Coming two years after Assassin’s Creed Odyssey, Valhalla, the latest entry in the long-running historical action series, arrives on 17th November 2020. Set in Britain in the year 873, Ubisoft has promised that players will get to live their Viking fantasy. Last week, they treated us to the first gameplay trailer for the new game, and there was quite a bit crammed into its six-minute run time.
Before going into the gameplay trailer, it’s important to view Assassin’s Creed Valhalla through the lens of the games that came before it. For better or worse, Assassin’s Creed followed largely the same formula until 2017’s Origins. The combat was revamped to a “hit-box” system, replacing the more cinematic “paired animation” system from previous games. The gameplay in general changed, too. Before, the focus was on stealth and (as obvious as it might sound) being an assassin. Now, the protagonists fit more comfortably into a generic jack-of-all-trades “warrior” model.
Some might love the changes; others might hate them. For me, it’s become clear that in trying to develop the series, it has lost a sense of what it once was.
With that in mind, let’s look at what we learned from the new gameplay trailer.
The combat is largely the same as Odyssey, with a few new additions
I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t hoping for a return to the combat system of old. Sure, it could be quite simplistic and easy to master – but it felt dramatic. Every move you made had purpose. Every counter resulted in a brutal yet smooth execution. Attacks could be chained together. Enemies could be dispatched and used against each other in beautiful sequences of bloody violence.
Valhalla looks to stick to the same formula used in the past two games. Enemies sponge attacks as the player deals blow after blow of button-mashed fury. The ability to tackle multiple enemies at a time is a bonus, but I’d take the cinematic fluidity of the old system any day.
With the old system remaining in the past, the new game promises some interesting developments. Valhalla boasts the largest variety of enemy types in any Assassin’s Creed game and promises that each of the archetypes will have unique characteristics that you must exploit to defeat. In perhaps their most interesting feature, enemies now coordinate their attacks instead of acting like units of individually minded drones, presenting a new challenge. Use of the environment is also within their ability – including the gruesome option of launching their slaughtered comrades at you. As a result, taking enemies out in clusters may not be the smartest idea.
There are also new throwable weapons – a harpoon and an axe. This adds variety to ranged combat on top of the traditional, but often boring, long bow. To help manage crowds and deliver dramatic endings to fights, a stun system to stagger and then brutally finish off enemies has been introduced (although not quite to the level of The Last of Us 2) . Lastly, in a new feature, players can dual-wield any two weapons (even shields!) which should make for some fun variety in weapon choices.
The map looks huge
One thing that has always been true of Assassin’s Creed is its ability to deliver huge and stunningly recreated historical worlds. I’m not too fond of the gameplay system introduced in Origins, but its Ancient Egyptian world was jaw dropping. The same is true for Ancient Greece in Assassin’s Creed Odyssey. I have no doubt Anglo-Saxon England will be recreated in similarly stunning detail.
The trailer offered up the first glimpse of the full map – and it looks massive! Traversal of the country seems to be predominantly by Viking longboat, but it looks like trekking across England’s countryside will be available, too. While I expect most, if not all, of Anglo-Saxon England’s major locations to be included in the final game, here’s what was revealed in the trailer:
- East Anglia
- Essexe (Essex)
- Cent (Kent)
- Lunden (London)
- Oxenefordscire (Oxfordshire)
- Wincestre (Winchester)
- Hamptunscire (Hampshire)
- Glowcestrescire (Gloucestershire)
- Grantebridgescire (Cambridgeshire)
- Suthsexe (Sussex)
- Sciropescire (Shropshire)
- Ledecestrescire (Leicestershire)
- Lincolnscire (Lincolnshire)
- Snotinghamscire (Nottinghamshire)
- Eurviscscire (Yorkshire)
- Canterbury
The challenge here is in making each of these locations look and feel unique. England is, after all, a relatively small country. Places such as Winchester – the capital of Wessex which later united England under Alfred the Great – should standout due to their historical significance. Special attention needs to be given to the smaller settlements to ensure they’re just as unique and interesting.
Raids and Assaults look insane
Two new features that play perfectly into the Viking theme are Raids and Assaults.
Prowling rivers in your Viking longboat presents opportunities to discover new Anglo-Saxon settlements to raid and pillage for plunder. Players can then ground their ships and lead their fellow Vikings into a battle to overrun the settlement, take its treasure and presumably either kill or imprison its inhabitants. Said plunder can then be used to develop and upgrade player settlements (a brief glimpse of this was shown in the trailer and there looks to be a decent amount of customisation available). Fire physics have been introduced as the use of fire arrows to burn down buildings during a Raid received considerable focus. This should play into a choice for the player. Either overrun a settlement more easily by destroying its property and killing its people or face a harder fight but gain more reward by taking a restrained approach.
If Raids focus on small towns and villages maintained by the common folk, Assaults focus on fortresses guarded by heavily armed soldiers. As the commander of the Viking forces, you’ll be able to use ladders to scale the walls, and rams to breakdown the reinforced gates to gain entry and overrun strongholds. It was said these are “climatic moments”, implying they are few and far between but pose a significant challenge.
While not two traditional Assassin’s Creed features, nor ones you’d ever associate with an assassin, they do look like great fun and have the potential to be the standout features of the game. They do, however, cement the idea that Assassin’s Creed is a franchise that has outgrown its name.
Character models still don’t look great
Assassin’s Creed has never been known for its standout characters. Except for Ezio in Assassin’s Creed II, who’s become the series’ best character, they’ve mostly been bland. What doesn’t help is the reliably poor character models. Valhalla looks to be no different.
In the cinematic trailer that first introduced us to Eivor (Valhalla’s protagonist), we saw a male character rendered in incredible detail. As always with cinematic trailers, this new gameplay trailer adds further weight to the argument that they shouldn’t be trusted. Seeing this female version of Eivor did not instil a sense of next-gen wonderment. Instead, it evoked memories of games from the last generation. Eivor’s skin looks like plastic. And most embarrassingly, the lips weren’t even synced with the voices in this trailer. Come on, Ubisoft, do better.
Luckily, the game’s graphical prowess is on display in other areas. It’s just a shame that it looks like they’re failing the characters once again. Perhaps having the option to play as either a male or female version of Eivor is what’s causing the issue. If so, they should just pick one and get it right, rather than have two that are embarrassingly bad.
Let us know your thoughts on Assassin’s Creed Valhalla in the comments below.
Featured Image Credit: Ubisoft (fair use)
