that shit fascinating. It’s like, the research team obviously did hours of work to make the world feel real. Why not let us appreciate that? I loved wandering around the world and then getting a ping about how this building actually existed and here’s info about it.
I liked the sarcasm in the writing and yeah the research was expensive. Unity was a failure of a game but hell if I don’t remember all the major historical figures from the French Revolution. Black Flag is a personal favorite. I knew Blackbeard and the two female pirates and that’s it. Now I’m like yeah, Charles Vane, Jack Rakam and Stede Bonnet.
Oh man, they barely hinted at this kind of action in Black Flag, and I was all set for it! Many years later, nope.
Origins and Odyssey did a good job of reinventing the series but yeah, the different eras thing is already getting stale again. I wouldn’t be surprised if they were planning on feudal Japan, saw Sekiro and Nioh, said “FUCK” and went back to the boardroom to the one guy who suggested “Eh, vikings?” that they had previously laughed off.
I will say exploring the setting of the last two was a lot more fun to me than the actual story so if they nailed that again I’d probably check it out, but I really hope they either wrap up the meandering story of the “present” or just ditch it entirely. I’ve played five of these games and I still have no idea what’s going on.
i still want an AC Japan tho
After Sekiro, there’s no touching (mystical) Feudal Japan for this series, honestly.
I like the AC series enough that I’ll wait for this to be on sale on Steam in a year or two; I just played through Origins earlier this year and absolutely loved it, with the sole exception that the ratio of combat to stealth was completely inverted from what it should be, which is something that the AC games have been whiffing for quite a while now. I think the ideal playthrough of an AC game should allow you, if you play right, to engage in no combat at all. Frankly, Hitman and Hitman 2 have been scratching my “stealth only, no combat” itch way better than the AC games lately.
I’m a little bit torn on Kassandra. As a character, she’s a bit of a mess as a consequence of the scattered narrative of Odyssey and I would both Bayek and Evie ahead of her as a character. However, as a performance, Kassandra’s voice actress does an amazing job. Especially when you compare it with what the hell is happening with Alexios’s voice acting.So a slight spoiler, but I found Alexios nearly impossible to take seriously.
Kassandra’s VA is overall superior, but IMO from what I’ve seen, Alexios’ VA shines on two occasions: if he’s Demios and when you play Alexios as a horn-dog.
Agree to heavily disagree on Alexios’s as Demios.By the way, it’s kind of funny to realize how crucial both Meer and Hale were to the video game evolution due to their performance in Mass Effect. While I still vastly prefer Hale’s approach, both of them did such an awe-inspiring job that it essentially inspired people to try cinematic approaches like these even in cRPGs. Just want to give them a bit more credit in addition to all they deserve.
Agree to heavily disagree on Alexios’s as Demios.Fair, but I liked how Demios felt like a petulant child with Alexios in the role. He’s a whiny demi-god, and that seemed right to me.And, oh, agreed. Both felt like equally valid Shepherds, which is a feat. I know most people prefer Hale, but I played through with Meer’s voice the first time around and I don’t regret it.
For me, Alexios never hit the balance as Demios. I agree that there needed to be that petulance, it was how the character was written, but with that voice actor that was all that Demios was, which hurt everything else about that particular narrative journey.I warmed to Meer in the last two games and I think what allowed them to both feel valid was that they took very different approaches. Having written that, Hale forever. Hell, her ‘There is no Shepard without Vakarian’ still echoes in my heart and soul.
All this years later and I still don’t like Meers performance. There’s a reason he isn’t a voice acting staple and Jennifer Hale is.
Hi! If I checked out of this series sometime in the PS3 era, what would be a good game to get as a one-off? I.e., not to re-dedicate myself to the “lore,” but just as a good game? I always enjoyed them, but I’m mostly looking for lots of hours of story value and fun RPG elements. Any thoughts appreciated!
Hm. Odyssey’s a great introduction to the “new” Assassin’s Creed approach that started with Origins. Both are equally good, IMO, and it’s all a matter of whether you want to explore Ptolemaic Egypt (meeting Caeser, Cleopatra, etc.) or Ancient Greece. Bayek has a stronger story than Kassandra, but the combat’s been refined in Odyssey and they added superpowers. I think you’ll likely get more “time” out of Odyssey. It’s just so…sprawling that it’s been years and I haven’t finished or seen everything in it. Origins is more manageable as a one-off, IMO. But if you want some linearity to start, try: Assassin’s Creed: Black Flag. Easy. It has one of the best post-Ezio narratives. The ship warfare is introduced here, and it’s a blast. The traversal is nearly all verticality. There’s a strong lead. It ties into ACIII and the Isu-stuff. It’s not huge on RPG elements, but the combat and stealth are good. Its companion Assassin’s Creed: Rogue was a PS3-era holdover and re-skin, but it’s absolutely worth playing.
