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

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.

In all likelihood, you will never get all the achievements in this game, so take that into consideration. Only 1% of TA players have done so. 227 hours in, and I don't think I'll ever complete it. Personally, it's because there are flying pieces of paper that are too hard to catch, I haven't even tried the Mastery Challenges yet, and the Forgotten Saga DLC is just too difficult since you have to start over from scratch when you die.

That is fine and I have similar preferences, but what I'm saying those preferences have nothing to do with Valhalla as it doesn't have MP, (there weren't MP im the last 5 AC titles) it is not live service game and the marketplace is completely separate and optional.
As for Ubi looking at metrics like DARPU, well it is a company which needs to make money. Don't misunderstand me, Ubi is not a saint at all but maybe we can forgive them they don't want to go bankrupt.
In exchange their games are always discounted and many of them comes to GP.

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.

Origins also lets you play as a ranged assassin. A minor update or two on the archery skills make the bow lethal with headshots for the most part. Before getting the blade, it's the assassin tool to use. Even with the blade, I used it quite often for stealth/silent takedowns.

I agree that Odyssey's combat is its main strength. I have over 200 hours of playtime because of that combat system. It's just fun to take down forts like an ancient John Wick.

TymanTheLong said:

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.

In all likelihood, you will never get all the achievements in this game, so take that into consideration. Only 1% of TA players have done so. 227 hours in, and I don't think I'll ever complete it. Personally, it's because there are flying pieces of paper that are too hard to catch, I haven't even tried the Mastery Challenges yet, and the Forgotten Saga DLC is just too difficult since you have to start over from scratch when you die.

BlackEyedMonkey said:Not because the game is beautiful that it means it's good