Also Gamergaters know fuck all about SJWs or the left because if they did they would know the most egregious thought crimes committed in the Assassin’s Creed games were making Karl Marx a lib in Syndicate and leaning in favour of the monarchy in Unity. Yes, I’m still mad that Robespierre wasn’t aligned with the Assassins.
On that note, what’s everyone’s favourite bit of AC lore? Mines is a toss up between the Templars engineering the 2000 election victory in George W Bush’s favour or Lenin was an affilliate of the Assassins.
Marx being a liberal was almost comically absurd, although Syndicate is still one of my favourites of the series. (Mostly because Jacob is my favourite Assassin.)
The best obscure lore is that Henry Kissinger is allied with the Templars and Pinochet works for Abstergo.
eta: I need to know what the internal rules they are using to decide which historical figures side with which faction that allows for ‘Marx and Lenin are Assassins, but Mao… Mao is a Templar’.
I’m going to get banned off the Assassin’s Creed subreddit for spamposting that Ludwig von Mises, Friedrich Hayek and Milton Friedman were canonically Templar.
Why go with the s*itty Vikings TV show aesthetics (and content in all likelihood) Ubisoft, and not the phenomenal Vinland Saga? I mean I know why, but I’m still disappointed.
Also, this trailer was the most boring AC trailer to date imo.
Ubisoft would make a dreadful Vinland Saga game, but damn do I want a Vinland Saga game. But I suspect they went with this period because it lets them write about Odin, etc., while also being set in England where there is a bit more historical (ish) and archaeological record to draw on. There are a lot of details, many likely apocryphal but nonetheless at least medieval, about Ælfred that are absent for many (pre-Christian) Viking Age monarchs.
I guess they could have gone for Bluetooth, though, that’d have been fun. He even has treasures associated with him, which always makes for a good pointless collectathon.
Pre-Assassins Creed 3 writers - an affiliate of the Assassins who campaigned on a corporation tax of Abstergo.
Post-Unity writers - an unwitting puppet of the Templars who helped to defeat Hillary in 2016.
All this Abstergo talk reminds of why Edward Kenway in Black Flag was my favorite protagonist. Because he, like me, did not give a shit about the overarching meta-narrative.
But back on topic, apparently first AC: Valhalla footage will be 5/7 (next Thursday) in the Xbox Series X gameplay reveal stream. Someone should make a thread about that Summerfest thing.
History Respawned did a quick episode on the new trailer. They called it the perfect distillation of Assassin’s Creed’s revisionist history, which they describe as “revising the revisions.” That sounds more negative than it comes across, they were pretty positive on it.
It’s actually refreshing to listen to a historical podcast that recognizes the value in making concessions to things like gameplay and engagement and doesn’t just nitpick that the swords are six inches shorter than they should be (not that I don’t like learning about the ludicrously ahistorical nature of videogame swords, too).
I think that would have been a more interesting, less explored, Viking period setting. Or even the Norman conquest, so that you could actually have some castles, if that’s what they wanted. EDIT: The late 10th C would have also allowed for the truly cool monster longships, like the 30m+ long and only 2.7m wide Haithabu 1, which probably had 80 rowers (Viking ships are my thing, if anyone couldn’t tell!):
Personally, my favorite modern ‘norse’ visuals are from the Banner Saga games, even though those are pure fantasy.
ArchaeoSoup did a reaction video about the trailer too. I like how he describes the Saxons as being “Errol Flynn-ified”. Aside from the presence of castles in a period where there were none, he also points to Alfred’s outfits and the costumes of the Saxons in general. He’s more lukewarm on it:
He has an interesting Archaeo-chat from last year with Prof. Howard Williams which seems relevant. It’s nominally about horned helmets, but they delve in to a long discussion about cultural and ethnic stereotyping through material culture representations in media. They point out how for Vikings 19th-century horned helmets have been replaced by furs, guy-liner, and face tattoos. And they also talk about people’s obsession with too much “accuracy” and how that can blind people from more complex and nuanced interpretations about the past:
Haven’t played any of the new style AC games, but I’ve been pretty close on Odyssey. These games just seem too big, too much content. I don’t want to have to run that far to get to somewhere. Probably won’t play this one either. Character design is truly awful. People mentioning Vinland Saga makes me so sad that it doesn’t look like that instead. Over designing characters is a big videogame/Ubisoft problem after all, when some simple wool clothes and chain mail could be so striking.
As other people have said, they’re great podcast games. I’ve even gone so far as to automate travel to a longer objective instead of fast travelling so that I can read while Phobos gallops to a destination.
I do think Origins is better but not perfect at gradually opening up the map to you and keeping the objectives fairly self-contained within specific regions but by the time you are required to travel long distances you can just start using the fast-travel option although it’s at atmospheric world that is cool to ride around in.
It was probably better to play Odyssey when it first came out. Ubisoft has been FLOODING the game with extra side quests to do, even outside the DLC quests.
Aye, I agree. I played it obsessively up til January 2019 then bounced off hard after the questionable forced romance they throw on you in the Legacy of the First Blade DLC. Went back to it and had to restart from scratch as a ton of things had changed and I had no idea what was what.
