Assassin’s Creed Valhalla hands-on: An incomplete Witcher-ization
Enlarge / Assassin's Creed Valhalla stars Eivor, a Viking in the Early Middle Ages. Note: all images in this article were captured directly from live demo gameplay, not altered or sweetened by the publisher. (credit: Ubisoft)
Assassin's Creed's many-year transition to becoming a full-blown RPG is complete. The November 17 launch of Assassin's Creed Valhalla on PC (UPlay, Epic Games Store), Stadia, PS4, and Xbox One follows the progression we saw in 2017's AC Origins and 2018's AC Odyssey, which guided the series' open-world formula away from sneak-and-assassinate parkour and toward a full-fledged hero story.
Ahead of today's Ubi Forward reveal event, Ubisoft invited us to a 3.5-hour hands-on session with a prerelease build of AC Valhalla. And our experience confirmed exactly what we'd assumed when the game's concept (codenamed Ragnarok) leaked late last year: the series has gone full Witcher. Sadly, thus far, that comparison isn't as watertight as AC fans may hope.
The world feels real, but not the characters
Your other option for how Eivor can look in the game; both variants can be further customized with outfits and more, Ubisoft says (though we didn't see anything in the way of hair or facial customizations).
My demo put me in control of Eivor, the game's Viking protagonist, roughly halfway in the middle of the game. (AC Valhalla's protagonist has the same name whether you pick their male or female version.) I've arrived in East Anglia in the Early Middle Ages with the goal of helping a deposed local king regain command from an invading force-to stabilize the region and thus engender my Viking brethren to its leadership.
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