Exhausting, is the best encapsulation I can give in a title for my feelings about Assassin’s Creed: Valhalla, a game that, perhaps more than any other in my reckoning, has given me some highs and astonishingly low lows in one fell swoop. I have rarely had such a turbulent concoction of mixed feelings about a video game, a game possessed both of brilliant beauty and baffling banality. I am also going to go over my history with this franchise, as I believe, while a detour, it is necessary in order to explain the breadth of my feelings towards Valhalla. There will be heavy spoilers, be thus warned.

            I have been something of a fangirl of Assassin’s Creed from the beginning, having been enraptured by the original title, then thoroughly ensconced in its world with Assassin’s Creed II and the introduction of Ezio Auditore. The modern day storyline, fraught with conspiracy and questioning of events that shaped our history, caught the attention of my brain that loves to question and tinker with as many ideas as possible. The science fiction angle, of technology that allows one to explore their own ancestral DNA, while bordering on the fantastic from the outset, still intrigued me immensely. Then, as a history and geography nerd who loves exploring other lands and cultures, taking a step back into a lovingly and (mostly) faithfully recreated historical setting was an irresistible allure. Having been to places like Jerusalem myself, seeing it again but during the height of the Crusades, that really compelled me to get further invested in the exploration and immersion of Assassin’s Creed’s world.

            Of course, the franchise got big. It was expected to be a hit but I think it exceeded most expectations, the initial title selling like crazy even in the same year as other incredible monster hits such as Halo 3, Mass Effect, Bioshock, and Call of Duty 4. Seeing the money on the table, Ubisoft started cranking AC games out at a frantic pace, quickly getting to the point of releasing a new title every year, sometimes more than one. I had felt burned by Assassin’s Creed III, a game I wanted to love but that felt empty and drastically underdeveloped and playtested, being a buggier and sloppier to play mess that had me scratching my head at the claim that it was in development for three years. AC: Black Flag was, on the other hand, an enormous improvement, revitalizing the franchise and remaining a blast to play to this day. It still had some jank but mostly course corrected AC III’s misfires. Unfortunately, the next main entry, AC: Unity, had a disastrous launch, leaving a bad first impression on me and many others, playing heavily into the series fatigue I was already experiencing. I shifted my focus away to other games for a long time, so I never touched Syndicate, Origins, or Odyssey for a number of years.

            Then Ubisoft finally did it, after pushing out title after title, often on an annual basis, they developed and published Assassin’s Creed: Valhalla. Along with feudal Japan, Viking Age Europe was a time period and setting that had long been in a high demand from AC fans to be utilized for a game. Being the enthusiast for Scandinavian history and Norse mythology that I am, I ended up being convinced enough to give Valhalla a chance, despite a trepidation about jumping back into a series that had changed so drastically and, presumably, had covered a lot of story ground since I last touched it in Unity. Those of you who know the franchise well may already be chuckling from that last sentence fragment.

            Wowsers, did I have a lot of adjustments to make before I could even play the prologue without dying like a fool. Here was I, used to weapon and tool wheels, high and low profile modes, particular button combos for free running and parkour, and combat heavily centered around countering and parrying. Hah. Silly me, Assassin’s Creed had long since turned into a fantasy RPG that wanted to be The Witcher, and also wanted to be Skyrim, Horizon: Zero Dawn, while still channeling some influences from Tomb Raider and Uncharted as well as movies like Indiana Jones and National Treasure. Before I get into the fine details, that is what I believe to be the fundamental flaw of the AC franchise as of this writing, that it has been trying to be everything to as many people as possible and has almost become nothing, losing touch with its own identity in a profit-driven attempt to usurp that of others. It has fallen into the trap of trying to copy so many big gaming hits out there that it becomes almost unrecognizable as itself. Let’s start getting into specifics about this.

            To be fair, it’s not as though the recent games’ heavy leaning into mythology and fantasy is entirely baseless. As early as Assassin’s Creed II, deities such as Juno were featured, toying with the notion of all of humanity’s old gods having been real entities from a long vanished master race. Said race failed to survive a worldwide cataclysm, yet in their vast cunning and technological adeptness, they found ways to weave their influence into the world that humanity inherited from them. As we come to learn in Valhalla, some of these gods even found means to effectively reincarnate themselves.

