I killed all the war elephants because achievement.
I wonder when they’ll release this. Everyone must be keeping a nervous eye on Cyberpunk.
Uh, what does a single boss fight tell you about the number/importance of these kinds of fights? They may be many or they may be few, but you can’t tell that from a single video of one fight.
But no, I really have never enjoyed boss fights for the most part.
I’m not watching that. It’ll make it look like it’s not real :(
I enjoyed it, they did a good summation of the way the series has progressed into its open world style now. And they mentioned a few things that are coming back from the earlier games.
I kind of hope it runs terribly on current gen because it takes advantage of next gen/PC power… but it looks like the existing stuff.
Comes out right before my birthday. Yay :)
I’m trying not to watch these in detail but is there really a bit where a longboat smashes through a castle wall?
Eurogamer noticed some things:
Several long-lost features return from previous Assassin’s Creed entries. You can once again engage in social stealth within crowds by putting up your hood and blending in. You can hunt down pieces of paper via AC3-style parkour challenges (these now unlock tattoo designs), and chill out with a spot of fishing (as in Black Flag).
Regenerative health is gone, replaced by the need to forage for food and eat rations. There’s now a gallop meter for horses, and a charisma meter for conversations.
Other activities shown included flyting (think Monkey Island-style insult fights), building cairns and drinking games where you chug horns of drink.
Oh, and you can interact and recruit cats to join your longship crew.
A 30 minute gameplay video where the character didn’t do a single assasination.
I’ve liked the last two games but this is a completely different series now that has nothing to do with Assassins creed.
Right - they should rename for next gen. Fun with Swords and Drinking. Or something.
I assassinated badguys, guards, and everyone else in Origins and Odyssey in ways that didn’t feel particularly different from previous games – hiding in bushes, around corners, behind boulders, whatever.
But the core assassination gameplay loop of the first 5 games – AC, AC2, Brotherhood, Revelations and even AC3 – was starting to feel pretty tired. With AC4 and Rogue, it felt like UBI recognized that and they were trying to do anything but emphasize the assassination play.
I don’t care what the series has become, honestly. I loved Odyssey so very much for the world it created. If they can create a similarly amazing world for Valhalla, I’m going to be in heaven. Seriously, if they can just competently execute the basics for this, I’m likely to play it more than Cyberpunk this fall.
Couldn’t agree more, and the open world stuff shown in this video puts this game at the top of my fall wish list.
I do agree though that the wooden longship bursting through a stone wall was silly.
Tangent: did you feel like Odyssey was a significant step up from Origins, or just a slight refinement?
I’m about halfway(?) through playing Origins very thoroughly, but losing steam. If Odyssey is a big step up, I might switch to just speeding through Origins to start Odyssey, but if they’re similar I might keep chipping away at Origins but then give the franchise a rest again before coming back to Odyssey.
I felt like it was a significant step up, but probably not for the reasons you might be looking for. :)
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Setting. When it comes to setting, I’m not sure any videogame setting I’ve ever experienced has quite possessed the beauty and wonder of ancient Greece. It’s so perfectly realized here, even if they take some liberties with historical geography as needed.
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Character. Bayek is simply…not real exciting. I never felt like I connected with him, nor cared too much about his story. It just never came together for me. On the other hand, Kassandra as a main character is one of the most memorable, and incredibly realized characters in recent gaming history. I found myself just wanting to play the game to hang out with Kassandra, to see what happened to her and how her story evolved.
https://www.usgamer.net/articles/assassins-creed-valhalla-hands-on-origins-and-odyssey
What has changed is in regards to dual wielding. Now the right and left bumpers control attacks with your right and left hands. Right bumper is your light attack with your right hand weapon, Right trigger is the heavy attack with that same weapon, similar to Origins and Odyssey. The left bumper is where it gets a little interesting: If you have a shield in your left hand—yes, it can be equipped in your right hand and be used to attack—tapping the button brings up your shield to parry, and holding it blocks, similar to Bayek in Origins. If you have a weapon in your left hand, tapping the bumper parries and holding the button does a combination attack. If you don’t need the defensive capabilities of blocking and can get by on parrying, you gain more offensive power.
Parrying and heavy attacks chip away at enemies’ stun meter, which sits above their health bar. (Blocking does not seem to affect the stun meter.) Once normal enemies are stunned, they get opened up to Stun Attacks, which are instant kill moves based on what you or your enemies have equipped. There’s also a little dismemberment in Valhalla now; I hit a guy with a flail and watched his head pop right off.
There’s also a skill that lets you swap which weapon is in which hand while dual-wielding by double-tapping A, letting you switch between, say, an axe and a flail as your primary method of attack. It’s another series of options in combat. Not an overhaul, but bringing together blocking and parrying works once you wrap your mind around it.
Other changes include moving Assassination to the left bumper, meaning once you enter open combat, you can’t assassinate at all, because tapping the bumper is your light attack. This was a change I immediately turned my nose up at, but I quickly got used to it. There’s some fuzziness in the moment where you’re about to assassinate and someone sees you, but that’s always been in Assassin’s Creed.
As promised, there’s a skill that allows you to one-hit assassinate targets that would otherwise be a critical hit. When you assassinate a higher-level target with the skill active, you’re presented with a timed mini-game where you have to press the button again within a certain window. The thing is, the timing is fairly open, making it very easy to land the hit; I assume this was for the demo, because as it stands I never missed. If it’s going to remain as simple in the final version, I’d almost rather they take it out and just let it be a one-hit kill.
Point 2 might be exactly what I need. Thanks for the quick explanation.
Is playing one of these very thoroughly ever going to work well? I play the parts that work for me to avoid being overwhelmed with similar stuff :)
As Uplay is free for a few days you could dabble with Odyssey for a bit? It has quite a large and well defined intro area you could probably get through, although tbh the real scope doesn’t become apparent until you move on from there.
@WhollySchmidt I felt Odyssey was a big step forward. The characters were cooler, the world was just as awesome, buy the game play mixed things up quite a bit, so that it never felt overly repetitive, which is a big issue I have with the series. Also, you can play Kassandra (because why would you not pick her she is awesome) as a melee, an assassin or a ranged build and get pretty varied results with most battles. I also liked the fact that I got pretty sweet armor much earlier in the game, and not at max level when it was basically useless (ala Origins). Why games wait until the last minute to give me the good stuff is beyond me =)