Assassin’s Creed Valhalla video game is an exciting open-world game developed by Ubisoft Montreal and published by Ubisoft in November 2020. The action role-playing game is the twelfth instalment in the game’s franchise following the 2018 Assassin’s Creed Odyssey.
The Assassin’s Creed video game was set in 872-878AD, narrating the fictitious tale of Vikings’ expansions into the British Isles. The game player controls the main character of the game, a Viking raider known as Eivor Varinsdottir.
Eivor is entangled in the long age war between the Assassin Brotherhood, who are fighting for freedom and peace, and the Templar Order, who, on the other hand, chase to control peace.
The Assassin’s Creed Valhalla game was released on the 10th of November 2020 for PS4, Xbox One, Xbox Series X & S, Microsoft Windows, and Stadia, while the PS5 version of the game was released a few days after on the 12th of November. And since the release of the game, it has received positive feedback from gamers and critics on its visuals, gameplay, soundtrack, and others.
However, there have been few criticisms on the game duration, repetitive structure, and technicalities with updates. In this game review, I will be sharing more details about the game features, its unique advantage over other games in the series and its downsides.
Game Story And Characters
A few years after the Atlantis events, the planet has begun to experience the negative effect of the mysterious strengthening of the magnetic field. A signal was sent to the Assassins leading them to all converge in New England; from there, Rebecca Crane, Layla Hassan and Shaun Hastings exhumes the corpse of a Viking raider.
Layla, consumed by her guilt over Victoria Bibeau’s death and also under the influence of Hermes’s staff, passes into Animus to view the Viking raider’s memories.
The memories started in ninth-century Norway, where a younger Eivor witnessed the destruction of her homeland by Kjotve, a cruel Warlord, during the celebration feast in honour of King Styrbjorn of the Raven Clan.
In a bid to save his people, Vain Evior’s father, going against the Viking’s tradition of dying honourably in battle, surrenders to the Warlord, but Kjokve, after killing Varin, still went ahead to massacre the entire village.
However, Styrbjorn’s son, Sigurd, came to the rescue of Evior even though during the escape Evior was attacked by a wolf and this occurrence earned her the nickname wolf-kissed.
Years later, in the story, Evior has been adopted by King Styrbjorn and seeks to avenge the death of her father and clan by Kyotve, the cruel. After several failed attempts, she was able to recover her father’s Axe at last and, while touching the Axe, experienced a vision of Odin.
Evior consulted a local seer, Valka, who prompted another vision; with Sigurd losing his arm before a large wolf consumed him, this vision is interpreted by Valka as a prophecy of Evior’s betrayal of Sigurd, which she finds difficult to believe.
However, Styrbjorn is unhappy with Eivor for hunting Kjotve and risking an open war between them and forbade her from her revenge attack. Sigurd, who was on a raiding expedition, returns with two foreigners and members of the Hidden Ones; Basim and Hytham.
The two siblings ignored their father’s instructions and confronted Kjotve, reclaiming a village from his grasp before forming an alliance with King Harald.
It was also revealed that Basim and Hytham came to Norway with Sigurd just to assassinate Kjotve, as he was a member of the order of Ancients but would allow Eivor to kill him. With support from King Harald, Sigurd was able to lead an assault attack on Kjotve’s territory, and Eivor was able to kill Kjotve.
After the triumph, King Harald declared his intent to unite the whole of Norway into a single nation ruled by him. Sigurd is angered by his father’s allegiance to King Harald, as he expected to take over the crown.
Sigurd, Eivor and their loyalists left for England to build their new kingdom, somewhere in Mercia on an abandoned Viking camp and named it Ravensthorpe.
They formed an alliance with the local Viking Clans and Saxon kingdoms where Eivor met new associates like; Ivar, Halfdan and Ubba Ragnarsson, Guthrum Jarl, and Ceolwulf of Mercia.
In the interim, it was revealed by Hytham that the enemies of the Hidden Ones (i.e. Order of the Ancients) are also in England and request Eibor’s help to take out the members in Jorvik Lunden and Winchester.
