Thanks a lot, I was waiting for this trailer in high quality from Gamersyde. You guys never fail!

I’m excited! I love me some Ass Creed! Odyssey and Orgins  were both amazing! I’m sure this will be amazing as well! 

This is such a weird perfect timing announcement for me. Today I just finished watching the last kingdom season 4 on netflix and one of the characters from that show plays the male Eivor in this. Between watching Vikings, TLK and playing god of war 2018 i ve been very much into Norse stuff the past couple of years. Hope i like this AC more than origins and odyssey.

This could be more interesting than Odyssey. Jason Schreier hinted a gameplay reveal next week.
btw apparently 15 Ubisoft studios are working on this game, which is fucking insane.

Nice.

For those who don't want to read a "wall of text" in the press release, I made a TL,DR:/key takeaways version and also added a few things from the official site that aren't in the press release. I put gameplay related info first and story/lore info later, for those who only care about one or the other. Enjoy!:

Key Points (TL,DR):

 - New Combat System that is visceral and gore (Dismemberments, Decapitations, Bashes);
 - Can fight with 2 weapons (different or same type), 1 weapon and 1 shield, or even 2 shields at the same     time;
 - Weapons include, but are not limited to swords, flails, axes, hammers, etc;
 - Runes will be used to improve weapons or equipment;
 - The Hidden Blade returns to the series after Odyssey's Spear of Leonidas (Legacy of the First Blade story DLC apart);
 - Player will build, upgrade, customize and expand a colony settlement base (Like ACs 2-3 & Brotherhood, but most likely much more advanced);
 - Need to obtain the resources necessary for the clan's survival and gain wealth;
 - Will be able to lead massive surprise longship raid attacks on certain villages while sailing;
 - Will be able to launch massive assaults against rival Saxon strongholds (Maybe like Total War, because they mention "combat strategy you employ", but not sure);
 - Play as Male or Female protagonist (Same as Odyssey - and Syndicate as well);
 - Customize hairstyle, tattoos, war paintings, and equipment (weapons and gear);
 - Some of the settlement's buildings include barracks, blacksmiths, tattoo parlors, etc;
 - Can recruit new members to join and grow your clan;
 - Widest variety of enemies ever proposed in an Assassin's Creed game;
 - Politics will play a major role (Can make political alliances and choices will shape the world's state);
 - Many battles will be avoidable depending on the player's choices;
 - Dark Ages Medieval England setting;
 - Eivor is a chieftain and leads the Eivor Vikings clan, from Norway;
 - Will have to face the resistance of the Saxons and in particular that of king Aelfred of Wessex;
 - Available on PS4, PS5, XB1, XBSX, Stadia, PC (Uplay & Epic Games Store), Uplay+.

Assassin's Creed: Valhalla sounds amazing and a step forward to the series. The fact that the creative director, Ashraf Ismail, is the same of ACs Revelations, 4: Black Flag, and Origins gives me a lot of confidence. As well as the fact that Ubisoft seems to have taken to heart the disaster that was and still is Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon: Breakpoint - which ironically funny, was the company's breakpoint. Hopefully they deliver on its promise.

Norge rules!

Some quotes from Eurogamer's interview with Assassin's Creed: Valhalla's Lead Producer, Julien Laferrière:

Eurogamer - Assassin's Creed Valhalla reshapes the series' RPG storytelling by giving you a Viking settlement - Ubisoft answers our questions on new hero Eivor, Viking Britain and much more.:
https://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2020-04-30-assa...

 - "It's your own Viking village you'll see prosper and grow, and which your clan mates will live in, it's at the centre of our quests and the centre of the decisions you make. We want players to see the consequences of their actions.";

 - "Big story arcs will begin and end here, the impact of your decisions rippling through your growing community. You'll see the effects of alliances - such as weddings to forge relationships between clans - and the consequences of 'harsh choices you have to face'.";

 - This sounds like A Song of Ice and Fire/Game of Throne's hard choices and frail plotical alliances;
 - The settlement base sounds a lot like Red Dead Redemption 2's base camp;
 - Different romance options will be available;
 - As Laferrière speaks, he describes the settlement as a place of importance in Valhalla reminiscent of Skyhold and the Normandy, which players returned to time and again.;
 - You will see Scandinavia, and Norway is the the setting for the start of the game;

