At this point, I don?t think I could even come close to guessing how many Assassin?s Creed releases there have been, but I think it?s pretty impressive that this franchise still manages to be solid, if not downright great on occasion, with each successive entry. There are a couple of duds, sure, but Ubisoft?s track record with Assassin?s Creed is fairly solid overall. The last two mainline entries, Assassin?s Creed Origins and Assassin?s Creed Odyssey were both really fun, and managed to even push the series forward a bit with combat and other mechanics.
While the early Assassin?s Creed entries were at least somewhat focused on stealth, Valhalla, much like Origins and Odyssey, is more of a general open-world action game. Stealth is certainly an option but rarely feels necessary, as your Viking protagonist Eivor is more than capable of handling themselves in most encounters. In fact, I would argue that stealth is even less important this time out, considering one of the few new mechanics introduced here is one that allows you to lead raiding missions on small towns and villages.
Outside of raiding, a lot of Assassins Creed Valhalla is similar to the prior games. Eivor can climb virtually any structure, combat consists of light and heavy attacks with the ability to block or parry depending on equipment, and the map has a number of little secrets and items to collect. The environments in Valhalla are lovingly rendered, both for the England map and Norway, which isn?t a huge surprise for the series but it?s still worth pointing out that Assassins Creed has some of the best in-game vistas around.
Side activities are varied in Assassin?s Creed Valhalla but again can start to get somewhat repetitive as you progress forward through the main story. Out of the optional activities, my favorites were always the small little side quests you?d occasionally encounter. These are pretty short and don?t involve much, but they?re also unique from one another and often times the brightest point of humor in the game. I?d say they are all worth seeking out, making map exploration feel worthwhile.
I?ve played through the game on an Xbox One X for this review and have found the game to be technically sound throughout. Outside of some minimal screen tearing here and there, I?ve not seen much to complain about. You?ll run into occasional pathfinding bugs with NPC?s, which isn?t uncommon with open-world games, but I never encountered anything that felt game-breaking.
If you?re in the mood for another open-world action game, Assassin?s Creed Valhalla is a fine choice. It is a little too similar in aspects to the last two games, making this feel like the point where Ubisoft may want to consider re-evaluating the series once again, but the settings, characters, and overall world are enough to overlook most of the repetitiveness. So provided you don?t have open-world burnout from the other like-minded games that released this year, I think Valhalla is certainly worth checking out.
Note: Ubisoft provided us with an Assassin’s Creed Valhalla Xbox One code for review purposes.
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