How to become a Ragnar – “Assassin’s Creed: Valhalla” review

The fashion for Vikings does not go away. The Vikings lived to see six seasons on small screens . In turn, in the Marvel films, the character of Thor is the strongest Avenger. Great items also appear in Japan, just to mention the manga and anime Saga of the Winland. It is no different in the case of games where even God of War has ventured into these areas. It was just a matter of time before Ubisoft took the Assassin cycle in this direction.

The French studio is famous for a massive chops warmer. And rightly so. Assassin’s Creed: Valhalla is the twelfth installment of the main series, although if you count all the minor titles, it’s position number twenty-two (sic!). At the same time, as rumor has it (aka sales reports), the Viking edition of the cycle breaks popularity records and is the fastest-selling title in the history of the brand. So there is a method in this madness, and even a reheated cutlet can taste like a gourmet dish .

Assassin’s Creed: TV Series

The Vikings mentioned at the outsetare a clear inspiration for the creators. Like there, the story begins in Norway and then moves to England. Anyway, Ragnar himself is often mentioned in the plot, and his sons are quite important supporting characters. The serial tracks, however, go further and the entire structure of the game is saturated with them. The player’s character, Eivor, an orphan from the Raven clan, sets out with his half-brother Sigurd to conquer the Saxon kingdoms. On the spot, it turns out that the Normans are not doing very well on the British Isles. Eivor and his brethren set up a settlement, Raven’s Landing, from which more raids are planned to sack monasteries or form alliances. And here the episodic nature plays a major role. Instead of a linear story approach, the player selects a specific province on the map and performs story missions within it. You can switch between them, although only one of them can be active at a time. There is no full freedom of choice here – the areas are assigned a specific character level and going there earlier usually ends in imminent death. This approach fits the gameopen world, although at the same time it makes individual episodes (despite being well written) quite loosely related – most of them have their own side heroes who do not appear in other areas. In this way, the main plot suffers, which simply does not have enough room to resonate.

Eivor or Eivor?

Comparisons with the Vikings are inevitable as even the male Eivor model looks like a Lothbrok fanboy copying the style of his idol. You can also play the game as an assassin, although here there is a novelty –you can switch between genders freely during the game. There is also a third option: “let the Animus decide”, where the gender automatically changes between the different stages of the game. The player’s choice is purely preferential, as it has no impact on the plot and interactions with side characters. I understand why the creators decided to take such a step and it is implemented so well that I never felt that my female Eivor was different from the presented world. However, this and no other creative decision means that both sexes have the same experiences, and although female warriors were quite common among the Vikings, their experiences should be different. Thus, it is more of a masculinization of the female Eivor than of the feminization of the male Eivor. And hence it’s a pity

Burn, assassinate and rob

I would also like to mention that there is very little assassination in the newest Assassin’s Creed . Yes, you can sneak and kill enemies one by one, especially since their artificial intelligence leaves a lot to be desired (a moment in the bushes is enough for an English soldier to stop worrying about dozens of dead bodies around). However, open combat is much more efficient and pleasant. Especially in a situation where you can summon your Yomswikings and organize a real raid with setting fire to buildings. Besides, Eivor is not obliged to use the Assassin’s chalk, so there is no plot justification for murdering silently.

All the interjections about the conflict with the Templars, as well as the scenes taking place outside the Animus, are mumbling. Fortunately, there are relatively few of them. It is possible that such an impression results from my little contact with the cycle, which made me unable to care about the eternal conflict and saving the world. Especially since most of the expositions are sold in form

terribly boring text files and emails. Out of curiosity, I entered the comments section of the Kotaku article summarizing the events to date in the “real world” and out of 300 entries, not a single ( sic! ) Commenter spoke positively about this aspect of the game. So why is this continuing?

Dot to dot

In addition to the core story, the French producer provided hundreds (thousands?) Of side activities. Krucza Przystań can be expanded with a number of specialized buildings, which allow, among others, for fishing, training a horse (to swim!) or changing the appearance of the boat. It is all very simplified and far from the level of creating a settlement from Fallout 4. Another additional activity is hunting for members of the Order, where you first have to perform a simple investigation and gather clues, then track the victim and kill him. The road to the goal is usually more interesting than its implementation, because it happens that the murder itself does not require any sneaking between the guards. In addition, the map is filled with numerous additional tasks. Blue dots are short quests– usually they take 5 minutes for the player to complete and they take place within a small area. They turned out to be great for Ubisoft – they are inventive, fun and full of blinks at the player. They are so good that it is easy to fall into the “one more dot” syndrome and deviate from the main plot especially for them. You can also search for white markers (collectibles, e.g. Roman masks) or gold markers (weapons, clothing and additional skills). And then there are legendary beasts to hunt. And logical puzzles: with stone circles or those for which you need to eat toadstools. The map also shows anomalies in the Animus in the form of levitating blocks. In built-up zones, those willing can play dice, face in drunken duels (annoying QTE mini-game ,which I have never been able to pass) or take part in a Pyskówka. In the latter, Eivor first listens to his opponent’s insults, and then selects one of the three nursery rhymes as a retort. In theory, everything is fine, worse, that in the case of the Polish language version, the original English soundtrack is on its own, and the translation of the subtitles itself – the melody and rhymes are completely different, so I chose the answers at random. It is a pity that all these side missions are neither described in the quest log, nor have any hints on the map, which makes it difficult to remember what exactly was in a given place after time. I certainly did not list all the activities (there are mythological missions as well, but the player should discover them for himself): the activities last for many hours and are so diverse that they should not get bored quickly.