 - "You'll feel the harshness of the lands, the political pressure there at the time. You'll feel all that and hopefully you'll understand why you have to move to England where most of the game takes place." Britain will then make up the bulk of the game's map, but 'a few surprise areas' will also feature.";

 - "choice of gender is only part of the customisation you'll get. Beards, tattoos and war paint options will be available to pick from. Your gear will also be customisable, Laferrière says, as will your Viking longboat.";

 - !!!!! BEARDS will be customizable !!!!!;

 - Marketing will "showcase both [male and female Eivor versions] at different points";

 - "We're obviously using the mythology. We have found a cool way of integrating that with our lore which for today goes into major spoiler territory. But what I'll say is their gods were part of their daily life. They were believed to be roaming the earth, involved in fights - that was part of the Viking spirituality. And that's how we treat it in the game, which is true to beliefs and practices at the time.";
 - "We have a bunch of new abilities for the raven. We used it as a reason to re-explore the way players can explore the world so it is less reliant on UI. If you notice a distraction somewhere it's probably because there's some content there.";

 - "And if you thought having a home might mean less exploring the unknown this time around, it sounds like there will still be plenty of that too. "We want to make a world that rewards players for their curiosity. It links in with Vikings being great explorers - so the world is meant to be meaningful.";

 - "Once again, you'll be exploring both on land and on water, though it sounds like the naval battles of the past have been dialled back somewhat. There's no sitting and firing cannons at other boats - Vikings just didn't do that. Instead, your longships act as your fastest means of travel through the English countryside, along waterways which were the main roads of the era.";

 - "Boats are also your fastest method of escape after launching an assault on a waterside fort. 'Any military location you encounter on the rivers of England is fully raidable. We want you to be playing the ultimate Viking fantasy, so you'll get to have your Viking buddies going with you on a longship. Sometimes you'll get resources to take back and upgrade your settlement, or maybe additional firepower to help take down higher level bandits in the region.'";

 - "Valhalla is a single player game", a Ubisoft spokesperson clarified, "with many online components, encouraging players to share their progress and creativity".;

 - "One thing Ubisoft is willing to pin down for long-time fans is a continuation of the franchise's overall arc for those engaged in that - meaning more backstory on the First Civilisation, and a third outing for present day character Layla (whose story suddenly got interesting in Odyssey's final expansion). 'We've found a way to blend the present day into a new type of experience for players,' Laferrière concludes. 'And present day is playable - I can confirm that.';

 - "For more than two and a half years, Valhalla has been in development by the Assassin's Creed Origins team at Ubisoft Montreal. Led by Ashraf Ismail, creative director of series standouts like Origins and Black Flag, it has also had the support of an eye-popping 14 other studios worldwide. It's a monumental project, designed from scratch to debut on PC, PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X later this year (along with versions for PS4, Xbox One and Stadia). And it looks ready, again, to redefine what Assassin's Creed can be.".

Additional info from IGN's interview with Assassin's Creed: Valhalla's Game Director, Ashraf Ismail:

"You can actually quite dynamically go back to Norway anytime you want. And Norway is quite breathtaking. We have the four kingdoms within England, Wessex, Northumbria, East Anglia, Mercia. It's quite a large chunk of England. There's other surprises that I won't spoil, but our ambition has been to deliver the Viking experience, the Viking fantasy within the Assassin's Creed world."

IGN - Assassin's Creed Valhalla Gameplay, Story Details Revealed:
https://www.ign.com/articles/assassins-creed-valha...

There is also a developer commentary on the cinematic trailer

https://youtu.be/L_nb_YECQoQ

Lovely to meet another "The Last Kingdom" fan, I love the TV series to death. Still need to read the books. The TV series is on the same level of Vikings and Game of Thrones imho, but with a lower budget, of course.

I just love the Vikings era, historical figures and stories. Vikings forever!!!

Well, I was hoping the newest one would be set in Ancient Rome to cap off the rebooted franchise in a neat Antiquity trilogy but those new gameplay mechanics have me interested !

Missed some screens.

Holy F**k,

https://www.gematsu.com/gallery/albums/assassins-c...

give that bear an eyepatch and a pipe.

