Assassin’s Creed Valhalla is the first game in the franchise to tell its story in more of a loop, where you’re returning to your settlement after every mission in order to pick the next one. As a result, its story is divided into individual two- to three-hour chunks. Valhalla isn’t one long adventure like the previous games, it’s individual stories that ultimately add up to one final conclusion.
“This inspiration came from the Viking sagas themselves–the sagas of the Icelanders,” Assassin’s Creed Valhalla narrative director Darby McDevitt told me. “The sagas are not told like the typical hero’s journey that you get in most Western literature–a three-act structure, a rise and fall, the call to action, and then the refusal of the call. The sagas are actually more episodic moments in a character’s history. And you follow them through a long period of their life. It typically follows them from birth to death, but it’s not about having a single driving plot. They feel more like life. How life really is, which is just a series of character building incidences that orbit some themes.”
I’ve actually seen this first-hand. I played through one of Valhalla’s more combat-focused sagas back in July, and then a completely different one in a recent six-hour hands-on. Neither one made reference to the other. They were each self-contained stories that had their own beginning, middle, and end. The only commonality is protagonist Eivor, and I did notice that how I played the character (in regards to dialogue options) in that first saga informed my decisions in the second. So my Eivor was evolving, but the two different sagas could have easily been played in any order and it wouldn’t have drastically altered my understanding of either one.
“[Valhalla] has a thin through line–there’s definitely an emotional through line,” McDevitt said. “But what we’re more interested in is saying, ‘Here’s a little two-hour experience and here’s another little two-hour experience,’ and they’re all self-contained. And then they’re going to stack on top of each other so that the themes that we’re slowly building have more resonance, more and more. And I think actually, for a player of video games, having these two- or three-hour bite sized chunks is actually cool because you’re not going to be 40 hours into this game thinking, ‘Hey, I want the story to wrap up. It’s been a long time.'”
McDevitt added that he hopes that by dividing Valhalla’s story into these self-contained segments, it makes it easier to finish the whole game. As Assassin’s Creed fans will tell you, the most recent games have been getting fairly long–the last game, 2018’s Odyssey, clocked in at 50 hours (and that’s just the campaign; that’s not even counting the extremely lengthy six follow-up DLC expansions). With Valhalla, the idea seems to be the hope that players will find dozens of two-hour stories to be easier to ultimately finish than one giant story.
“Like I said, we’re playing a longer game here–there is an undercurrent,” McDevitt added. “But we’re hoping that these more bite-sized things carry you forward in a unique way.”
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Assassin’s Creed Valhalla‘s Eivor shares similarities with Assassin’s Creed IV: Black Flag‘s Edward; both are people who are historically known for pillaging and raiding–not something that’s typical for a hero. I asked narrative director Darby McDevitt how Ubisoft hopes to handle a story where you play as the conqueror, not the protector.
“People don’t have a full picture of the Viking thing,” McDevitt said. “That being said, they did aggress. But we tried to pick a point in history where they did have a grander reason for their aggression. And that is to go out and settle, to make a life for themselves.”
He continued: “We’re trying to depict this with as even a hand as we can. There is a little bit of ‘everyone’s the hero of their own story,’ but we also try to tell this story with as even a hand as possible. I think you’ll find that–and I hope that you saw this in the story arc you played–that nobody comes across as purely evil or purely good.”
In my six-hour hands-on with Assassin’s Creed Valhalla, Eivor met up with the Sons of Ragnar and aided them in their quest to create an alliance with a neighboring kingdom by disposing of their king and queen and implementing a puppet ruler. And to McDevitt’s point, both sides had people that I hoped I’d have the chance to kill, as well as individuals that I came to respect over the course of the saga.
Not every threat you meet in Assassin’s Creed Valhalla will be human.
It’s again, a little like Black Flag in that regard, which featured several allies turned enemies and enemies turned allies. In this way, Black Flag managed to avoid delving into the implication that you were a pirate responsible for a lot of suffering by painting all sides of the conflict, not just Edward, in shades of grey. It’s harder to notice Edward’s failings when almost everyone around him is as deeply flawed as he is. Valhalla seems to handle Eivor and their story in a similar way.
“There’s a bit of–what we say in literature or film–that depiction is not endorsement,” McDevitt added. “It’s a bit harder to make that argument with a video game, when you’re actually participating in it, but we’ve tried to be very even handed about it.”