This is an incredibly helpful reply. Thank you.
I clicked Reply to mention Rogue because I was sure you hadn’t, and was pleasantly surprised to see you include it. I’ve been revisiting most of the series and just got to Rogue — we’ll have to see where I land, but so far, I might offer the hot take that it’s one of, if not the, best in the series. I’d otherwise give that distinction to Black Flag, but it honestly has better writing, better pacing, better gameplay, and far better world/level design, with much more variety and less frustrating missions. All that would seem to make it the best, right?
Yeah, I can objectively see your points, but I can’t get over how Black Flag’s ending had me bawling my eyes out.
True, it really managed to bring Edward’s personal narrative together in a satisfying way. I just think it’s a mess before that. Not nearly enough fun pirate shit! Whereas Rogue really leans in to the subversive Templar fantasy in all aspects, and the ending might not be emotional, but it’s still an absolute whopper if you have any knowledge of Unity.That said, I grew up on Sid Meier’s Pirates!, so Black Flag is an absolute dream come true and far dearer to me than Rogue could ever be.
Absolutely hyped for AC: Valhalla as it reminds me of The Last Kingdom (watch it on Netflix now!) a show that is so top notch and deals with this historical time period.I also agree that an Aztec based game would be epic. I mean the Conquistadors are right there as the perfect Templar villains. The pyramids, the Mayans, it makes the head swim.
Like the last two Assassin’s Creedses*Assassin’ses Creed
This really is the joke that keeps on giving, huh.
Actually, the plural of assassin is “assassinopedes”.
My brother studied assassinopodiatry.
Really, really excited for this game and both the trailer and the released information raising my expectations even more.It feels like the developers realized that just increasing the size of the world, like they did in Odyssey, is a nightmare when you are also trying to develop a coherent, touching narrative as the pacing and character relationships are nearly impossible to maintain in that situation. So for me the decision to focus it on the settlement and the people there is a really great decision.
The Homestead storyline of AC3 is one of my favourite arcs in the series, and it’s almost completely optional. It really gave me a reason to care about Connor as a person, despite not being particularly interested in his daddy issues or the American Revolution stuff. I’m excited about the prospect of something like that in Valhalla.
After getting my feet wet with Odyssey on the Stadia trial and dumping >100 hours into it and Origins after getting it on Steam, can’t express how excited I am to lose a chunk of my life to this in a few months. Looks gorgeous, and I’m glad to see they’re sticking with hard mythology – assuming the DLC’s are gonna involve travelling through the Realms or something, this could get pretty batshit in the best of ways!
Dammit, I never quite finished Odyssey because it caused my PC to overheat like crazy at certain points. Looks like I’ll be shelling out the big bucks for upgrades.
D’aww, no helmet horn blades? It would have been kind of comical to do headfirst aerial assassinations, perhaps while the character is screaming “VALHALLA!”
Loved origins but got burnt out by the grinding in odyssey. But this sounds promising, in that it switches up the time period, odyssey and origins felt a little too similar, even down to the same dialogue from NPCs and townsfolk. Now if they would remaster 3 for the current gen and update the mechanics that would hands down be my fave
It doesn’t really look or feel like an AC game anymore which is a bummer if you’re a fan of those games like I am. But it does look like a pretty sweet Vikings game so I’m down for that. I am still reluctant to embrace the switch to being an RPG though. It started with Origins with some elements and make a big leap with Odyssey and now it seems like we’re getting more RPG elements. I just like the old style of play with third person combat, different types of puzzles, etc. But it seems like I’m in the minority. From looking at comments, I’d say 60 to 70% prefer the new style.I do hope its shorter than Odyssey though. While it was a good game, Odyssey is too damn big. Even without the expansions, there’s just too much content. It was easy to get distracted and lose track of the story. Several times I got bored and quit playing because the bloat but ultimately I finished it.
still so wild to me that this, of all games, became such a massive franchise and crossover hit with pretty much all types of gamers.
Why keep focusing just on the historical settings that have been done do death, already? Where are the AC games set in India, China, the sub-Saharan Africa, Persia, or just the friggin’ eastern Europe? Where are the Aksumite Assassins, the Kshatriya Assassins, the Yellow Turban Assassins? There’s so much cool shit in the history that everybody doesn’t already know from hundreds of Hollywood productions that would make amazing games for the franchise.
Also exciting is the new Allen Key tool, which allows you to craft helpful items from the flat-packs scattered throughout Scandinavia.