Imma about to buy, either origins or odyssey, just for the sake of the "Discovery" portion of the game.
Witch is better & more interesting, and can i get to it from the start of the game, or do i really need to finish the game first? I know i can buy Just that portion as standalone on pc for a portion of the price.

if they're leaning even more heavily on the RPG elements this time around (level gating, Dark Souls-esque dodge and roll, stabbing a regular soldier 5000 times) instead of stealth, cinematic animations, and the sense of power that I came to love about the series, I'm afraid I'll skip Ubisoft entirely next-gen

... Rayman, BG&E, Rainbow Six, Splinter Cell, South Park ...

You can still become OP and make level gating, as you call it, obsolete. As for enemies being bullet sponges, that only happens when people don't understand the game's systems and try to mix and match their equipments.


There are hundreds of videos on YouTube about how to do tens and even hundreds of millions of damage in Odyssey. Even at launch, you could do insane damage with Assassin and Hunter (Bow) so much that Ubisoft nerfed many things with the patches.

Origins had the same, once you reached a certain point and understood how to properly equip yourself, you killed enemies in 1 hit. As for being Dark Souls-esque, Origins was like that, but Odyssey introduced so many elements that it has it's own identity and feels very, very different than any Dark Souls game I can think of.

So while Origins and Odyssey are still very heavy RPGs, almost none of those statements is true. In Odyssey's case in particular, you can still do stealth, the cinematic animations are there with Hero Strike, Fury of the Bloodline and other abilities, as well as retaining the sense of power not only throughout the game, but after a certain point you are literally a god - Ring of Chaos + Crit + Fire is like a mini nuclear warhead in Ancient Greece.

Then you have Rush Assassinate which can end most fights even before they've began, even while in active combat, if you start it as soon as the fight starts and enemies awareness states aren't fully on "battle mode" yet, you can still Rush Assassinate them and end a fight in less than 10 seconds. Even on Nightmare mode with Heavy enemy level scaling - means that enemies are on the same level as you.

Kassandra/Alexios are literally gods in Odyssey. Once you learn how the systems work and have gotten the proper gear, any playstyle yields OP results.

BG&E2? YEAH ! it's definitely coming out ...in 10 years' time !

SC and PoP? I've resigned myself to the fact that Ubisoft's greed will never allow them to return to their former glory, if they ever release.
Rayman and SouthPark??? are you kidding me????!
Rainbow Six? played it for 4 years straight, had my hopes dashed for a proper single-player campaign or a decent sequel to Vegas2. they also stated repeatedly that they are not planning on developing a new entry as they are targeting 100 operators (read heroes/legends). 

so you tell me !  

you are clearly missing the point I was trying to get across. I am NOT interested in an ARPG AC. I AM NOT INTERESTED IN DOING AND COUNTING DAMAGE POINTS, SON ! I don't care about 'abilities' unlocking assassination animations for me, I have zero interest in fighting hordes of enemies in the hope of a pathetic loot, or going on youtube to search for videos (LOL) to tell me how to play my game. I know that a large number of people are fond of this new formula but as far as the title and the motto (“We work in the Dark to serve the Light.”) is concerned, this is no longer AC but merely a new game, in a new GENRE, with the name AC slapped on top, hidden under a very thin veneer of AC success and reputation.

I can't really summon up the energy to list all the reasons why this is a betrayal of the fanbase's trust, the people who fell in love with the franchise that they can no longer recognise. 
you might want to give this a read (with which I wholeheartedly agree):

http://thisgengaming.com/2020/05/01/is-it-time-ubi...

just chill bro. you WON'T have your lone assassin blending game back, like ever. Series evolve, for good or bad, just let it go.


Just look at Thief... if they even wanted to remake Ass 1, the current scene doesn't have the same DNA, what is there is diluted between innumerous huge teams and contracted teams.

Hey, I understand your point that you aren't interested in an RPG Assassin's Creed game at all. However, the thing about how the diehard fans were betrayed is untrue and hysterical. The stories, legacy, conspiracies, assassins, templars, abstergo, attention to detail and historical accuracy - not always, but for most of the time - it's all still there.

I'm a true Assassin's Creed diehard fan, I have played all Assasin's Creed games to 100% completion - except for the mobile stuff. I will defend the series until the day I die, however, I still recognize its many flaws. Betraying the diehard fans isn't one of them.