He concluded: “And I hope that when you play this game, as you move through it, you’ll see that we start to pull off the gas a little bit with the invasion aspect. And the territories that you see in the back half of the game, the reasons for meeting these people are actually much more diverse. [Valhalla] does start with, ‘Let’s go in and knock some pots and pans over heads and take over some forts so that the people know that we’re here to stay.’ But in the back half of the game, we go deeper into more human stories and more interesting and diverse stories.”
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Briefly seen in a recent story trailer for Assassin’s Creed Valhalla, the Hidden Ones haven’t been mentioned very often ahead of the game’s release. The group was founded in Assassin’s Creed Origins, acting as the precursors to the Assassin Brotherhood. I caught up with Assassin’s Creed Valhalla game director Eric Baptizat and narrative director Darby McDevitt to ask how the group ties into Eivor’s quest.
“[The Hidden Ones] actually sail with you to England and they set up a Bureau with your permission in the settlement because they tell you they’ve got this big task ahead of themselves,” McDevitt said. The Hidden Ones are trying to get the Order of Ancients (the precursors to the Templar Order) out of England, and since the Order is causing problems for Eivor, the Hidden Ones and Eivor’s Viking clan decide to team up to take them out.
“Rest assured, there’s actually quite a large list of targets to take down,” McDevitt said. Baptizat added that killing these targets allows you to loot their medallions, which when taken back to the Hidden Ones Bureau, allows you to unlock new Assassin-based skills and tidbits of lore.
However, even if you don’t want to fully commit to rooting the Order out of England, the Hidden Ones still fulfill a rather important purpose in Valhalla: catching new players up to speed. Even if it takes place prior to most of the games, Valhalla is still the twelfth mainline title in a decade-long franchise. There’s a lot of lore to catch up on going into Valhalla, specifically all the ground that both Assassin’s Creed Origins and Assassin’s Creed Odyssey have covered. “Thankfully, the Bureau is there to actually provide some of that backstory,” McDevitt said.
The Hidden Ones Bureau in Assassin’s Creed Valhalla. Artist credit: Gilles Beloeil
In this regard, expect to hear some familiar names in Valhalla. McDevitt mentioned that the Hidden One Bureau will talk about notable Assassins, such as Bayek and Aya. It’s not just names from the past either. As I saw in my six-hour hands-on with Assassin’s Creed Valhalla, Rebecca Crane–an ally of the original present-day protagonist, Desmond Miles, who hasn’t been featured in Assassin’s Creed since Syndicate–shows up to help the current present-day protagonist, Layla Hassan. Baptizat teased that there would be more, but wouldn’t confirm names. But if Rebecca is around, there’s a good chance that Shaun Hastings isn’t too far behind.
Assassin’s Creed Valhalla is scheduled to launch for Xbox Series X/S, Xbox One, PS4, PC, and Google Stadia on November 10. It will also be released for PS5 on November 12.
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I get the sense that Assassin’s Creed is in the midst of some sort of metamorphosis. After getting hands-on with the game for six hours, I walked away from Assassin’s Creed Valhalla with the general sense that I had been playing something that felt altogether different from 2017’s Origins and 2018’s Odyssey. However, Valhalla feels like it could be remembered as a game that acted as a transition for the franchise.
The Assassin’s Creed franchise has always walked the tightrope between moments of stealth and sequences of action, with most entries leaning a bit more towards the former. This changed with Origins and Odyssey, both of which provided protagonists Bayek and Kassandra/Alexios with a more traditional open-world RPG set of combat mechanics and skill trees, and additional opportunities to fight bosses with large health bars.
Both games primarily take place outside of cities as well, removing the need for social stealth in most instances. And, of course, you’re not an outsider in either one. Bayek is basically a cop who can get away with murder and Kassandra/Alexios is an educated mercenary–it’s reasonable to see them work with the elite in one moment and then interact with the downtrodden in the next. Kassandra/Alexios isn’t even forbidden from running free in Athens after they’re seen aiding Sparta in numerous conflicts–it’s all chalked up to just being a part of their job.
In contrast, Valhalla protagonist Eivor is a Viking and thus not welcome in England. So social stealth returns. Outside of cities, Eivor may travel as they wish but once they enter more civilized pockets of the world, they have to wear a disguise. Standing too close to others may draw curious glances, and guards are suspicious of you as soon as they lay eyes on you. For the first time in years, a new Assassin’s Creed game encourages you to take to the rooftops, duck into crowds, or cause a commotion to distract wandering eyes. You either get good at blending in or you risk getting into a fight every single time you walk into town.
Eivor’s journey will see them confront Fenrir, a monstrous wolf who, according to Norse mythology, is a child of Loki.
