I’m not going to lie, when I started playing Assassin’s Creed Valhalla, I assumed that it would be the same game as Odyssey with very few changes. However, to my surprise, the game is probably the best in the series yet and has enough innovation to make you want to play the game for hours, days or even months. 

Assassin’s Creed Valhalla is a melting pot of everything we like from the previous games, refined further and then combined together to create one of the best RPGs Ubisoft has ever made. The game not only refines what the franchise has done right in the past, but it has also taken influence from games like Breath of The Wild, God of War and The Witcher 3. 

While there are some changes in the game, it still retains some of the elements we’ve been familiar with from the first game. It’s got a historical setting, features the iconic ‘Leap of Faith’ animation, synchronisation points, the hidden blade, crowd blending amongst other mechanics familiar to the franchise. It’s a culmination of everything we love about the Assassin’s Creed franchise while adding new systems that are meaningful and logical. 

© Ubisoft

You soon start building up your settlement alongside your longhouse by gathering resources and raiding. In fact, raiding is probably the most intriguing feature of this game that yields in resources, loot and treasure for your settlement and character. The Norse people were known in history for raiding, pillaging and looting the English land to grow their own influence in the region. The game gives a historic nod to these activities by directly translating it into an activity you can do in the game. You travel in a longboat along the shores of rivers and find these settlements to raid for your settlement’s benefit. 

© Ubisoft

Sooner or later, you will face stronger enemies who don’t get easily stunned by parries and you will need to adjust your combat style to take them down. Oh, I almost forgot to mention, you can dismember enemies that have been brilliantly depicted with blood and gore. You can turn it off in the settings if you aren’t a fan, but I genuinely loved that the game did not shy away from gore this time around.

To complement your combat, the game also provides you with skills and abilities which are now revamped and some of the best systems we’ve seen in an RPG. For starters, you will come across a skill tree which is quite expansive. These skills are passive upgrades for your character that improves stats for melee, ranged and stealth attacks. Similarly, the game also offers abilities that you have to find in the world instead of unlocking them in a skill tree. 

© Ubisoft

The game also pays heavy focus on exploration where you need to find treasures, abilities, silver, loot and collectables in the game. Even the longboat in this game is used mainly for exploration and transportation. You will use your longboat to traverse a network of rivers throughout England and it plays an integral part for almost everything you do in the game. Since the game is heavily focused on exploration, you get to visit four key locations i.e. Norway, England and two others we aren’t allowed to talk about. The world map is very expansive and it has enough interesting locations for people to explore. In fact, if you see something interesting from afar, you will most probably find something interesting there to discover in a hidden cave or behind a collapsable wall. 

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