What has changed is the combat gameplay, that has been revamped and for the better, significantly better in my opinion. The gear system allows for a whole lot more variety of playstyles than before. There's tens and tens of different playstyles to accomodate everyone. The stealth is significantly better, same for combat, etc.

The story is still as impactful and emotional as ever, if not more. I read a lot of threads of moments that made people cry in both Origins and Odyssey. How Bayek and Kassandra are their favorite characters in the whole series.

Plus being set so long before the periods in the originals makes perfect sense that these new characters aren't acting in the shadow. If you watch the ending CG cutscenes from Assassin's Creed: Odyssey's The Legacy of the First Blade's Episode 3 DLC, you will see that Assassin's Creed: Origins takes place after Odyssey. It was in Origins' The Hidden Ones DLC that "The Hidden Ones", later known as "The Assassin's", were formed.

There quite a few threads in the Assassin's Creed official forums, Reddit, GameFAQs, etc that go into possible theories of how everything went. Like why in AC1, Altair and the Assassins order cut their fingers to use the hidden blade, but the first person to ever use a hiddlen blade was Darius - hence the title "Legacy of the First Blade". But because it had passed many centuries between Odyssey's time and that of AC1, the Assassins order lost that knowledge. Remember they've been in constant conflict with the Templars order and both sides have lost very important members who died without passing their knowledge forward to future generations.

Ubisoft has stated many times in the past that they already have the overall story and the characters written, and these statements were many, many years ago. The story that you claim that diehard AC fans loved is still there. As epic and emotional as ever.

If you don't like the game's combat system and none of the many, many different playstyles, that's fine and I won't try to convince anyone to like it. However, the stories and the conspiracies are still there, the spirit and essence of the series is intact.

If you are only interested in the story, you can watch just the cutscenes if you want, read Assassin's Creed Wikia, or even just a post-mortem on the story and lore. There's all kinds of avenues and ways you can learn about the story without playing the games. That's true even for the originals, which have many of their stories in other art forms like books and comics.

I did take the time to read the article you linked to, and here are a few thoughts on what it says:

No offense, but the author of the article started at Assassin's Creed 2, not 1. Also, he himself admits he's not a die hard fan of the franchise, having missed many important games like Rogue - Rogue ties into Unity very, very neatly, so much that after playing both, I can't think of Unity without Rogue.

Remember when I mentioned stories of people crying to moments in Origins and Odyssey!?, The "story and emotional impact" the author describes is still there, if not more. Ezio's and his family stories were tragic, but so were the stories of Bayek, Kassandra and their families - I won't mention specific details because of spoilers.

The symbiosis between stealthy assassination and action are even more pronounced than before. You actually get to decide how you want fights to go, there's so many tools and options that I change them each fight. I used the Hunter/Bow playstyle a lot Odyssey's base game, but barely did so in the DLCs. In the Legacy of the First Blade, I used mostly Warrior abilities, and in Elysium I used mostly Assassinate and Warrior abilities.

To you and the author, if you all want to only be Stealthy in Origins, use the bow as it's very, very OP and 1-hit kills everyone. In Odyssey, use Assassinate abilities and finish fights before any even start, you even get an ability that automatically disappears bodies after assassinations, so no need to hide them. Even if you get caught, there's ways to become stealthy immediately or a few seconds later. In active combat, use Vanish or break line of sight, then Rush Assassinate 5 enemies in less than 10 seconds. Rinse and repeat as many times as you want, it will be boring as hell, but it will be your choice.

You want the complete old Stealth experience, just be stealthy and don't get caught. That's your choice, but also your responsibility if you get caught and have to fight or reload a previous save. That's entirely on you, and no one else's.

Article: "'We work in the Dark to serve the Light.'"

As mentioned before, doesn't apply to games set many centuries before that motto was even created. So moot point there.

The author mentions Odyssey's protagonist being in big battles. Guess what!?! Kassandra's a misthios (mercenary), a warrior for hire. Complaining about that is the most stupid and meaningless thing to do.

