Finishing The Backlog: AC Valhalla
It’s been awhile since I last wrote anything
It’s been awhile since I finished a game and I just decided that I was going to finish a bunch of games for some reason
Which brings me here, Assassin’s Creed Valhalla. I tried playing this game around 3 years ago, and it just never stuck with me for some reason. For some reason, I felt the need to complete this game, so I had decided to download it once more and give it a second chance. I’m glad I did. There are some issues with it that we’ll get to eventually, but over all this game was extremely fun and had me hooked, putting in nearly 145 hours total and playing both the base game + the druids DLC.
Spanning a massive map of old Anglo-Saxon England from 872 to 878 AD, you play as Eivor, a Norse warrior looking to take over a new continent and leaving a mark with their fellow Raven clan members.
The Story:
The story itself was fantastic and linear, following Eivor’s footsteps to trek new land with his brother Sigurd and build a home for his clan members after things in Norway do not work out. There’s a wonderful blend of’reality’ along with Norse mythology, built into the story with Eivor seeing that his path is very parallel to that of Odin and Loki based on choices made in the game.
The story is pretty linear, with Eivor going through districts/areas within the game map and making allegiances with other district leaders. There’s also an overarching issue within the world with the Templars and Assassins, two hidden factions constantly having a power struggle with each other. If you’ve played any Assassins Creed game, you’d get the gist of it by now.
Throughout the journey, you’re able to meet unique characters, get to understand their own struggles, and help them with issues pertaining to their situations. Helping a young king take a throne in the district when he’s not ready or finding a traitor amongst a leader’s faithful followers, there are many unique situations in which Eivor ends up taking part.
There are multiple plot points that take place throughout the game all at once: the parallels of Eivor’s story with Odin, a war that’s brewing over all of England, forging allegiances with multiple districts, the Assassins versus Templar hidden war both in the past and present, and should you do it, the DLC story beats, and optional Asgard missions. It can get very confusing to keep up with the long duration of the game itself; it may even seem a bit overwhelming when it comes to having so much detail within a structure.
Overall, it does a good job unfolding itself, but more importantly, getting you to care for its world and characters. Eivor, Sigurd, Bassim, Randvi, etc. All of these characters have their own story beats and their own events. The story does a good job of managing all of this and having the player develop a certain fondness for these characters. There’s a good amount of highs, lows, twists, and turns throughout the game, but in the end it is very linear, and based on your choices you have multiple endings. Due to the fact, that the game is a live-service game there’s no real ending to it, which is a little unfortunate, but a lot of conclusions are made with many characters within the world.
The Gameplay:
I love playing my games a certain way, and that’s to be as overpowered as possible. Knowing this, you won’t be surprised to know that I’ve spent nearly hours on Reddit trying to make the best overpowered build along with using old glitches and bugs to get Odin’s spear early in the game. Yes, I played the whole Druid’s DLC to get Gae Bolg, and I even got the Destiny Arc Strider spear to run a two spear setup to be as overpowered as possible. Is it taking away the fun from the game? To some people, probably; to me, no.
That being said, I had a fantastic time being overpowered throughout this game. However, there are problems with the game itself, and that’s the whole point of this section to discuss and dissect all of this. I faced a good amount of bugs in the game—bugs that forced me to restart the game or just made the experience a little worse. Nothing that I would be too upset with, but things in which I can see where players would be frustrated, but you have to give the developers some slack here. This Assassins Creed game is huge (which is also part of the problem), but also came out when the PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X just came out. Optimizing for multiple consoles + PCs is not an easy thing to do, regardless of how many developers are on the project. With the ambitiousness of releasing a game for all these platforms, you’re bound to see bugs.
The game is huge; often times quests are pretty repetitive; there are way too many items/loot throughout the map; there are way too many districts within the map; it’s a lot. It’s very daunting to start a game, and knowing you have at least 100 hours to go in, there are 3 sections of the map in the base game: Vinland, Norway, and England. Within these maps there are territories, so you can imagine how big it is. If we’re to include DLC, we have Ireland and France as well; it’s a lot to take in, and while the map is absolutely gorgeous, filled with different areas and different environments, the truth is, it’s just a lot to do.
While it is called Assassin’s Creed, I felt it better if I told myself this was just a Viking action-RPG; it played much better knowing that I should just go pillaging and fighting in the open rather than going stealth-based; it didn’t seem like the right thing to do, but that’s based on my choice of playstyle. One thing I think games can do a better job of is using their level environments to their advantage, which generally Assassins Creed games do from their use of parkour. For example, if you have a building with a rooftop, the building itself (rooms, floors, etc.), then you have an underground area like a basement. Due to the expansive nature of this game, I think there were a lot of things missing from that perspective.
Conclusions:
Overall, I enjoyed the journey of Assassins Creed Valhalla, and while there were some concerns with the gameplay loops and gameplay, the story was enjoyable. I’m really happy to have spent the time I did, and I found myself immersed with it’s characters, world, and narrative. I think it was a judge a bit too rough; I believe it was a fun experience from beginning to end.
