Grind, colonization and overpopulation issues – new details about Assassin’s Creed Valhalla

Assassin’s Creed Valhalla will have the opportunity to go through some quests without killing. With the help of a dialogue system in some cases, the hero will be able to negotiate with opponents. Despite this, the game will focus primarily on action. “This is Assassin’s Creed. This is a fantasy about the Vikings. There will be many battles and many enemies with which it will not be possible to negotiate, ”said Ismail.

The central place in the plot and gameplay will take the main character’s settlement. Many quests will begin there, unlike the last parts of the series, where the player progressed over time in different territories. In the village it will be possible to take contracts, find out news about the outside world and meet familiar characters.

At Valhalla, developers are trying to develop NPC behavior from Origins, in which each character had their own daily schedule. According to Ismail, each resident of the village will matter to the user – they will have their own lives, and they can be better recognized. In addition, there will be a feeling that non-player characters have their own goal.

Speaking as a leader, Eyvor will face problems of overpopulation, as well as the consequences of colonization in the form of assimilation. Ubisoft worked on this aspect with historians. According to the developers, the Vikings in the new place preferred to adapt to the local culture rather than impose their own. The game will show how they lost part of their identity under the influence of the British.

The control scheme in Valhalla will be similar to Origins and Odyssey, in which there was mechanics of light and heavy blows, tuned to the trigger of the controller. In the previous parts of the series there was only one type of attack. Ismail also mentioned that a “tool wheel” would appear, but did not specify what it meant.

The gameplay in Valhalla will not change depending on the gender of the character – they will have the same opportunities, quests and dialog lines. Similar mechanics were in Odyssey, where it was possible to determine before the start of the game who the protagonist would be – Kassandra or Alexios. And in Syndicate, Ivy and Jacob could be controlled at the same time, while they had different tasks and small pumping features. The developer also said that before the release of the game, the company will release materials on the female version of the character.

Assassin’s Creed Valhalla will have a pumping system, but it will be redesigned compared to the previous parts of the series. It will become mostly focused on the skills acquired by the player than on attributes. Developers are trying to avoid the “big walls of progression” and make it so that users can access all the content of the game at any time. You can complete the Valhalla story without a grind.

Valhalla will include four English kingdoms, the territory of Norway and other locations. Ismail did not specify how big the map would be, and refused to compare it with Odyssey. Earlier appeared conflicting information about the size of the world of Valhalla.

Ismail did not comment on rumors about the possibility of battles with representatives of the Scandinavian pantheon. This was reported by the source of Kotaku – his information about the setting, the construction of the settlement and the weapons system was confirmed. In Origins and Odyssey, players could encounter mythical characters.

The release of Assassin’s Creed Valhalla is scheduled for late 2023. The game will be released on PC in the Uplay and Epic Games Store, as well as on the PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox One and Xbox Series X.