I’m not excited about this setting. There’s a lot of Viking stuff out there already and one of my favorite parts of Assassin’s Creed is that it features settings that aren’t often in popular media like 15th century Constantinople or Ptolemaic Egypt.
I’m kinda torn on where the series is right now. Origins is easily the best game since Black Flag but I miss the games being almost exclusive urban with the focus being on traversal rather than combat. The transition from the trigger being the parkour button to the combat button is something I still dislike.
Totally get that, there has been a lot of Viking stuff these past few years. I’m mainly looking forward to sailing around on a longship and taking in the sights. I do wish, however, they would be more imaginative in their locations. After Origins I was personally hoping for a game set in late republican Rome, or even in like 3rd century CE imperial Rome. Ancient Rome is one city I would love to parkour through. Even that is still pretty vanilla though. There are so many interesting time periods and cultures out there, but they tend to stick with the more popular ones (probably for good reason, tbh).
So the game is called Assassin’s Creed: Valhalla, and we are getting a trailer tomorrow. I must say I kind of enjoyed that teaser, was different and cool to see a digital artist at work like that.
My best friend is a classicist, most of my uni friends studied either the Italian Renaissance or the Crusades, my ex’s wife wrote her thesis on the French and American revolutions, and half of the people I know these days are Marxist historians. So, as someone who majored in medieval studies with a focus on Vikings and early England, it is finally my turn to have the thing I studied delightfully fucked up but in parts brought beautifully to life by Ubisoft.
Ol’ Reliable Jason Schreier said that Ubisoft has five games coming out in their fiscal 2020 year (i.e. April 2020 - March 2021): Watch Dogs, Rainbow Six, Gods and Monsters, Assassin’s Creed: Valhalla, and a new Far Cry, with the first three coming this year and the next two coming early next year. If that’s still true, I find it rather curious that they’re announcing AC now.
My little bird brain misread this as “my best friend is a classist” and I could not for the life of me figure out why you lead with that or are friends with them
I absolutely adored Origins, Bayek was so fucking good. I havent played Odyssey incase it sours me on Assasins Creed again. Though i’m tempted to go back to either Unity or Syndicate since I never beat either of them or even played them for long.
Talking about locations/time periods though, give me a resistance group in WW2… or just give me a damn The Saboteur sequel
I remember how cool it was in 2007 to see a major AAA release take place in the Middle East without demonizing the people there. Assassin’s Creed treated the place fairly well, especially when you compare it to the contemporary COD4 which was textbook American anti-Muslim racism in many ways. Since then it has been sad to see Assassin’s Creed lean more and more Euro and America-centric with each subsequent entry, with only AC3 and Origins really straying from the overwhelming whiteness of the main series. I guess I shouldn’t have gotten my hopes up for an Ethiopian, Indian, Japanese, or whatever non-white Assassin’s Creed, but I’m disappointed nonetheless. Oh well, I’m sure Valhalla will be a decent time for those that are interested.
Hmm… I found this on Twitter, but I couldn’t confirm where it came from. I wonder if Eivor is a gender neutral name, cause I thought Ubisoft made a pledge to always have gender selection in their future Assassin’s Creed games.
We haven’t touched on Valhalla’s main character Eivor in great detail, though partly this is due to Ubisoft avoiding plot spoilers and partly because, more than ever, I get the feeling we’ll be crafting our own version of this hero as the story progresses. One thing the trailer doesn’t tell you is that Eivor can be played as either male or female, and that your choice of gender is only part of the customisation you’ll get. Beards, tattoos and war paint options will be available to pick from. Your gear will also be customisable, Laferrière says, as will your Viking longboat. (Oh, and you get a Viking longboat.) Why does the trailer focus on the male version of Eivor only, I asked? The answer, as was the case with Odyssey’s Kassandra and Alexios, is that the marketing will “showcase both at different points”.
And it looks like it’s set earlier than I thought:
It’s in Britain, of course, you’ll eventually meet King Alfred, who the trailer paints as the villain of the piece, complete with some Templar-looking artefacts in the background. But Laferrière assures me that Alf will be more of a complex character when you meet him in-game. “He is shown in that [villainous] way in the trailer but over the course of the game you’ll see there’s a lot more nuance to him,” I’m told. The game looks set to cover the Viking campaign against him (the one which led to him being on the run, burning cakes) and his eventual success at pushing the Norse back and unifying swathes of England. “Alfred the Great is a very important historical figure we want to treat right,” Laferrière says. “And to do so it’s all in the subtleties and nuances you’ll find.”
I’m into the whole “you’ll have a Viking settlement that reacts to your decisions and will grow and change” aspect. I love that they’re just going whole-hog on the RPG stuff at this point.
Called it on King Alfred, but I’m kind of disappointed it appears to be mainly set in England. I was hoping you could sail around the Baltic, or visit Ireland. But I guess Vikings in England is popular at the moment.
Visually, it looks like they are leaning heavily on the History Channel’s Vikings show. To the point it almost feels like copyright infringement to me, haha. Wish they had gone with more realistic looking Vikings instead of Fantasy barbarians, would have made a good change of pace.
Like the bit about your own longship and settlement! That could be fun. I do hate the chunky viking ship aesthetic, wish they had gone with a more realistic, slender, and colorful style (like the 10th C Danish Ladby Ship)