It's like if someone started complaining why The Lord of the Rings' Frodo or Sam weren't wizards and used magic against their enemies. Or why Gandalf didn't use a teleport magic to teleport everyone to Mount Doom. Or why Joel wasn't a perfect father figure for Ellie in The Last of Us. That's not the story being told, nor who and what those characters are about. Wanting those things to be changed is wanting it to be a completely different story. Of which there are millions of different stories already, so there's absolutely no need for these elements in these stories to change in order to accomodate people who don't like them.

Additionally, it's really dumb to expect that in a series that depicts different characters in very different periods in time and locations to all be the same thing or act because of the same belief. Altair was about honor, Ezio was about revenge, does that make AC2, Brotherhood and Revelations a betrayal to the die hard fans of AC1!?! That's fucking insane!!!

Here are main reasons - as far as I remember - for the main games' Assassins:

Altair was about honor.
Ezio was about revenge.
Ratonhnhaké:ton (Connor) was about justice and what was better for his people.
Aveline was about fighting prejusice and oppression.
Edward was about survival and later, redemption through a cause greater than himself.
Adéwalé was about fighting slavery.
Shay was about fighting the corruption in the Assassins order.
Arno was about love.
The Frye twins were about adventure and later, the fate of a nation.
Bayek was about revenge and later, about the fate of the world.
Aya was about making her nation better and then the world, which is why she creates the Assasins order.
Kassandra/Alexios were about family and then the greater good, to which they became a keeper.

In Kassandra/Alexios case, they never were part of the Assassin order, but they were essential to the creation of the order and did help directly and indirectly the order.

These characters all had their reasons for fighting against Templars, Ancients, Kosmos, Abstergo, etc. But they shared very little in the reasons why they fought against those orders/cults.

Because Origins and Odyssey are essential to the creation of the Assassin order!? Because it's a series based on multiple periods, locations and characters!? Because it's Ubisoft's franchise and they decide what to do with it!? There's even more reasonings, but with so many options, it's hard to choose one. Oh... I know, I choose all of them because they're all true!

Article: "Abandoning the Assassin's Creed name not only protects the older games, but also unlocks the shackles on the new ones."

Completely wrong, as both Origins and, specially, Odyssey showed that they were far greater and more richer games because they are part of the Assassin's Creed series. I could maybe accept that for AC4: Black Flag, which is in my top 3 AC games. But Ubisoft nailed the connections in Origins and Odyssey, so much that I did stop and think long and hard if they weren't AC games, and it immediately became clear they would be worse without those connections.

Most AC games protagonists weren't born in the Assassin order, but discovered it through different ways. This also means that a Viking warrior who was born, grw up and trained his whole life as such, won't abanddon all the battle experience and fighting techniques he learned during a lifetime just to go fight in the shadows.

Which to a Viking, would be worse than death, as that would be very cowardly. Remember that a good death for a Viking is on the battlefield. Which do raises questions as to how they will implement Assassinations in Valhalla. But that remains to be seen. Either way, even though characters like Edward and Arno became Assassins, that didn't mean they became completely different people. They constantly defied what it meant to be an Assassin and even the Assassin order itself. Some were even excommunicated from the Assassin order, while others only joined it partially or after many years later in their life.

As with anything that exists for a very, very long time, the Assassin order evolved and devolved countless times throughout the ages. If Aya saw what the Assassin order had become in Rogue and Unity, she would have slitted those Assassins' throats herself.

Both you and the author want things to stay the same when in fact, outside of the combat and gear, things were never the same. You both hate Origins and Odyssey for being different in those key aspect areas, while ignoring all the similarity in almost all the other areas.

It reminds me of prejudiced people who focus on one or two aspects of a human being to condemn and hate that entire group. Like if the tonality of someone's skin or their gender made them less than others. When they're 99.99% alike everyone else in Human history.

This got way long, but I truly love the Assassin's Creed series. And now it's objectively better than it has ever been. I'm sorry that you, the author of that article and many others can't appreaciate this latest evolution of the series. However, if the direction the series has evolved to isn't to your liking, there's hundreds of thousands of other games to enjoy.

Thanks for the discussion, I actually enjoyed this as it made me look back and remember a lot of stuff in the old games, which I love them all - with the exception of Liberty. Though they will always exist and people can replay them as many times as they want and just ignore the new games. That's what I did with Parasite Eve and Dino Crisis.