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It’s my favorite aspect of what I got to play. Walking into an area where you know you’re not wanted can be tense. Every corner could be hiding a new patrol of guards you have to figure out how to avoid, and you know you won’t be able to reliably stock up on items or weapons because no one will sell to you. You are unwelcome. It reminds me a lot of Assassin’s Creed III: Liberation, the game in the series that best handled social stealth by tying it to both race and gender and allowing protagonist Aveline de Grandpré (a half-African, half-French woman born into wealth in 18th century New Orleans) to change her clothes in order to appear as either a lady, a slave, or an Assassin, and thus adjust others’ perception of her. Valhalla feels like the mainline Assassin’s Creed games finally taking a stab at that formula, even if it’s not nearly as robust as Liberation.
But it’s not ideal. Eivor moves like Bayek and Kassandra/Alexios do, lacking the grace of protagonists like Aveline, Connor, and Arno, among others–all of whom possess parkour and stealth mechanics designed for cities. Eivor certainly has more climbing and stealth skills than your traditional RPG protagonist like, say, Shepard or Geralt, but only just. So even though the stealth sections are delightfully tense, Eivor’s clunky and awkward movements can prevent these sequences from playing out in a satisfying way.
Which brings me back to my earlier point: Valhalla feels like it’s caught between two different worlds. Like I said a few months back, Valhalla’s combat is enjoyably frantic–encouraging you to respond to overwhelming numbers by becoming a whirlwind of motion on the battlefield. But I was disappointed to see my six-hour hands-on only reaffirm my fear that assassinating targets with a hidden blade and bow is so easy that you rarely have to rely on combat outside of scripted sequences. And yes, unlike Origins and Odyssey, Valhalla brings back the franchise’s tradition of putting you into the role of an outsider who must occasionally rely on stealth, not combat, to accomplish certain tasks. But the combat-geared controls don’t allow you to achieve the careful, calculated movements that make stealth segments in games so fun. Both aspects of Valhalla are good, but they seem to be actively undermining the other.
At the very least, I’m just glad that social stealth is back in Assassin’s Creed after being mostly absent in the last two mainline entries–when Ubisoft was presumably focused on improving the series’ traditionally lackluster combat mechanics. The RPG elements that Origins and Odyssey introduced into the franchise also continue to evolve in intriguing ways in Valhalla; most notably, there’s some very interesting stuff being done with the settlement. And it is worth repeating: I only played six hours of what assumedly is a much longer game. Who knows how the whole experience will shake out? Perhaps Valhalla will see stealth and combat more seamlessly complement one another later in its campaign with brand-new mechanics and features that we’ve yet to see. What I played occurs pretty soon after Valhalla’s prologue, so it’s fairly early on.
Best Buy’s Early Black Friday Sale ends today October 14 at 11:59pm PST. Although Best Buy calls it a Black Friday Sale, but we all know what it really is: Best Buy’s counter to Amazon Prime Day 2020. On Day 1 we saw a lot of deals featuring items that were different from Amazon’s Prime Day deals, such as the 2020 Samsung Tizen TVs, 4K UHD Blu-ray Steelbooks, Surface Pro Laptops, and Samsung Galaxy Smartwatches. On Day 2 we expect to see Best Buy focus more on price matching Amazon deals.
The best deals in my opinion are the Sony X900H and OLED TVs, but there are also plenty of deals on the 2020 Samsung QLED Tizen TVs. Tizen is Samsung’s open source Linux-based OS.
Best Buy Black Friday Smartphones and Smartwatch Deals
Best Buy has discounted a couple of Samsung smartphones and smartwatches. If you’re an Android phone user, the Galaxy Smartwatches are considered the best Android watches on the market.
This is the first year we’ve seen a substantial discount on the new Beats Solo Pro headphones. They are wireless and boast very good active noise cancellation.
Best Buy Black Friday PC Components and Peripheral Deals
Score a double whammy of a deal here if you get the new 10th generation Intel Core i7 processor and the Corsair 240mm all-in-one liquid cooler complete with psychedelic RGB goodness.
Not only is there a discount on the Surface Pro 7, you’ll also get the Type Cover thrown in (that’s normally an additional $100 expense)., Surface Pro 7 is one of the best road warrior laptops you can get.
If you’re scrolled down this far and you’re still hungering for more deals, I’m truly impressed. Here are some other articles we’ve written up covering all the best Prime Day deals we’ve found.
Eric Song is IGN’s deal curator and spends roughly 1/4 of his income on stuff he posts. Check out his latest Daily Deals Article and subscribe to his IGN Deals Newsletter.
