Assassin's Creed Valhalla

Assassin's Creed Valhalla

Assassin's Creed Valhalla is an upcoming action role-playing video game developed by Ubisoft Montreal and published by Ubisoft. It is the twelfth major installment and the twenty-second release in the Assassin's Creed series, and a successor to the 2018 game Assassin's Creed Odyssey. Set in 873 AD, the game recounts an alternative history to the Viking invasion of Britain. The player controls Eivor, a Viking raider who becomes embroiled in the conflict between the Brotherhood of Assassins and the Templar Order.^[c]

The game is set to be released on November 17, 2020, for Microsoft Windows, PlayStation 4, Xbox One and Stadia. It will also be Ubisoft's launch title for the next generation of gaming consoles, the PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X.

Assassin's Creed Valhalla - Wikipedia

Gameplay

Assassin's Creed Valhalla is an open world action-adventure game, structured around several main story quests and numerous optional side missions. The player takes on the role of Eivor (/ˈeɪvɔːr/),^[4] a Viking raider, as they lead their fellow Vikings against the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms. The player will have the choice of playing Eivor as either male (voiced by Magnus Bruun [da]) or female (voiced by Cecilie Stenspil [da])^[5] and is able to customise Eivor's hair, warpaint, clothing, armor, and tattoos.^[6] The variety of weapons available to the player has been expanded to include weapons such as flails and greatswords. Combat has been changed to allow dual wielding of almost any weapon, including shields,^[7] and every piece of gear that the player collects is unique.^[1] The Eagle Vision mechanic of previous titles will return in the form of "Odin Sight".^[8] The player's companion animal will be a raven named Synin^[9]^[10] (Old Norse for "insight")^[11]^[d] and can be used to scout the nearby areas, much like previous avian companions had done in Origins and Odyssey, identifying foes and aspects of the game world from afar before Eivor engages in combat.^[12] There will be more focus on the stealth aspects for both traversing the game world and in combat. The "social stealth" concept from earlier Assassin's Creed games will return: Eivor can hide from enemies not only in stationary environmental objects, but can pull down their hood and slip into certain crowds to use them as cover. Eivor can feign death, use their raven to distract guards, and can access a hidden blade for near instantaneous assassinations. The game's key bosses will all, through specific combinations of approach, tactics, and weapon selection, be able to be assassinated through a single attack, but still can be defeated through numerous other routes.^[13]

Premise

In 873 AD, war and overcrowding in Norway prompts Eivor to lead their clan of Vikings to settle new lands in Anglo-Saxon England,^[7]^[21] as part of the Viking expansion across Europe. The clan, and other Vikings that form the Great Heathen Army, comes into conflict with the kingdoms of Wessex, Northumbria, East Anglia, and Mercia over the next several years.^[21]^[22] Eivor's clan will face forces led by the leaders of these kingdoms, including Alfred the Great, the king of Wessex.^[17]^[23] It is during this time that Eivor meets the Hidden Ones and joins their fight against the Order of the Ancients.^[7]^[c] Explorable cities include Winchester, London, and York.^[24]^[e] Parts of Norway will also be included.^[7]

As with previous games in the series, Valhalla features a narrative set in the modern day. This story will follow Layla Hassan, a character featured in Origins and Odyssey. Valhalla will also contain story elements related to the Isu, who, as part of the lore of the Assassin's Creed series, are an advanced civilisation that pre-date humanity.^[12]^[17]

Development

Assassin's Creed Valhalla had been in development for more than two and a half years by its announcement in April 2020. The main development was led by the Assassin's Creed Origins team at Ubisoft Montreal and supported by fourteen other Ubisoft studios worldwide.^[25] While the tail-end of the game's development fell during the COVID-19 pandemic, the bulk of the Ubisoft staff assigned to the game were able to work from home with support of Ubisoft's information technology departments, assuring the game was ready for release in 2020.^[14]

Ashraf Ismail served as the creative director,^[b] having previously led work on Assassin's Creed Origins and Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag.^[25] The game's narrative director was Darby McDevitt, who was the lead writer for Assassin's Creed: Revelations and Black Flag and co-writer of Assassin's Creed Unity.^[26] USGamer's Mike Williams described the large scope and effort behind Assassin's Creed Valhalla as the equivalent of the series' "grand unifying theory" to combine all the past design and development work into a single vision without necessarily reinventing any of the previously developed concepts.^[26] McDevitt explained that Valhalla's story was written as a recap of all the prior Assassin's Creed games, connecting them in non-trivial fashions, but not intended to be the final game in the series.^[21] He also stated that his experimental structure to the narrative was "quite unique for any game" he had seen as well as for the Assassin's Creed series itself.^[21]

