The first time that Ubisoft offered Game Rant the opportunity to play Assassin’s Creed Valhalla it was under the pretense that no one outside of the development studios had seen gameplay. Xbox’s next-gen showcase featured a trailer with what appeared to be cutscenes from Valhalla, but fans still didn’t know what the game looked like in moment-to-moment action. Ubisoft’s hands-on preview and following Forward event cleared a lot of that up.
Now, about two months after that initial preview, Ubisoft has once again offered select members of the media an opportunity to play Assassin’s Creed Valhalla. This time around the focus was on widening the scope of the gameplay loop just a tiny bit beyond open-world exploration. Specifically, Ubisoft wanted players to see how the Settlement feature works in Assassin’s Creed Valhalla, along with some of the new side content that will be available on November 10.
Eivor’s Viking Settlement in Assassin’s Creed Valhalla is not unlike the camp from Red Dead Redemption 2. By completing main missions or side objectives, players earn resources that can be spent to purchase new buildings within the Settlement, each with their own benefit. For example, there is a Cartographer who will sell maps that point to key locations, or the returning Hidden Ones Bureau from the previous games.
Each building within the Settlement also offers a passive upgrade, like increased duration of food buffs, that are beneficial but they didn’t seem game-breaking. Some even unlock new gameplay options, like the ability to fish. Others are purely focused on upgrades or customization, like the Blacksmith and Shipyard. It felt more like the upgrades from the Settlement were suited to how different people might play the game, versus picking up all of them at once. During our preview, resources were limited enough that it wasn’t possible to purchase every building or upgrade, so choices needed to be made. Still, the Settlement upgrades did feed that compulsion to do side content.
Every raid that players partake in as Eivor has an end goal of gaining more resources to further flesh out the Settlement. Based on our playthrough it never felt like upgrading the Settlement was required but it did seem to be a key part of the overarching narrative. Perhaps there will be roadblocks based on how far the player has upgraded the Settlement, but in our preview, we didn’t see any.
Another key piece of the Settlement gameplay is the Jomsviking customization. A Jomsviking is like a soldier in Eivor’s army that he/she can recruit to join their cause. Players can customize their Jomsviking in terms of their looks and their weapons and armor, ensuring that the AI character’s playstyle either matches or complements their own. It’s such a small part of the gameplay, but one that speaks to the depth that Ubisoft is adding to Valhalla.
Combat in Assassin’s Creed Valhalla felt sharpened from the last time we played it. Difficulty appeared to be more balanced, with enemies not coming out of nowhere to take half of Eivor’s health in a single hit. All of the basics were still on display, though, including new abilities to play around with like a move where Eivor leaps into the sky and slams down on a target with incredible force.
The only major difference on display was a boss fight towards the end of the main quest chain in the preview. It felt familiar for character action games but slightly unique for Assassin’s Creed. A lot of times the boss fights are relegated to side content, like fighting Medusa in Odyssey, but here it was a key part of the storyline. The boss character could also use some fantastical abilities like Eivor, but we didn’t learn why that was.
The quest chain that served as the foundation of the Assassin’s Creed Valhalla preview involved Eivor trying to track down a king in Leicestershire, unseat them by any means necessary, and then install a puppet king to gain control of the region. As part of the chain, players will meet Eivor’s brother Sigurd and the Ragnarsson brothers, two Viking warriors with completely different, and extreme personalities.
The basics are pretty straightforward but there were opportunities for players to choose their own path along the way. Obviously, without playing the finished game it’s hard to know the full impact of the choices, but there were some seemingly big ones, including a choice that harkens back to older Assassin’s Creed games.
Visually, Assassin’s Creed Valhalla still looks as impressive as it did in the first preview, but this time the focus was more on the landscape of 9th Century England. The muted browns and ambers are a key part of the visual language of the time period and the environment, and Ubisoft works well to still make each area feel distinct. Coming off of the first preview, there were plenty of reasons to be excited for Assassin’s Creed Valhalla and the same is true the second time around. Ubisoft looks to have a hit on its hands once again.
Assassin’s Creed Valhalla releases November 10, 2020 for PC, PS4, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X|S. The PS5 version will release on November 12, 2020.
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