There are some other cool things coming to Valhalla and the AC games in general. 15 years have gone so fast.
Still adding stuff to this game.
This roguelike stuff is actually quite enjoyable. Seems to fit the kind of thing tricksy old gods would get up to. I think maybe this would maybe have fitted in better to the main game than the Odin sections they did include, just by being a different style for the different world.
Still putzing around in the main game, only 60 hours in I am a bit past the Ceolbert in the cave with wolves part. This game just fails to get its hooks in me, and I play a while then just put it down for months, the massive map filled with boring ubi-stuff just sucks the fun out of this game for me, even with auto-horse travel.
I’d give anything for a dense city setting again, like in AC:Syndicate.
I had the same issue and quit playing a few months ago. Went back to Origins for a 3rd time and it finally hooked me, but I think it has more to do with setting and the player character being more interesting. Had some fun with Cassandra in Odyssey for the same reasons.
But nothing stands out in Valhalla of what I’ve played so I’ll keep playing Origins and then maybe go back to Odyssey unless they release a 60 FPS patch for Syndicate for new consoles. I never finished it and want to play it again to completion. I think AC 2 is the only one I finished. I always manage to burn out in these games at some point.
I think those games are supposed to be played this way. It’s not a coincidence that starting with Origins they’re giving you daily quests. Later they’ve added rotating enemies to Origins and Odyssey, and seasonal events to Valhalla.
Recently I’ve started Curse of the Pharaohs, Origins DLC. It was great. I still have a few quests left, some of the elephants are alive. I’ve reached max level but after that you get new ability points again and again, and you can still upgrade some of your equipment, so there’s no feeling of pointlessness. I’ve got tired of it eventually but I can totally see myself returning at some point, doing even more quests, clearing out the rest of the map.
Odyssey is even cooler in that regard as it has an infinite quest generator and many more challenges. Valhalla has very little in terms of non-generated quests (those 2-minute adventures are just distractions) but the map is so enormous and full of little chests you can get. It’s more like one of those multiplayer games, like Genshin Impact. You’re not supposed to binge it.
When did they add the tiny little illuminated boats to the water around Ravensthorpe? It looks so nice at night. :)
Is it part of the ongoing Sigrblot Festival ?
Yeah, think so. Pretty!
Possibly because I’m from the UK, I loved exploring Valhalla’s England.
Well this is a disturbing fact I just discovered about the original AC.
As for Valhalla, I am still putzing around in Essexe, and the story has gotten so boring.
Also this game has a hell of a lot of armor, yet I am still wearing the Raven set, level up twice so far.
Eh, who cares about behind the scene hacks? It looks good in the final game, that’s all that matters.
Valhalla learned all the wrong lessons from Odyssey.
People complained there were too many sidequests. People feel obliged to do them and they suffer. So in Valhalla there are basically no sidequests (those world events are sometimes nice distractions but it’s no substitution for a sidequest) but what would be a major multi-staged sidequest chain in Odyssey - and I bet at some point of development most main quests were intended to be sidequests - is shoehorned into the main quests. Some of those stories would work fine as optional stories even if you do them all. But it makes the main story uneven and overcomplicated.
And with loot people complained that there was too much of it and it was hard to keep up. Valhalla’s solution is to make sure you will think twice before switching equipment cause it will cost you a lot. Also you either wear a full set or don’t cause you need that completion bonus. Congratulations, now you don’t suffer from choices fatique.
That’s so silly.
Valhalla really feels like three steps back. If you show this game to someone who knows nothing about the franchise they’d think it was made before Origins and Odyssey. It’s the same with every mechanic, they all feel like stepping back. It has those knights who travel predetermined routes and fight you if they see you, and it feels like the first draft of an idea that was later developed in Origins where those dudes started chasing you if you alert a nearby keep. Then in Odyssey, they all got generated traits and personalities and they started hunting you everywhere.
That’s, well, one mechanic.
Valhalla did introduce the monastery raids and your viking longboat, and the building up of Ravenholme of course.
I could go on. I’ve already said about equipment and quests being a step back. Raiding feels like a precursor to a proper ship battle and also grand-scale battles of Odyssey.
Building up of Ravenholme is indeed something new if you forget AC 2, 3, 4 and Unity doing something very similar. It is something we did not see in the previous two games, I grant you that, but it’s also very underbaked. There’s one building that gives you access to Odin travels (one of the few sidequests in the game and more necessary for understanding the main story than 90% of the main quest) and a lot of customization there. There are also additional mini-games like Orlog and Cairn, those are genuinely good additions. And I like combat changes, except for the lack of builds - it’s somewhat compensated by more varied enemies and a stun system.
But everything else is a step back. Order assassination is much more basic and doesn’t require much interaction with the world. That is because there isn’t much of an open world to interact with: region don’t change hands, battles do not happen, generated quests are very basic and are only dispenced from one place, and the only characters who roam the world are those knights. Environmental puzzles are all about cosmetics now unlike Origins and Odyssey. Explorer mode is not an immersive mode that makes you learn the lay of the land and look around but instead I’m not even sure what it does, limits the distance at which you notice the locations?
A lot of it would be justified if it was the return to the roots, to a smaller but denser map that would have less emergent gameplay and more staged stuff. But this game is the biggest one yet, requires more time to complete than any other game in the series, and it’s emptier and simpler than previous ones.
The next one is rumoured to be smaller. Maybe that’ll work better for you :)
Valhalla is an evolution of Origins, not Odyssey, to put it into a one sentence answer.
Despite being the uberfan I missed that video - thanks!
Meanwhile in the latest Tombs DLC I… can’t actually find any of the tombs :)