Ismail cited Michael Crichton's 1976 novel Eaters of the Dead—itself a retelling of the epic poem Beowulf—as playing a major role in influencing Valhalla's setting.^[7] McDevitt said that the development team recognized there would be similarities to the God of War games, but felt those games "skew very heavily towards the mythology", whereas Ubisoft wanted Valhalla to be a more "historically grounded" experience.^[27] Elements of Norse mythology will appear in the story. According to game director Ashraf Ismail, this will be based on how Eivor and the Vikings may take uncommon events to be signs of their gods' involvement rather than the more overt role that mythology played in Origins and Odyssey. This was particularly in light that much of the game takes place in England where Christianity dominated, so that the narrative and gameplay shows how Eivor would incorporate such foreign elements into their belief system.^[7]^[17]^[21] On the ability to select Eivor's gender, Thierry Noël, an advisor to the game, stated that while there was still historical debate to how much degree females participated as warriors within the Vikings, Ubisoft believed that women featured prominently in both Norse mythology and society, and so sought to reflect the Viking idea that "women and men are equally formidable in battle".^[6]

Release

Valhalla is set to be released on November 17, 2020 for Microsoft Windows, PlayStation 4, Xbox One and Stadia.^[37] It will also be the first Assassin's Creed title for the next-generation of consoles, the PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X. Ismail said that Valhalla represents Ubisoft's "flagship" game for these next-generation systems, and has been developed to take advantage of faster loading times both new consoles offer.^[17] Players on Xbox One or PlayStation 4 will be able to upgrade their game to the next-gen version on their respective platform at no extra cost.^[38]

Ubisoft's 2019 title Tom Clancy's The Division 2 included an Easter egg in the form of a poster that appeared to tease the next Assassin's Creed game as named Valhalla. The poster included an image of a Viking dressed in similar fashion to an Assassin of the series' previous titles and held what appeared to be an Apple of Eden, one of the Isu artifacts featured in Assassin's Creed series. The Easter egg led Jason Schreier of Kotaku to report that there was a new Assassin's Creed title in development, planned for release in 2020.^[39] However, on the game's official announcement in April 2020, McDevitt said that the Easter egg in The Division 2 was coincidence as the Swedish studio behind the game, Massive Entertainment, wanted to incorporate some Swedish iconography into The Division 2 and had no intention of referencing or teasing Valhalla.^[40]

Notes

1. Additional development was carried out by fourteen other Ubisoft studios worldwide.^[1]

2. ^ Jump up to:^a ^b Ismail stepped down from his role as creative director in June 2020, due to allegations of infidelity, and was later fired by Ubisoft.^[2]^[3]

3. ^ Jump up to:^a ^b Within the series' continuity, the Brotherhood of Assassins and the Templar Order adopted their modern names during the Crusades in the 11th century. Prior to this, they were referred to as the "Hidden Ones" and the "Order of the Ancients", respectively.^[7]

4. ^ The production team defined the name as "as close a meaning to 'insight' in Old Norse",^[10] but the word itself has several meanings in Old Norse.^[11]

5. ^ The city of York is referred to in-game by its Old Norse name Jórvík.^[24]

References

1. Juba, Joe (April 30, 2020). "25 Things We've Learned About Assassin's Creed Valhalla". Game Informer. Retrieved May 3,2020.

2. ^ Yin-Poole, Wesley (June 24, 2020). "Assassin's Creed Valhalla creative director steps down". Eurogamer. Retrieved June 24,2020.

3. ^ Gach, Ethan (August 14, 2020). "Assassin's Creed Creative Director Fired From Ubisoft Following Investigation Into Misconduct". Kotaku. Retrieved August 14, 2020.

4. ^ Jump up to:^a ^b Assassin's Creed Valhalla: Developer Commentary Trailer | Ubisoft [NA]. Ubisoft North America. April 30, 2020. Event occurs at 1 minute, 21 seconds. Retrieved April 30, 2020.

5. ^ Makuch, Eddie (April 30, 2020). "Assassin's Creed Valhalla's Two Eivor Actors Have Been Revealed". GameSpot. Retrieved April 30, 2020.

6. ^ Jump up to:^a ^b Bailey, Dustin (April 30, 2020). "Assassin's Creed Valhalla has gender options because "women are equally formidable in battle"". PCGamesN. Retrieved April 30, 2020.

7. ^ Jump up to:^a ^b ^c ^d ^e ^f ^g ^h ⁱ ^j ^k ^l ^m Juba, Joe. "Answers To Our Biggest Questions About Assassin's Creed Valhalla". Game Informer. Gameinformer. Retrieved April 30, 2020.

8. ^ Ismail, Ashraf [@AshrafAIsmail] (May 2, 2020). "The Norse called it Odin Sight in the 9th century" (Tweet). Retrieved May 5,2020 – via Twitter.

9. ^ Williams, Mike (May 12, 2020). "Assassin's Creed Valhalla Goes Big on Stealth With One-Hit Kills, Social Stealth, and Feigning Death". USgamer. Retrieved May 14, 2020.

10. ^ Jump up to:^a ^b Ismail, Ashraf (May 13, 2020). "It's spelled Synin And Pronounced "Sue-nin" We wanted as close a meaning to "insight" in Old Norse pic.twitter.com/2sM7MnOYx1". @AshrafAIsmail. Retrieved May 14, 2020.