During this mission, Evior is assisted by an unknown person under the guise of “Poor Fellow-Soldier of Christ”.
Meanwhile, Valka gives Eivor an elixir that allows her to dream of Asgard and sees herself as Odin, who is trying to prevent his death by Ragnarok when Loki conceives a son named Fenrir, defying Odin’s law.
To ensure their soul is reincarnated after Ragnarok, Odin journeyed to Jotunheimr to reclaim a magical mead.
On his return back to Asgard, he binds Fenrir, and himself, Thor, Freyja, and the other Aesir drink the mead passing their souls into Yggdrasil, not before forbidding Loki from the ritual.
Layla discovers that the Viking’s visions she just experienced were actually the Isu during the Great Catastrophe. Loki makes sure of his own survival without the Aesir knowing that he defied Odin’s instruction.
Sigurd, together with Basim, came across an Isu relic known as Saga stone, which makes Sigurd to think of himself as a god with backing from Basim.
He is then captured by a servant of King Aelfred and an Order agent, Fulke, who also believes he is an Isu descendant. Basin and Eivor were able to track down Fulke to where she kept Sigurd captive, having tortured and taken out his right arm.
Fluke was killed and Sigurd rescued but by then he was already experiencing disillusions by then. Sigurd and Eivor went back to Norway, where they discovered a hidden Isu temple with advanced technology in the shape of a great tree.
And connecting with the computer system, they are transported to Valhalla, where they engage in an endless array of battles, Eivor comes across her father and also realises that Valhalla is a dream-world.
When they come back, Basim confronts and discloses to them that the three of them were reincarnations of Odin, Tyr and Loki. Basim attempted to attack Eivor to avenge his son, Fenrir but with Sigurd’s support, Evior traps him in the computer system.
Sigurd, disappointed with himself, hands over the clan leadership to Eivor; he can either choose to follow Eivor back to England or stay back in Norway.
However, Eivor and his followers, when they got back to England, joined forces with Guthrum in their attack on Wessex and King Aelfred were defeated at the Battle of Chippenham, causing him to flee to Athelney where he lives as a commoner.
Eivor tracked him down, and it was revealed that he’s the Poor Fellow-Soldier of Christ and Order of Ancients Grand Master. Alfred’s plan was to infiltrate and destroy the Order, then build a new God-fearing order to replace it. Eivor is welcomed back to Ravensthorpe as a hero.
Back to the present, the Assassins concluded that the magnetic field reinforcement was because of the activation of the Isu towers by Desmond Miles to protect the Earth in the year 2012.
And to stabilise the magnetic field to its original strength, Layla had to travel down to Norway, going along with the Staff to protect against lethal radiation. In the temple.
Layla connect with the simulation computer and came across Basim (still trapped in the computer system), who informed that the message that led the assassins to Eivor remains was sent by him. He aided Layla to stabilise the magnetic field and thereby releasing himself from incarceration.
He steals the Staff, which contains his lover’s consciousness, from Layla, who was still trapped; Basin regenerates his body and escapes the temple to see Rebecca and Shaun demanding to meet with William Miles.
Meanwhile, a trapped Layla met Reader, who helped her to avert another extinction occurrence, while Basim set out to track down his missing children by re-entering the Animus.
Graphics
The visual of the video game is beautifully crafted, although not as much as I expected from the game compared to its predecessor. The graphics of the game look very nice, and the game characters’ animations are well detailed graphically at optimal resolution.
In the performance mode, the Valhalla game, the game maintains a steady resolution and graphic setting at 60fps. While in quality mode, the game runs at maximum resolution and graphic setting at 30fps.
During the launch, the game developers Ubisoft stated that the default graphics setting for PS5 and Xbox Series X is the performance model.
Sound
The sound quality of AC Valhalla is very poor and falls below my expectation for a game released on the next-gen console. The game audio mostly sounds crunchy and muffed. Even though the main cast sounds clear and loud, the other characters are barely audible enough.
But other than thus few audio issues, the audio sound used for the gameplay is not bad, and it is an awesome experience with a perfect combination of sound and play mode.
