The newest entry into a well-established franchise, Assassin’s Creed: Valhalla pushes Ubisoft’s key title into more exciting places than ever.
The Assassin’s Creed franchise has been through its twists and turns. We’ve seen story-driven action titles with a focus on stealth, a multiplayer-driven experience, a pirate simulator, and now, Assassin’s Creed: Valhalla is making a serious play into the realm of the open world RPG.
The newest game pits you as Eivor the viking in the midst of an English invasion. It’s up to you to establish a foothold in the region by pillaging, scrounging, exploring, and occasionally assassinating whatever stands before you.
The order you do all this, and whether you choose do some things at all, is entirely up to you.
In a three-hour demo I was allowed a peek into an almost release-ready build of Assassin’s Creed: Valhalla, beginning somewhere close to the start of the game’s storyline. The recommended strategy, and the strategy I followed, was to undertake a main story mission in order to unlock free-roam throughout a large in-game region.
Once the fort was conquered, the world was ripe for the exploring, and that’s exactly how I spent the rest of the demo.
During that time I became privy to most of the game’s core systems including a branching Path of Exile style talent tree, powerful unlockable abilities hidden in nooks and crannies around the world, your basic means of transport by boat and horse, the all-important ability to pat dogs, and much more.
The map is really yours to take by the horns, and a completionist could have spend far longer than three hours attending to all the secrets in this single early area of the game. The exploration elements are split into three main categories – wealth, artefacts, and mysteries – and this zone had over 20 to find in total.
One in particular was a world boss around 70 power levels higher than me, who wiped the floor with my corpse after a cheeky bout. That, for instance, would require a return trip after acquiring more talents and some better gear.
But the vast majority of secrets are yours to sniff out. Attack them one-by-one, focus on building your settlement, follow the main quest – the choices are presented with equal weight, and it’s up to you which you’ll be following.
For this and more, check out our Assassin’s Creed: Valhalla gameplay above.
Assassin’s Creed: Valhalla will release worldwide on November 10 on Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S, PlayStation 4, and PC. A PlayStation 5 version will release alongside the console on November 12.
Find out more here.