            Odin and his cohorts died in the same fiery event we saw briefly in an Animus data pack way back in AC II, however, they figured out some way to upload their consciousnesses or at least their raw memories, and I presume as well at least some of their DNA, into the humans that were their experimental pets. For unknown reasons, these memories took multiple generations to manifest but managed to do so in the Viking Age, at the very least including Odin, Tyr, Freya, and Loki, the latter of whom was not supposed to join them in immortality but fought and cheated his way to the uploading device in the eleventh hour of the old world’s end. These gods’ memories awakened in new bodies, conflicting with the human beings cohabitating with them, resulting in wild visions colored by Norse lore.

            This is all potentially intriguing stuff. Sadly, it’s packaged in such a way that it took proverbial ages to uncover everything needed to piece together a somewhat complete story. Valhalla was lead written by Darby McDevitt, and, without intending any personal offense toward them or anyone else who have writing credits on this title, I think brevity is lost on them. Of course, and I grant you that this is more likely, they could have been forced to write this way by a Ubisoft suit or set of executives, so I am willing to an extend a benefit of the doubt should that be the truth. Valhalla has a bloated, extended prologue, a set of prologues really, which slowly, painfully establishes our protagonist, Eivor Varinsdottir, starting with her childhood, leading to her young adult life in Norway and the events that push her and her clan to leave for England.

            (An aside: I say her, because Eivor is canonically female, despite Ubisoft putting yet another dude on the game cover, I assume because they think the game will sell better if there is a dude on the cover instead of a lady. This is a case of “yet another,” because in AC Odyssey, Kassandra was the canon protagonist, yet her brother Alexios got to be on the cover. In AC Syndicate, the protagonists were twins, Jacob and Evie, of equal importance to the story, yet Jacob got to be front and center on the cover with Evie pushed aside, and to this day even the Xbox store description for Syndicate only mentions Jacob. Are gamers all really a bunch of misogynistic boys who wouldn’t buy a game featuring a woman as the lead, do game companies merely think we’re all dumb and the same, or do said companies merely reinforce the very stereotypes they themselves had a strong hand in creating? Alas, aside from marketing, the choice for players to pick either a male or female Eivor is another example of Ubisoft’s game design trying to be everything to everyone, instead of making a commitment to something.)

            Other AC games have prologues showing the protagonist’s early life, even some of them being born. However, the best of the games did this efficiently, effortlessly, such as AC II succinctly filling us in on the essential details of Ezio’s origins and early life, his family, getting tastes of his charisma and humor, before quickly diving into the story proper, all while getting most of the tutorial segments out of the way by having woven them into the first missions. In the time it took for us to see Ezio in his Assassin robes and taking out his first target, Valhalla was still languishing in its setup, still lumbering toward Eivor’s initial conflict with Kjotve, the man who killed their family. It takes hours upon painful hours to eventually tie this all in with the Hidden Ones (the group that were the genesis of the Assassin Brotherhood) through Hytham and Basim, who travel to Norway with Sigurd. Sigurd ends up being Jarl of Eivor’s Raven Clan, though right from the outset I found him obnoxious, unlikable, and grating to interact with. Especially when the Clan makes for England, Sigurd does fuck all to help his people, instead roving the land with Basim, chasing visions and artifacts, while Eivor is the one doing all of the hard work to secure her peoples’ livelihoods. Mind you, I already felt taxed by this point, since it took me almost as long to get to see England, ostensibly the main focal point of the game, as it did to finish Assassin’s Creed II or Brotherhood in their entireties. Valhalla’s story is broken into arcs, largely self-contained substories that are tied to specific territories of late first millennium England, as well as other places such as Vinland. You are given some freedom as to which territory to pledge to, though some are not available until a number of others are cleared first.

            Some of these individual arcs are where Valhalla ended up having its best writing and characters. Eivor met some really interesting and colorful characters in these subplots, and I really came to like quite a few of them. There were great moments of comedy, of drama, and of course action. That said, the action often lacked the staying power I would’ve liked, as Viking raids ended up having minimal punch, since none of your crew could actually die, there’s no impactful way to make them better, stronger, or give them commands, and all of the raids played out much the same way (though I did adore the way my Vikings gleefully smashed stuff as I was picking up treasure, reminding me of the minions in Overlord). Fortress battles were the same thing, initially exciting until you realized they’re all pretty much the same, and easily winnable through bypassing the battle itself and heading directly to a set of arbitrary objectives. Viking: Battle For Asgard, a lesser-known adventure game published by Sega some years ago, handled large-scale territory battles in a better way.

