Review | Assassin's Creed: Valhalla | Winter Spectacular 2020
Assassin's Creed: Valhalla is the highly anticipated cross-gen game released on November 10, 2020, on Xbox One, Series X and S, Playstation 4 and PS5 and PC. It’s also notable as the third instalment of the new line of Assassins Creed games starting with the soft-reboot, Origins, in 2017. You play as Eivor, the cutthroat growling Viking from Norway and as Leyla, the modern-day Assassin's archaeologist as you both travel to England (in different centuries) on separate journeys intertwined by fate.
You up to spec?
SPECIFICATIONS
If you can cast your mind back to a few weeks before the game launched on PC, the powers that be (Ubisoft) gave us a nice specs sheet that ranged from "Minimum" (1080p 30fps) to "Ultra" (4K/2160p 30fps) and everything between. If you don't remember I've included it so you don't need to worry. Anyway - I managed to play this game on it's "High" setting in accordance with the sheet. The PC I played on runs the following:
CPU: Intel Core-i7 7700k
GPU: Nvidia GTX 1080
RAM: 32GB
Yes, the RAM is a bit overkill but it leaves some headroom. And there's an ominous future for my bank account with the CPU being a generation behind what the game wants. But, to tell you more about the impact this had on the game, we need to talk about the performance.
Mmmhh, indeed… Numbers.
PERFORMANCE
I did not struggle to reach the target framerate at the indicated resolution on the sheet. As a matter of fact, sometimes I was closer to triple digits. I have included a photo of my benchmark results. It says I am using a custom graphics quality but that is because I always turn off motion blur, personal preference is all. Benchmarks are one thing but what really matters is in-game so we should talk about the feel of the performance.
Even when the frames dipped by ten or fifteen percent Vallhalla still felt good. Now that may seem odd but the only time performance notably dropped was when I was on a boat. At that point I was hardly even playing, the auto travel feature allows for a passive sailing experience where snappy controls most certainly aren’t needed. Between raiding a monastery to trick or treating as the Mari Lywd, from full-scale sieges to impressive fortress cities, nothing felt sluggish. It even felt better than Odyssey which often felt janky and slow.
What’s the plan?
STORY
The story is a mess, most Assassin's Creed games have A and B stories, some have had a small C story such as the World War One section in Syndicate, comparable to the Asgard storyline in Assassin's Creed: Valhalla, which to put it kindly is long and boring. It tries to tie into Viking story but it's paper-thin. Anyway, let's breakdown the rest of the story first.
Viking Story (A Story)
You start off as a gender-neutral child Eivor being tasked by your father to give a bracelet to the new Jarl/King in order to pledge fealty to him. During this most joyous of celebrations, the town is attacked and you are ordered to run and hide. Those orders truly fall on deaf ears as Eivor is given many chances to escape only to find themselves trying to fight. In the end, your father is killed, and you get adopted into Sigurds family (son of the new Jarl). you also get ravaged by wolves but that doesn’t come into play much.
Eerrr, I like you deer-skull-mask-thing. It’s, um, unique…
Many years pass and as an adult, you escape being sold off as a salve and make your way home. Eivor has sworn to kill the person who killed their father. When you get home you hear that your brother is coming home. When he arrives he brings Haytham and Basim - Assassins. At a great feast, you are given the hidden blade and discuss the man you wish dead. Turns out he is part of The Order... He's a templar.
You learn that young Haytham has been tasked to kill the same man you wish to kill. So later, during a siege, you get into a fight with the man and kill him, only after Haytham takes a good thrashing against the side of a mountain. At some point between all this, you saw a seer who gave you a nice elixir that allowed you to trip out and see a vision. In this vision you somehow betray Sigurd. As such you make it your goal not to do that at any cost.
After the battle and the short stint of drug abuse, you go to King Harold's Halls where your foster-father pledges to abdicate his throne and allow Harold to take it. Infuriated by this, a decision is made: you either rob your father and go to England or just go to England. If Ragnar Lothbrok can do it, so can we, right? Well, It's off to England to raid, pillage, meet kings, forge alliances and build your settlement. There is a light dusting of killing templars in there but more on that later.
Real-World Story (B Story)
A big bold SPOILER ALERT here for Assassin's Creed: Odyssey’s DLC. It's 2020 and the world is falling apart. Talk about hindsight, eh, Ubisoft? Another big doomsday clock armageddon is upon us which isn’t actually explained as to what is going on until the end of the game. Leyla, Shaun and Rebecca are at a dig site, where they uncovered Eivors remains.
We could have put a picture of the modern day stuff here but this is a way prettier screenshot.
After the events of The Throne of Atlantis DLC in Assassin's Creed: Odyssey, Leyla has the staff of Hermes Trismegistus and your team member Victoria is dead, by your hands. The team has followed a mysterious voice communication that led them to find Eivor in the hopes of ending the impending doomsday. You barely spend any time with the team though and only come out of the Animus twice. The A and B storylines are intertwined. The Viking story is used to progress the short and tragic real-world story.
