Assassin's Creed Valhalla joins Game Pass today, here's why you should play it

KGI KlikoNL said:Great game but I got bored half way through the story was a bit repetitive for me.

Mastery challenge ist too hard. :-((

I should play it because I got one damn achievement in it during a free play weekend, and then decided to start caring about completion percentage lol.

I've liked what I've played of Origins, but tbh more so the exploration and just levelling with random quests like an MMO, as compared to the actual stealth and assassinating parts that are not as appealing.

I got broken all the way back after Brotherhood. Loved the second game but they all ended up looking the same to me even when I tried to play newer games. Relax I'm not a hater... maybe I'm just over open world games in general.

I'll pass

Silvery Death said:Odyssey and Valhalla took me 232 and 307 hours. So with your tempo Valhalla would take around 170.
I also think many had a bad experience with the early bugs.

BulbAssured said:I agree. I like the Assassin’s Creed story. I enjoyed the first 3 AC games tremendously. But Ubisoft kept increasing the MP stuff. It was obvious Ubisoft was more focused on making live service games rather than on the issues that made AC games great.

You’ve given us the reasons why we should play Valhalla. A little over two years ago, you gave us the reasons not to play it.

In your article, AC Valhalla is Ubisoft's "second largest profit generating game in Ubisoft’s history", you quote Ubisoft:
The image of a Gollum-like Ubisoft stuck in my mind. “My PRECIOUSSS. Shall we get ssstarted? She’s always hungry. She always needs to feed. She must eat. More micro-transactionzz! My lovely, live service PRECIOUSSS!”

For those who don’t know what DARPU is, it’s Daily Average Revenue Per User. Ubisoft’s money-grubbing tone in the press release completely rubbed me the wrong way. I like video game publishers to tell me they’re going to entertain me—not take me to the cleaners.

Here’s my take (granted just from a free weekend or maybe two free weekends): I loved AC Odyssey (Black Flag is my second favorite AC game but Odyssey is my favorite). Odyssey is an endlessly evolving world which has a dynamic quest system that actually cracks the code of what I call “play prompts” which are exactly what they sound like: the video game equivalent of writing prompts. Go do a quest and often the gameplay just emerges, sometimes before you even get to the quest.

Odyssey really opens up once you understand the gearing system and once you quit trying to be a traditional assassin. Your character is the Spartan grandchild of Leonidas, when kicking the door works, you KICK IN THE DOOR and it’s glorious. Odyssey is the on AC entry that actually lets you be a ranged assassin. Finally, in AC Odyssey you wield not one but two Isu artifacts thr equivalent of The Apple of Eden, you develop demigod level power and the game reflects that in gameplay. All in all AC Odyssey is just fun.

But AC Odyssey was panned vocally online and the developers of Valhalla, I guess making the common mistake of thinking Twitter is real life kept ending every message to the community with some variation on “… completely unlike Odyssey.”

And true to their word they did make it unlike Odyssey, mostly by removing all the fun.. Sadly it does carry over a lot of Odyssey design but what’s left are mostly grindy bits and a needlessly confusing skill tree. The settlement is fun but nothing new, imagine if your settlement in Black Flag (Great Inagua?) had more upgrades that offered more services. You can change colors on a map to “your side” which is unsatisfying (again, they took out the fun bits). I just can’t imagine 120 hours of what I’ve found so far.

Playing Valhalla for free does change the value a bit, there’s surely some story there and maybe the DLC is wild like so many AC DLCs and merits playing (but then again, makes playing it “not free” again).

All in all, message me if you need help with your Odyssey build.

Allgorhythm said:I'm not sure what you talk about as micros are not any more present than in Origins or Odyssey and even less than in some older titles, where marketplace weren't separated as is now.
The higher DARPU is not because Ubi pushing it more, but simply because it's more common to buy useless digital stuff than X years ago.
Also if you feel you want to spend money on a Unicorn to ride in Norway while cutting down your enemies with a neon sword, it's your problem, not Ubisofts.
The mention of MP is also weird as there weren't MP for quite a while.
Same for live service. I just played the game and even though it's huge there is no live service about it.
It's almost like you throw in unpopular things but none of them actually stands for this game.

@Heidi, exactly my thoughts and if people wouldn't expect more than that they would probably enjoy it more.

Dylan Hase said:I actually thought it was pretty good. I didn't play 120 hours, but around 85 or so. Besides the ending not paying off, the journey is pretty good. A solid 8/10 game imo.

i have played every ac game aside from this and mirage. i thought odyssey was really good. different from the original ac formula, but still good games.
anyway, if you are planning on playing this game like i am. just a reminder, the complete edition is part of the ubisoft+ subscription $18usd a month. alot of the dlc is pricey. so if you finish the base game and want the dlc AND can finish them within a month lol, its probably the cheapest way..?

Seemingly in the minority but started it last month, have put about 40 hours in and I am really enjoying it. Hope some folk find the same level of fun I have so far. I haven't liked all the assassin's creeds. But this odessey and origins have been great.

In the end, I mostly enjoyed the completion.

psybOltOn said:There were two issue I brought up. One is personal preference. I don’t like MP games. I played the first 3 AC games. I quit before playing IV because I felt MP had intruded too much at the expense of telling a captivating story.

The second issue is Ubisoft’s approach. They were pushing DARPU. They made it clear in their press release that they tracked DARPU diligently in all their live service games & were thrilled with how well Valhalla performed in that regard. I thought it to be in poor taste & is not the way I would have promoted the game.

I’m not averse to buying cosmetic enhancements. I remember equipping the protagonists in FF XIII with Mass Effect N7 armor.

I realize my personal tastes should not drive a publisher. Moreover, I don’t m an to sound negative. I look very favorably on the franchise and intend, one day, to get back in it. Nevertheless, it’s not just my personal tastes. Ubisoft has acknowledged the series has become somewhat bloated & presented Mirage—originally planned as a Valhalla add-on—as an offering to get back to AC’s original roots.

English isn't an option on Game Pass, so it's unplayable.
Default language is French, so it became harder to find language settings.

EDIT: Looks like English is removed from the Game Pass version worldwide.

V3ntilator said:Ok Im glad it isnt just me. Hopefully this will fixed soon.

Spartan 343x said:Yeah. I know Canada and Europe among others don't have English as an option.

I have no intentions to play Valhalla. Odyssey was bloated enough and took a while to complete + all DLC, which made me struggle at the last part since you can get bored quite easily with repeated tasks.

Ubisnooze Collect-a-thon with ungodly amounts of Map Markers, content bloat and level gated areas. What's not to love...yeah I think I would rather use a hedge trimmer as a depilator than subject myself to this torture. At least the former ends my suffering quicker.

Terrene Fire said:To be clearer, I was referencing its quality compared to the previous 2 games. Valhalla was extremely disappointing and genuinely atrocious when compared to Origins and Odyssey. The entire game feels dull and soulless and I couldn’t recommend anyone play it if they’re expecting the same quality as the other AC games. It’s the only AC game I didn’t finish and I don’t even think I put more than 20 hours into it because it was just boring. It seems like we somewhat agree