Galimatias, Czyli Assassin’s Creed 22

The character development system went a lot towards RPG, although it got lost several times. The skill tree took the form of star constellations. The problem is that dozens of points are placed on them, which give a negligible impact on the game (e.g. 2 points for stealth attacks, additional resistance to fire damage, etc.), and which you have to choose anyway to get new skills. And since it takes place on the basis of three paths: wolf, bear and raven, which are initially mostly covered (only unlocked by access to the appropriate link), it creates one big mess. In this way, I was forced, for example, to develop an armor bonus, which I had no intention of using anyway, but it was necessary to unlock a fight with two two-handed weapons (a miracle!). At any time, all experience points spent so far can be reset, so the player can (if he is patient enough) discover the fog, undo his choice and this time proceed as planned (more or less). However, it requires some effort and link-by-link clicking, which is very unintuitive and inconvenient. Triumph of form over content. If that was not enough, other special powers are developed e.g. by finding yellow dots on the map and secret books hidden under them. Weapons and armor can also be developed in three ways: with runes, common materials (at any time in the inventory menu) and rare resources (here you need to find a blacksmith). In addition to items needed for development and trophies, the game also collects a whole lot of unnecessary dupes, the only purpose of which is to sell them at the shopkeeper. Who would have thought that traders in the 9th century needed badly broken teeth and other broken shields so badly. Smashing dozens of crates and urns, I even felt like I was playing another LEGO title. Such gameplay elements should have long since been eliminated in modern games.

Ence, pence, two-handed sword in each hand

The fight is both poorer and richer than in the competitive Ghost of Tsushima. Where does this paradox come from? Well, there are only three buttons at the player’s disposal: block, light hit and heavy hit. Their combinations are of little use, because there are no fancy combos here ,and the secondary abilities consume a separate adrenaline bar, so they can be used rarely. However, in Jin’s adventures the player only wields a katana, while Eivor has axes, hammers, daggers, swords, halberds, spears, and even morgensterns in his arsenal. Each weapon behaves differently, and the novelty in the series – the ability to use the weapon in both hands – also comes with a few additional attack animations. And the mentioned possibility of fighting with two heavy weapons gives you real power. Yes, the blows of the two-handed sword in the left hand and the spear in the right hand are correspondingly slower, but when they hit, they do a massacre. Ubisoft was not shy about showing blood and severed members. It’s not a God of War or Mortal Kombat level yet ,but some attack animations are beautifully brutal. The opponents themselves come in a dozen or so variants, thanks to which the fight with them is not boring even later in the game. Even ordinary archers in close combat use different weapons, which makes them a bit more of a challenge. Although generally the standard difficulty level is not particularly demanding.

Japan, Greece, Egypt> England

Valhalla’s visual setting is very atmospheric – landscapes can look impressive, especially when viewed from above. However, something really breathtaking is missing here. I used to be delighted with the deep colors and other stylized elements of Ghost of Tsushima. There are no such ornaments in the Ubisfot game. England itself, though somewhat variable by region, offers fairly standard results. The previous parts offered a more unique experience – after all, Egypt and Greece are quite rare in games. Valhallait does not completely break with antiquity, because every few kilometers you can find great-looking ruins of Roman buildings (I did not check if there were so many of them there). Except that apart from them, landscapes consist of forests, meadows, hills and castles located on them – that is, elements very typical of both realistic games taking place in the Middle Ages, and dozens of fantasy titles using the same iconography. As far as I understand the weight of the Viking theme, it is a pity, however, that it involves transferring the action to quite standard realities. Fortunately, the mythological stages are much more interesting.

As Uncle Ben used to say: “a great game comes with great hardware requirements.” And my PS4 Slim was sweating a sweat to lift Valhalla . Five times during my adventure, I saw an error that was throwing me to the home screen. The last time was also critical for my external drive – console after such a crashshe just couldn’t see it anymore and format was necessary. I can’t say if this HDD bug was caused by the game or just by chance – but the fact was that no other title caused me such problems. In addition, the game takes a long time to load. This is an additional incentive not to die in the game, worse that at the same time it causes “fast travel”, which is so slow that sometimes it is more profitable to take a horse than to jump to a point on the map. In addition, the game has a number of basic baboli – character interpenetration, nasty fire animation (so important during conquests!), Or birds flying in several cages. It’s still a piece of cake compared to the bugs that make it impossible to finish quests. One of my main missions in Lunden was stalled and I was unable to finish building my alliance in this province.

Bowl

Although my beginning with the game was difficult (the prologue in Norway is boring! – I rhymed like in a Viking Pyskówka) and I complained a lot in the review, I must admit that Ubisoft once again achieved a successful game. In many places it is not polished, in others it is over-combined, yet very atmospheric and addictive for many hours. If you are a fan of the Vikings, the game gives you everything you need to become one of them. Skål! Skål! Skål!

We would like to thank Ubisoft for the copy of the game for review