Assassin's Creed Valhalla

[elgaucho]

The previews for this actually look pretty good, and as though UBI are learning that cut and paste games don't work. They're taking some risks with the design and open world model, and it has my interest. I doubt it'll be a day one for me, but i'll probably grab it in the first reasonable sale.

[Mantis]

Which ones have you watched? I do like me some vikings but the fact that the games up until now have all followed the same old formula often puts me off trying the newer ones.

[DjchunKfunK]

The last two games have deviated a fair bit from the classic AC template, they are getting to be more and more like RPGs now and it seems that Valhalla continues that trend.

[Mantis]

I played Origins to completion and aside from adding in the stats and traits system, plus making the combat more of a generic RPG style, overall I don't think anything about the core experience really changed. Same old Assassin's Creed.

[elgaucho]

Which ones have you watched? I do like me some vikings but the fact that the games up until now have all followed the same old formula often puts me off trying the newer ones.

I can't speak to all the other AC games, but I was blown away by Odyssey. The other AC games I played always ended up being about the plain old assassinations, the world navigation, but I never really felt part of a world or culture with a history and stories I wanted to explore. Odyssey changed that massively! If you look at it purely from a challenge / combat pov, it's unremarkable. But if you play it as an experience of stories it's grand.

I'm nervous that Valhalla is ditching some of that richness of storytelling for this, but I'm curious to see if they can pull it off.

I watched the following preview yesterday:

[Rusty]

It really does look like a reskinned Odyssey. That's not a bad thing but means I'll wait until it's nice and cheap (like I did for Farcry 4 and 5 and Origins and Odyssey)

[Sly Boots]

I'm done buying Ubi games, horrible company.

[Asherons]

Havn't played an assassins creed game yet. will probably try to pick it up if/when i am able to snag a ps5

[Snowy]

Canaried Valhalla, which with Watch Dogs also having been snagged has made this an expensive month for games. Honestly, I would not bother with Watch Dogs either as it doesn't bring much new to the party.

Then again the same is true of Valhalla - if you liked Odyssey and Origins and want to play the game re-skinned and re-imagined for a third time then you will like this. I enjoyed them and am enjoying this, so far. The game opens in Norway and gives you what is effectively a very extended tutorial area to have fun in. One thing I like is that they have pared back the map options even more than they did in Odyssey, so very few icons and a need to actively hunt for valuables, side quests, quest locations and the like.

As I say, little is new. Climb to specific high points to provide fast-travel locations and reveal map areas, specific 'order' targets to unmask via finding clues and kill a la odyssey, resources to collect to improve gear/boat/etc, tattoo designs to chase over rooftops etc. New to the party is competive drinking (a fairly dull mini-game), flyting (verbal jousting where you have to poetically abuse your opponent, using the best rhyme and meter) which is a lot of fun and dicing (averagely enjoyable). Also new is raiding - as you travel around you come across forts, townships and the ever lucrative monasteries. Raiding is fun, racing up the banks of the river having beached your longship with a horde of bellowing vikings longside you, villagers running screaming from you as the soldiers run towards. Killing innocents is not allowed, but you have no shortage of folks to slaughter in raids. Win and you get to pillage goods that you use to upgrade the facilities at your home town.

It is good that they have raiding as a pastime as the map is pretty huge and travel is quite dull. You can steer yourself if you want to but you are generally following narrow waterways and can choose to automatically follow riverbanks or navigate automatically to your destination, which can take time. While the views are lovely, having things to break up a lengthy river journey is good.

Some of the characters are interesting, thankfully including your own. Eivar is no shrinking violet, and his conversation reflects that he is a serious shitkicker. I have also come across some fun quests, from protecting a guy tripping balls from eating mushrooms to collecting adder eggs (the adders look incredibly similar to Origins' cobras - if I ever saw a 12 foot adder in the UK I would run!) for a woman in order for her to take a very unusual revenge on a group of men who have imprisoned her.

It is funny, Ubicunts have released two games set in the UK and I recognise neither

All in all as I say I am enjoying it. Time will tell whether the law of diminishing returns has me put it aside, but Odyssey has 76 hours played and Origins has only 56, so maybe it will go the other way?