11. ^ Jump up to:^a ^b "sýn sb. f. [-ar; -ir]". Ordbog over det norrøne prosasprog – via Onp.ku.dk (University of Copenhagen).

12. ^ Jump up to:^a ^b ^c ^d ^e Phillips, Tom (April 30, 2020). "Assassin's Creed Valhalla reshapes the series' RPG storytelling by giving you a Viking settlement". Eurogamer. Eurogamer. Retrieved April 30, 2020.

13. ^ Jump up to:^a ^b Williams, Mike (May 12, 2020). "Assassin's Creed Valhalla Goes Big on Stealth With One-Hit Kills, Social Stealth, and Feigning Death". USGamer. Retrieved May 12, 2020.

14. ^ Jump up to:^a ^b ^c Tolito, Stephan (May 18, 2020). "The Many Things We've Learned About Assassin's Creed Valhalla". Kotaku. Retrieved May 19, 2020.

15. ^ Parijat, Shubhankar (July 14, 2020). "Assassin's Creed Valhalla Has 25 Different Enemy Archetypes". GamingBolt. Retrieved July 14, 2020.

16. ^ Jump up to:^a ^b Sheridan, Conner (May 1, 2020). "Assassin's Creed Valhalla doesn't have multiplayer but does lets you make a Viking mercenary to help friends raid". GamesRadar. Retrieved May 1,2020.

17. ^ Jump up to:^a ^b ^c ^d ^e Dornbush, Jonathon (April 30, 2020). "Assassin's Creed Valhalla Gameplay, Story Details Revealed". IGN. Retrieved April 30, 2020.

18. ^ "Assassin's Creed Valhalla To Feature Explorable Stonehenge, Flyting And Clan Weddings". wccftech.com. May 6, 2020.

19. ^ Gartenberg, Chaim (April 29, 2020). "Assassin's Creed Valhalla is Assassin's Creed with vikings". The Verge. The Verge. Retrieved April 30, 2020.

20. ^ Dornbush, Jonathon (April 30, 2020). "Assassin's Creed Valhalla to Feature Playable Viking Rap Battles". IGN. Retrieved May 1,2020.

21. ^ Jump up to:^a ^b ^c ^d ^e Hussain, Tamoor (May 1, 2020). "Assassin's Creed Valhalla's Narrative Director On Crafting A Unique New Story". GameSpot. Retrieved May 6, 2020.

22. ^ McKeand, Kirk (May 1, 2020). "Assassin's Creed Valhalla's map features the four Kingdoms of England, as well as some of Norway". VG247. Retrieved May 1, 2020.

23. ^ Ramée, Jordan. "Assassin's Creed Valhalla's Storytelling Is "Very Unique," Says Dev". GameSpot. GameSpot. Retrieved April 30,2020.

24. ^ Jump up to:^a ^b Cieslak, Marc (May 1, 2020). "Assassin's Creed Valhalla: First look at Viking-themed game". BBC Click. Retrieved May 1, 2020.

25. ^ Jump up to:^a ^b Phillips, Tom (April 30, 2020). "Assassin's Creed Valhalla reshapes the series' RPG storytelling by giving you a Viking settlement". Eurogamer. Eurogamer. Retrieved April 30, 2020.

26. ^ Jump up to:^a ^b Williams, Mike (April 30, 2020). "Assassin's Creed Valhalla Is the Grand Unifying Theory of Assassin's Creed". USGamer. Retrieved April 30, 2020.

27. ^ Ramée, Jordan (April 30, 2020). "Why Assassin's Creed Valhalla Dev Isn't Worried About The God Of War Similarities". GameSpot. Retrieved April 30, 2020.

28. ^ McKeand, Kirk (May 7, 2020). "Assassin's Creed Valhalla "won't be the longest or biggest game in the series"". VG247. Retrieved May 7, 2020.

29. ^ Tyrrel, Brandin (October 1, 2018). "Assassin's Creed Odyssey Review". IGN. Retrieved May 8, 2020.

30. ^ Gera, Emily (May 11, 2019). "Assassin's Creed Valhalla will include music from the composer of Vikings television series". VG247. Retrieved May 11, 2019.

31. ^ Tangcay, Jazz (May 14, 2020). "'Assassin's Creed' Composer Jesper Kyd Returns to Score 'Valhalla'". Variety. Retrieved May 14, 2020.

32. ^ Hall, Charlie; Polo, Susana (June 25, 2020). "The game and comics industries are grappling with widespread allegations of harassment and abuse". Polygon. Retrieved June 26, 2020.

33. ^ Cario, Erwan; Chapuis, Marius (July 10, 2020). "Harcèlement sexuel à Ubisoft : «On savait»". Libération (in French). Retrieved July 11, 2020.

34. ^ Yin-Poole, Wesley (July 11, 2020). "New report on Ubisoft reveals more shocking sexual harassment allegations". Eurogamer. Retrieved July 11, 2020.