The video game allows the player to change the audio settings from default and also to select the preferred language to use for playing the game from the game setting menu.
Playability
The gameplay of the Assassin’s Creed Valhalla game is designed around the various major story and optional mini-game known as World Events. The game player controls the role of a Viking raider, Eivor, who leads his Vikings comrades against Anglo-Saxon territories.
At the beginning of the Valhalla game, the game player can play as either a male or female player or let the game alternate between the two genders at significant moments in the story.
Players can also customise their cast, Eivor’s hair, tattoos, bread, clothing, and armoury. In this Assassin’s Creed Valhalla game, the weapons available to the player have been extended to consist of great swords and flails.
The combat styles in the game have been upgraded to allow dual wielding of weapons and shields, unlike previous games in the series and every single piece of gear collection is unique. Returned in this Assassin’s Creed series is the Eagle Vision mechanic who looks like Odin sight.
The naval transport also returned in the series; however, it’s used more as a means of transportation during raids and as escape vehicles after land combat, unlike other games that it was used during combat with other vessels.
Assassin’s Creed Valhalla shares the same gameplay structure as its predecessors, with the main storyline and an optional side quest.
The storyline of Assassin’s Creed Valhalla is unlike that of the previous games as the core gameplay doesn’t move linearly through the selections of the game world and not all missions in the game have to end with violence, as some of the operations can be resolved diplomatically.
A returning feature from the Odyssey series is the Conquest Battles, but this time around in the form of Assaults, where the player leads an army of Vikings to attack an enemy camp.
Another feature is the Raids, where players will lead a raid party to attack a particular target with the aim of acquiring resources needed for survival in their settlement.
The player has an animal companion, a raven called Synin, who helps to scout the surrounding areas before the main character engages in a battle. The raven can also be used as a form of distraction to guards while Eivor slips into certain places.
Pros
- The Assassin’s Creed Valhalla video game has an incredible cast of characters.
- The visuals and game set is gorgeous and appealing to explore.
- The game combat mode is very engaging and breathtaking.
- The game has an excellent role-playing game level sequence.
- The game has unique and thrilling side quests.
Cons
- The game story is similar to other games in the series.
- The game supports only single-player mode.
- There are quite a few game-crashing challenges on some hardware.
- The mechanics used for enemies is inconsistent.
Buying Guide
Here is a buying guide for the Assassin’s Creed Valhalla video game.
Similar Games
There are a handful of other video games that share similarities with Assassin’s Creed Valhalla and some of which are available on the different gaming platforms; Assassin’s Creed: Odyssey, God of War, Hellblade: Senua’s Sacrifice, Dishonored 2, Middle-Earth: Shadow of War, Uncharted 4, The Witcher 3: The Wild Hunt, Hitman 3, Batman: Arkham Asylum, Watch Dogs 2, Mirror’s Edge: Catalyst, Dragon Age and The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild.
Is The Assassin’s Creed Valhalla Game Worth Buying?
Assassin’s Creed Valhalla is a fantastic game to play and worth the price compared to the previous games in the series or other games of the same genre. Also, the game is available for buying in all game stores globally.
Conclusion
Having played this game, I can say that Assassin’s creed Valhalla is one of the best Role-Playing games I have ever played. Valhalla’s RPG foundations and mechanics have been perfected over time from its predecessors; Assassin’s Creed Origins and Odyssey.
The modern-day tale of the Assassin’s Creed Valhalla follows the narrative of an Assassin, Layla Hassan, who relives the memories of Eivor in an effort to save the world from annihilation.
The unique thing about the Assassin’s Creed Valhalla is that the game story and plot were engaging, and I can easily adapt to any twist and decision I make during the game.
With the previous game, Odyssey, my gameplay choice can most times be confusing and illogical, but the Valhalla video game has entirely different and exciting mechanics.
So far, the Assassin’s Creed Valhalla video game has received the most significant launch in the game series, having sold the most copies in the first week of the game launch.
Assassin’s Creed Valhalla Game Photos
