A SHAREHOLDER'S IDEA OF FUN
Assassin’s Creed: Valhalla might be the first game I reviewed in my head before I even started playing it. Call it prejudice—but sometimes prejudice isn’t wrong. I knew exactly what to expect, and that’s exactly what I got: a gigantic open world engineered to maximize the odds that I might buy something from the Ubisoft store. It’s a shareholder’s idea of fun.
This is trademark Ubisoft. I wouldn’t call Assassin’s Creed: Valhalla bad—just tedious. Everything is at least serviceable, from combat to exploration, but thanks to its absurd length, even the serviceable eventually grates.
The story is extremely ambitious and has its moments, which is the one thing that kept me from actively hating my time with the game toward the end. It begins in Norway, where you choose to play as either male or female Eivor. My choice was easy. Contrary to popular belief, Eivor is not a gender-neutral name. A quick search in the Swedish phone directory reveals that literally every Eivor is female—so that’s what I went with.
The opening frames the story as a revenge tale. Young Eivor witnesses her parents’ murder when a rival clan attacks. A tense, one-take cinematic shows her barely escaping with her life, surviving even a wolf bite to the throat. From then on, she’s known as “Wolf-Kissed.” Years later, the prologue revolves around tracking down those responsible.
I like this introduction. It establishes a grim world shaped by pragmatic Viking values, honor, and superstition. The snowy landscape is beautiful yet unforgiving, with the aurora borealis stretching across the night sky like a constant promise of Valhalla for those who face life with courage.
Once vengeance is dealt with, the game pivots to conquest. England—the land of plenty—calls from across the sea. The sons of Ragnar Lothbrok are already there, and Eivor joins them alongside her adoptive brother Sigurd. After founding a settlement called Ravensthorpe, you travel from region to region, forging alliances and bending local rulers to your will, gradually coloring in the world map.
I like parts of this: the intrigue, betrayals, and camaraderie. Eivor is a solid, flawed protagonist, and the evolving relationship between her and Sigurd is genuinely engaging. Life in the colony is unstable, and Eivor constantly has to prove her worth—sometimes unsuccessfully.
The map is divided into roughly twenty regions across Norway, England, and beyond, each with its own story arc. Some are excellent. The Halfdan arc stands out in particular. After years of raiding, Halfdan is wealthy but consumed by paranoia, distrusting even his oldest allies. He places his faith in Eivor, asking her to investigate those closest to him. My poor decisions led to a tragic outcome. The writing here—and in a few other arcs—is genuinely affecting.
Much of the story, however, feels like filler. As usual, there are too many competing plot threads. The Assassin storyline plays a major role, but the game would arguably be stronger without it. Basim, a foreign Assassin, settles in Ravensthorpe and introduces you to the Hidden Blade. He tasks you with hunting members of a secret order. Some are tied to the main plot; others require tedious investigation to even uncover. After slaughtering thousands of enemies, killing a few more doesn’t feel meaningful—it feels like busywork.
This thread is also tied to the modern-day storyline, where a neo-Assassin named Layla excavates Eivor’s remains. For reasons beyond comprehension, the modern framing is still here—and in terrible shape. It’s the least developed narrative thread, appearing only sporadically. Still, it does deliver one genuinely surprising twist near the end.
I can’t help but feel sorry for the developers. They clearly have talent, but they’re constrained by corporate mandates. As an open world and a depiction of ancient life, Valhalla feels more cohesive than Origins and Odyssey. For several hours, I was fully on board. I felt like a Viking—sailing my longship along English rivers, raiding monasteries, feasting in the longhouse after successful sieges, investing plunder into Ravensthorpe. The Norse gods appeared in visions, filling Eivor’s mind with promises of glory and destiny.
A handful of mini-games offer glimpses into Viking leisure. Dice games, drinking contests—I chuckled at the rhythmic cries of “Skål!” as Eivor downed ale. Flyting, a poetic insult duel, is a genuinely fun idea.
The music may be the game’s strongest asset. It shifts between ominous and aggressive, blending reverberating strings and steel guitar to evoke open seas, fjords, and northern lights. England’s rolling hills bring a different mood—less harsh, but heavy with longing and ambition.
There’s no shortage of craft here. Unfortunately, the gameplay fails to live up to the artistry, atmosphere, and setting. Despite smooth performance and responsive controls, everything good about playing Valhalla loses its shine due to relentless repetition and sheer bloat. Frequent crashes didn’t help either, forcing me to repeatedly clear cache and reload.
Combat looks spectacular but grows dull quickly. It’s loaded with animations, weapon-specific sounds, and visceral finishers. Bones snap, throats gargle, and screams fill the air—especially during raids and sieges, when your small army dismantles fortifications piece by piece. The initial thrill is intoxicating.
And yet—it gets boring. The combat never evolves beyond its shock value. Most activities funnel into fights, and they’re almost always easy. Enemies blur together, and your special abilities trivialize even bosses. Only when stumbling into severely over-leveled enemies do you face anything resembling resistance.
Some boss fights are conceptually interesting—like a bow-wielding witch who ziplines between ledges and poisons the arena—but mechanically they play out like standard encounters.
The enormous skill tree doesn’t help. With hundreds of nodes, you’d expect meaningful build variety. Instead, you get minor stat bumps: an extra arrow, more stamina, another adrenaline slot. Nothing meaningfully changes how you play.
Stealth technically works, but feels pointless given the effort it requires. I mostly resorted to sniping enemies from bushes and rooftops with a precision bow—the fastest and only approach that demanded any real skill.
Exploration fares no better. Loot is overwhelmingly crafting materials and copper. The rest consists of weapons and armor—but since any gear can be upgraded to max level, I stuck with my starting set. That’s a shame, because Assassin’s Creed’s parkour system should make exploration a joy. Eivor can climb almost anything—unless it’s icy.
Short side quests pop up frequently, reminiscent of Yakuza substories. Some are amusing, like helping a man whose refusal to bathe has rendered his home toxic. Cairn-building, stone alignments, tombs—it’s all competent filler in a game drowning in filler. Longer side arcs send you to mythological realms like Asgard and Helheim. Spectacular stuff that I mostly ignored by then—I was desperate to be done.
But the game wasn’t done with me.
I saw side quests through. I cared for Ravensthorpe. I upgraded gear. I hunted. I courted someone. I behaved. I misbehaved. I defended friends. I assaulted castles. I defended other castles. I spoke with gods. I plundered. I saved children. I slew legendary beasts. I assassinated order members. I saved the modern world. I finished the main quest.
And still, the credits didn’t roll.
My playthrough felt unfocused. What was I working toward? Each regional arc worked in isolation, but there was no strong sense of overarching progression. My settlement grew. The order diminished. But when was it enough? As always with Ubisoft, you just check boxes—and some boxes tick faster if you buy microtransactions.
I spent 90 hours on Assassin’s Creed: Valhalla, and I don’t feel like I accomplished much. From the start, I already knew the systems from earlier games. New settings and characters weren’t enough to offset that stagnation. Time is finite—something Ubisoft understands perfectly, and exploits ruthlessly. They don’t care about your time. They care about infinite growth. And they want you to help pay for it.
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