ASSASSIN’S CREED VALHALLA

Steven Messner: Valhalla was a bit of a surprise to me, honestly. I expected it to be pretty good, but I had no idea that Ubisoft’s next Assassin’s Creed was going to be such a memorable adventure. What matters here are the little details—the numerous ways Ubisoft listened to feedback from Odyssey to make Valhalla a much more inviting RPG. Level-gating is gone, the open-world doesn’t feel like a checklist of boring activities, and the combat has been refined to include more depth.

It’s also the first time an Assassin’s Creed story really gripped me from beginning to end. Odyssey’s storytelling was often clunky and a little obtuse, but Valhalla does a fantastic job of exploring Eivor’s relationship with her adoptive brother Sigurd while questioning the traditions of Norse culture with a surprising amount of nuance.

While the series’ transition into a big, meaty RPG has been a little clumsy, Valhalla makes it all worth it.

James Davenport: I knew Valhalla was something special when, as part of a sidequest, I pulled an axe out of a Viking’s skull. Important note: He was alive and talking to me, asking if I could help with his little problem. The guy collapsed and died immediately of course, and a little XP notification popped up to let me know the quest was done with. That was it. Stumble into a dying man, pull out the painful jewellery. Quest complete.

In another I told a girl clinging onto a false symbol— the last leaf hanging from a tree—that it doesn’t mean her father was still alive. So I told her to move on, then shot the leaf down. Dick move, but I’m a realist. Quest complete.

Valhalla is utterly riddled with these odd encounters rather than the usual convoluted sidequests. It’s more Red Dead than Elder Scrolls, imbuing the old English setting with a sense of life beyond the main conflict. For the first time in a while, a Ubisoft open world doesn’t feel like a checklist, it feels like a world.