            The best battles for me ended up being the smaller ones, either against powerful zealots from the Order of the Ancients (when the game’s power levels were balanced out enough for an even fight, that is), or bosses such as one of Ragnar Lothbrok’s sons (Ragnar’s legacy is leaned into a lot in the earlier arcs, which honestly screamed to me of Ubisoft trying extra hard to cash in on the popularity of the History Channel Vikings series). Unfortunately, the freedom these encounters should have allowed was hampered by AC effectively being a fantasy RPG. Though there were elements of leveling, gear upgrades, and the like in older games, these later AC games really hamstring the player if they are not the same arbitrary power level as their opponents. I found it immensely dissatisfying and disheartening that I was simply not allowed, regardless of strategy, to combat some of these zealots until much later in my playthrough, that, for example, ambushing them from a perch and sticking a hidden blade in their neck wouldn’t kill them just because they were a higher level than me. If one of them happened to wander into the area where I was doing a raid? Well, I couldn’t finish the raid then, because the game decided that no matter what, the zealot would always win. There came a certain power level where I felt like I could fairly fight most enemies and still have some challenge, but that balance didn’t last long and then I went from being vastly underpowered to stupidly overpowered. This is because of another critical game design flaw.

            The skill tree in Valhalla isn’t a tree, it is, as one YouTube reviewer put it, a skill bush. It is copying Skyrim, seeing as the skills points are points in a constellation, with the same wispy, star-filled background. Unlike Odyssey, however, there is no point in specializing in melee, ranged, or stealth combat, as Valhalla lets you pick up every single skill and every single perk with no penalty. There is no need to commit to any playstyle, there is no real consequence in your choice, there is no true customization. It’s a linear progression dressed up as something diverse and branching. You can tweak your build in certain directions by using different armors, with differing runes to reinforce certain bonuses. It’s difficult to make much out of these modifications, though, since Valhalla does a pitifully bad job of explaining what your stats even are or what they do. So, you get a health meter, but aren’t shown how many hit points you have despite taking damage in numbers. You can equip runes with bonuses to attack but aren’t shown what your attack stat is or offered any explanation as to what real benefits the attack stat offers. I got an armor piece that gives me more light attack resistance? How much resistance do I have to begin with? In the time I played this game, and believe me that time was beyond substantial, I never noticed much difference in any of these stats, practically speaking, save for stunning, poison/fire buildup resistance, and maybe a bit of critical chance. The summary is that you start off as a weakling, briefly gain a challenge, then walk all over the opposition. Your “power level” dictates your success, not not your own skill, playstyle, or what upgrades you’ve selected. Every time you pick a skill or upgrade your power level ticks up, even if it’s something banal. That arbitrarily increases your ability to fight against enemies of a certain level. That’s the general combat progression of AC Valhalla, and really the only meaningful choices become what armor do you want to equip for what aesthetic, and what weapons do you find most fun to use. None of these things really alter that Eivor can become a master of and do everything with no incentive to experiment beyond the cosmetic, which, I suppose does play neatly into how heavily Ubisoft pushes cosmetic microtransactions in these games now.

            Valhalla took so long to get where it’s going, and did such a poor job of keeping its overarching story, well, overarching, that after completing a certain number of arcs, I had forgotten that Sigurd and Basim were even in the game. That’s why when Eivor had their first chance to relive memories of Odin’s former life, it didn’t even dawn on me that Basim and Loki as well as Sigurd and Tyr had the same voice actors. When I saw Basim again, it was like, oh yeah, you do exist and I think you have something to add to this story. Eventually. Again, many of the individual arcs are compelling, but not enough that any given one could carry a game on its own. There was just enough in each one to keep me from feeling totally checked out on the game. The Lunden and Jorvik arcs even felt kind of like I was playing an Assassin’s Creed game! Whaaaaaaat? Scouting from rooftops, looking for specific targets and exploiting their weaknesses, investigating, looking for clues, blending with crowds, who would’ve thought of such things? Unfortunately that enjoyment was shortlived because the old social stealth elements feel like underdeveloped tackons meant to appease old fans, as they’re either useless or broken.

Of course, there is no denying how gorgeous every piece of the game was. Though England may not be as topographically interesting to the average person as, say, Greece, I was regularly awestruck by the sheer beauty of the vistas and details, as well as the immersion of the time period despite the many inaccuracies and historical liberties taken (Ubisoft used to be sticklers for detail and accuracy in AC games, only occasionally flubbing in the earlier titles. The rule of cool seems to have brushed that aside in many ways). The music leans more into ambiance and atmosphere, evoking the feelings of a bygone era full of mystery and myth. The voice cast is mostly excellent, and where it feels most authentic historically speaking, the overall art design is wonderful.