Both stories serve a purpose and are written quite well. Though they both have their faults I did enjoy them. As a fan of the series, I thought the Viking story was a fresh breath of air. A largely untapped setting with a story of bravery and loyalty and some dry dark humour to boot. The B Story, though short, also has great ties to the Desmond story of yesteryears and stays around just long enough to update the story so far.
There’s something really funny to be about Odin being like, “Yo, let’s go for a walk.”
Asgard and Jotunheim Story
I classed this as the C Story earlier but it really has no connection to the overall narrative. After your vision in the opening hour and once you are all settled, the seer comes to your village looking to peddle her narcotics. Eivor decides they could go another drug-induced coma and helps find the plants in order to start this psychedelic trip into the unknown. In this vision, you are Havi, A.K.A. the mac daddy himself, Odin.
It’s a short 4-hour romp if you have the time for it but it’s not fun at all and leaves little lasting impression beyond its nice visuals.
OVERALL STORY
Overall, the story sees Eivor set out to forge an alliance with parts of England whilst Sigurd and Basim go forth hunting down members of The Order. Throughout this, Eivor is constantly plagued with doubt. Do these actions further the prophecy of betrayal? Is this what Sigurd would want? Well lucky for Eivor, Odin is here to help. With every major plot point, Odin chimes in to help guide Eivor.
Assassin's Creed: Valhalla has an excellent but intricate story. Despite throwing over fifty hours at it since launch, I can honestly say, it feels shorter than most AC games. I have dumped upward of two hundred hours into this latest Assassin's Creed series (Origins, Odyssey & Valhalla) and I enjoyed this one the most.
The ending though. It is so bad. It’s clearly DLC bait but let me tell you now, it’s egregious about it. No sugar coating, no big huzzah, not even a credit roll. Just a little box on the side of the screen after a huge revelation and plot point left hanging. The game launched earlier than initially advertised making me think for a second that the game came in hot. But this ending - very obviously planned to make you buy the DLC. Tragically, my season pass was secured in August.
GAMEPLAY
Assassin's Creed: Valhalla gameplay is the same shit, different day. Combat is essentially the same as it has been for years. Dodge any attack of this colour, parry that colour, hold this button to do a powerful attack. Variety is the spice of life but this combat is just mind-numbingly simple. I get it needs to be accessible but throw a dog a bone Ubisoft, innovate! I remember being a glass cannon and fighting the hidden blades in the first four-or-so Assassin’s Creeds. It just feels like a step backwards and in favour of falling in line with every other RPG out there.
When you start some quests you are tasked with a great many things, sometimes this includes playing detective. C.S.I Viking if you will. These quests require you to go off of knowledge ascertained from conversation with a quest-giver. Sometimes these investigations can be in a small area like a building or a room, while others it can be a whole town! Sometimes you will even need to pay close attention to the people you are around and find out who a traitor is. With wrong choices leading to catastrophic revelations later on. Valhalla is really good at giving these smaller quests a bit of personality and weight.
Whilst we are on the topic of quests, most side quests are now ‘World Events’. Little one-note single solution quests that take but a few seconds. Come across two brothers fighting over who gets more money from sold grain? Burn the fields and silos. Lovers having a hard time getting into the heat of the moment? Burndown their house! It is truly amazing just how much fire fixes things.
Finer Details
I implore you, synchronise with everything. Traversing by horseback or on boat almost anywhere is a struggle. Travelling by horse is painful. Though they do have infinite sprint when on the roads and can follow the roads, but, sometimes their AI just falls asleep and the horse becomes unresponsive. While you can upgrade the horse to swim, give it more stamina or health, etc. I still favour fast travel. The map is large but fast travel makes it smaller, especially when you go deep inland. Not only will fast travel make your life much easier, but you’ll become more inclined to seek out the loot. Just hold V and watch your compass fill with gold. Then watch your pockets fill with silver… somehow.
For some strange reason, you level up two levels at a time. This only works when you put skill points into your skill constellation (trees are so 2015). In order to pledge yourself to a county on the map you often have to be a specific level else you become a smear on the cobblestones. But I have found that even being thirty levels underpowered, you can still get by if you have a good understanding of the combat.
SCREAMS IN VIKING"
OVERALL
It's at this point I would tally up some scores and hit you with the 'X out of ten' but I am aware that is not a thing here at startmenu and thus I will have to use my words.
Unlike Odyssey, Valhalla feels better and does not outstay its welcome. Combat was fun if boring, the story is rich and enthralling and just to top it off, the performance was a dream. Dear reader, I will not lie: I am a massive Assassin's Creed fan, I even liked Unity. By far, Syndicate is my favourite but Valhalla has scooched right up into second place with no effort at all.
I would like to say though, the Assassin's part of this game is in name and characters only - this is an excellent Viking game, but not a good Assassin's Creed game. All the assassin stuff really takes a back seat. I don't mind though as I was given a great game, but Eivor is no Jacob or Evie Frye. I do recommend this game though, the story baits itself shamelessly for DLC but I have to admit am looking forward to a finding out the ending to Eivors saga.