One week after the early access launch of Baldur’s Gate 3, Larian is releasing its first major patch–but more importantly, has shared some anecdotes on the choices players are making in the game. Notably, the studio has shared a player death heatmap to see where the most players have lost their lives.
Yellow highlights show where the most players have died in Baldur’s Gate 3.
Not only is the heatmap interesting for those who have explored the dangers of the expansive map themselves, it’s an important QA tool for Larian to check whether player deaths are occurring in unexpected areas, so they can continue to refine Baldur’s Gate 3 for its full release. Of course, like any good D&D game, it’s also led to some great stories.
Most of them, for whatever reason, involve Gale. It turns out that a lot of people don’t like Gale, with Larian noting that player deaths spiked around the location of his introduction. While the conversation with Gale isn’t really meant to turn into a combat encounter, it still can if you choose to fight instead of listening to what he has to say.
Gale is also the most killed NPC, with 333,757 total deaths logged in the last week. Party members have murdered Gale at a rate of four times more than any other NPC–though luckily, he has a contingency plan for that eventuality.
As far as player deaths go, there are a whole host of dangers that players are falling victim to. 5717 players died trying to tame the Owlbear Cub, for example, while exactly 4000 met their end as a result of “interrupting the intimate moments of Ogres and Bug Bears.” Don’t feel bad if you died at the encounter with the fallen Mind Flayer, Larian says, because at least 3753 other players did the same.
With Baldur’s Gate 3 designed to have near endless story possibilities for its players, its no wonder Larian is sharing some of the interesting eventualities that have come to pass. “Play however you want, in whatever way you want,” the update reads. “There’s no one way to play the game. We’ve created systems that try to react to whoever you are, and whatever you do. The results of this make the game better.” The studio has encouraged players to be a little more creative with the character creator after finding that most people were just making “the default Vault Dweller,” however.
Check out more of the game’s first-week anecdotes and the full patch notes in Larian’s Steam update. Baldur’s Gate 3 is currently available in early access through Steam, GOG, and Google Stadia.
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Increased attack range vertically for opponents on the ground when the move is used on the ground.
Link
Up Smash Attack
Made it easier to hit multiple times.
Pikachu
Forward Air Attack
Made it easier to hit multiple times.
Ness
Dash Attack
Increased power of the third attack and extended launch distance.
Ness
Up Tilt Attack
Maintained the launch distance and increased power.
Ness
Down Air Attack
Increased attack speed.
Ness
Up Throw
Increased power.
Ness
Neutral Special
Increased attack speed.
Captain Falcon
Up Smash Attack
Made it easier to hit multiple times.
Ice Climber
Basic Movements
Decreased the damage Nana takes. Shortened launch distance for Nana. Adjusted Nana’s AI behavior.
Ice Climber
Dash Attack
Made it easier to hit multiple times. Increased attack range.
Ice Climber
Down Smash Attack
Extended launch distance.
Ice Climber
Side Special
Increased the speed of the edge-grab timing.
Ice Climber
Up Special
Made it so that Nana performing an up special automatically will not prevent the player from performing an up special. Increased the distance that it is possible for Popo and Nana to Belay together.
Sheik
Up Tilt Attack
Made it easier to hit multiple times.
Young Link
Flurry Attack to KO
Made it so the attack does not get neutralized.
Meta Knight
Flurry Attack to KO
Made it so the attack does not get neutralized.
Wario
Up Special
Made it easier to hit multiple times.
Ivysaur
Flurry Attack to KO
Made it so the attack does not get neutralized.
Charizard
Side Special
Made it easier to hit multiple times.
Charizard
Up Special
Made it easier to hit multiple times.
Sonic
Dash Attack
Maintained the launch distance and increased power. Reduced vulnerability.
Sonic
Up Tilt Attack
Reduced vulnerability.
Sonic
Up Smash Attack
Increased attack speed. Increased the amount of time invincibility lasts before and after becoming round. Made it easier to hit multiple times.
Sonic
Up Air Attack
Made it easier to hit multiple times.
Lucario
Etc.
Increased the max value the Aura will strengthen attack power.
Lucario
Neutral Attack 1
Increased attack speed.
Lucario
Side tilt Attack
Made it easier to hit multiple times.
Lucario
Down Smash Attack
Increased attack speed.
Lucario
Up Special
Reduced vulnerability when landing after using the move.
Lucario
Side Special
Extended launch distance for the Aura area.
Mii Swordfighter
Up Special 3
Made it easier to hit multiple times.
Robin
Flurry Attack to KO
Made it so the attack does not get neutralized.