            These positives, along with the general immersion in the time period and mythology, was somehow enough to keep me coming back despite the insane slog to get toward the end of the main story. It also helped my case that I stopped to play the Wrath of the Druids and The Siege of Paris DLC expansions, along with title update content such as Tombs of the Fallen. Druids in particular ended up being the height of my enjoyment with this entire package, given my real-life experience with Ireland and how cool it felt to go back there, even virtually, to a critical time period in its history to boot. The landscapes were incredible to explore, the story was refreshingly taut and not loaded with too much filler, the characters interesting to interact with, and the combat scenarios felt more balanced. My only misgiving was that not much respect seemed given to exploring legitimate druidic lore, instead using them mainly as a new enemy type and throwing in bizarre magic and mysticism for the sake of it without much explanation.

            The Siege of Paris, sadly, did not have the same staying power and to me fell victim to the same kind of tedium as the main game. I played through it with the constant feeling that I should be enjoying it more, but it inevitably felt like a slog that I was obligated to finish because I paid money for it. This same sentiment returned when it came time to tackle the final major expansion, Dawn of Ragnarok. To put this in perspective by comparison again, it took me more time to finish everything in Ragnarok as it typically does for me to finish Assassin’s Creed 1 or II. It was hard for me to care about someone using an Animus to relive the story of a precursor god’s reincarnated memories being relived through a Norse mythology lense by a dead Viking while on a massive drug trip. It had almost no bearing on Eivor’s story and didn’t really tell us anything new about the Assassin’s Creed lore, and it was hard to shut up and pretend that it was just a fun way to have the Norse mythos as a playground, because, for one thing there are better games for that, and for another, that’s not what I come to Assassin’s Creed for.

Look at the pictures above again, and consider the experiences that each game offers. Ask yourself, if the series had begun with what you see in picture two, would it have been as successful, would it still have such a huge fanbase and commercial success? Ask yourself, why should someone who invested in the story, gameplay, and overall experience of game one be interested, much less satisfied, with example number two? At this point, Assassin’s Creed is a fantasy RPG. If that’s what Ubisoft really wanted to make, that’s fine, and Valhalla is not without merit, but instead of going all in on a fresh direction and IP, they cashed in on the success and fan following of Assassin’s Creed as a kind of insurance to minimize their own financial risk. With Valhalla becoming the highest earning title in the franchise (likely factoring in microtransactions as well as copies of the game sold), that appears to have worked.

            When I finally finished the absolute chore that was Valhalla’s main story arc, if you can call it that, I was absolutely exhausted. I made the sad mistake of going for full completion, and I ticked off every task in the game’s aesthetically beautiful but ultimately boring and copy/paste world. There were more barred doors in the game world that Eivor couldn’t break than there were tangible plot beats. The ending was so stilted and unsatisfying and left me confused and empty. Even as I write this, having since completed Assassin’s Creed: Odyssey (I have been catching up on the series in reverse order), Valhalla’s ending was a complete letdown to me. In fact, it’s worse to me now, because it pretty effectively craps over Odyssey’s ending and everything Kassandra was meant to be, shoving her aside after having lived for over two millenia, just so Layla can become the next “chosen one.” As much as I was indifferent toward Desmond Miles, he and his story were much more engaging to me than the grating, mostly insufferable Layla.

            Assassin’s Creed: Valhalla gave me some good experiences, and I find it worth booting up occasionally to wander around and take pretty screenshots, or to scoot around in a longship and hear some old world Norse tunes. However, I will never replay the story ever again, for I have never before played a game so thoroughly disrespectful of my time. The lack of new game plus or a mission replay feature cements this stance for me. Granting a few hours here and there of BS, taking screenshots, and idling, my completionist playthrough clocks in at over two hundred hours. Better games give me the same positive takeaways I got from Valhalla in a fraction of the time. Saying what Valhalla ultimately had to say could have been done in ten hours or less, not terribly far removed from the runtime of a season of, oh, say, Vikings. More is not always more. Hours required to finish a game does not automatically equal value. I never want to play something so ridiculously padded out ever again, and for the first time I find myself feeling not merely a little burned out, but truly disillusioned from investing any further time or energy in any new addition to the Assassin’s Creed franchise.

            Oh, and the Mastery Challenges can get shoved up Surtr’s giant fiery ass.

            FIN