Shulk
Up Smash Attack
Made it easier to hit multiple times.
Shulk
Neutral Special
Extended the distance that Shulk can be launched while Monado Arts (Shield) is active.
Shulk
Down Special
Extended launch distance.
Bowser Jr.
Basic Movements
Adjusted certain landing behaviors to no longer prevent passing through platforms.
Bowser Jr.
Side Tilt Attack
Extended launch distance.
Bowser Jr.
Up Smash Attack
Made it easier to hit multiple times.
Bowser Jr.
Down Smash Attack
Increased attack speed.
Bowser Jr.
Forward Throw
Extended launch distance.
Bowser Jr.
Edge Attacks
Increased the power of the attack used when grabbing edges after an up special.
Bowser Jr.
Side Special
Made it hard to flinch from opponent’s attacks.
Bowser Jr.
Up Special
Increased attack speed.
Ken
Final Smash
Made it easier to hit multiple times.
Bayonetta
Flurry Attack to KO
Made it so the attack does not get neutralized.
Ridley
Flurry Attack
Made it so the attack does not get neutralized.
Ridley
Flurry Attack to KO
Made it so the attack does not get neutralized.
Ridley
Up Special
The hit detection when charging downward and landing will only affect opponents on the ground.
Simon
Flurry Attack
Made it so the attack does not get neutralized.
Simon
Flurry Attack to KO
Made it so the attack does not get neutralized.
Simon
Dash Attack
Increased power. Extended launch distance when at low damage.
Simon
Up Tilt Attack
Extended launch distance when at low damage.
Simon
Up Smash Attack
Increased attack speed. Extended launch distance.
Simon
Down Smash Attack
Extended launch distance.
Simon
Up Special
Increased attack range.
Richter
Flurry Attack
Made it so the attack does not get neutralized.
Richter
Flurry Attack to KO
Made it so the attack does not get neutralized.
Richter
Dash Attack
Increased power. Extended launch distance when at low damage.
Information about Amazon’s big budget Lord Of The Rings series is still very thin on the ground, with most news off the set simply confirming whether production is in motion or not. Now, a screenwriter attached to the project has had to ask fans to stop assuming all her tweets are about the show.
After Peter Jackson proved how beautifully Tolkien’s works could adapt to film with his Lord Of The Rings trilogy (and, to a lesser extent, the later Hobbit trilogy) it’s no wonder fans are excited to see more of Amazon’s big budget TV show set in Middle-earth’s Second Age.
Speculation about the show was kicked into a frenzy when TheOneRing.net reported that the production had hired NZ intimacy coordinator Jennifer Ward-Lealand, which got fans wondering whether Amazon was planning to write Game Of Thrones-style nudity and sex scenes into Tolkien’s generally quite chaste world. One of series screenwriter Gennifer Hutchison’s tweets was then taken to be a response to these rumors, leading to the writer deleting her tweet.
Hey everyone – a reminder that I cannot talk about LoTR at all. I do not tweet about it beyond official announcements, even in vague subtweets, I promise. I’ll do my best to be extra vigilant about anything that could be interpreted as such.
The later tweet is a great reminder that we won’t be seeing Amazon’s cast or crew comment on the production until more official information is set to be released. Cast member Nazanin Boniadi shared a similar sentiment in a recent interview, only saying that she was excited about the production but was sworn to secrecy on most aspects of the production.
If you’re still desperate to know more, check out GameSpot’s guide to everything we know about the series so far, including the setting, cast, budget, and more.
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Rock Band 4 developer Harmonix has confirmed that Rock Band 4, all DLC, and a vast array of Rock Band peripherals will work from day one on Sony and Microsoft’s next-generation consoles launching next month.
“Our team has been diligently testing a bunch of old gear on the new systems to make sure everything works exactly as it does today,” explained Harmonix in a new post on the studio’s official site. “When you break open those crisp new consoles, you should be able to connect your existing, compatible peripherals and play Rock Band 4 right out of the box.”
“All DLC currently available for download will also work on new consoles. No messy generation transition this time, it’s the same DLC!”
The team also discovered a “pretty sizable performance increase” on both new consoles, especially when it came to load times. It would appear the only minor hurdle the team found is that the PS5 defaults to the microphone available in the controller: “If you want to use a regular USB mic, you’ll have to change that in your console settings,” explains Harmonix.
You can browse the full list of the instrument peripherals Harmonix tested – including controllers dating back to Rock Band 2 – on the studio’s blog post.
With new songs still being released on a weekly basis Harmonix noted it hopes to continue support for Rock Band 4 “for the foreseeable future.”
