*Spoilers Ahead!!!!*

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Today, after 75 hours of gameplay, I finished Assassin’s Creed: Valhalla.  Honestly, it was a grind and a lot to unpack.  I was very excited to play this year’s AC because I loved the look and idea of the story.  I have always been a big fan of gods and mythical stuff, and I also wanted a new game to binge over the holiday season.  Overall, the game was designed beautifully and the overall idea of the story was cool.  It was different and pretty refreshing… or at least I thought.

I am going on record for saying this might be one of the worst games I have ever played.  It wasn’t bad like glitchy, but it was bad from a writers standpoint.  Overall the developers and designers get a 10/10.  But the writers and storyboard people get a big fat F.  The game starts off with you, Eivor (who’s a kid), celebrating after a long day of war.  It cuts away with your camp being attacked by your rival and he kills your family, then the game fast forwards like 15 years.  So now I believe he is like 25 years old and you’re in Norway.  Essentially the Norway part is quick, you leave for England with your brother to get a better life and to establish your clan in England.

During the England portion of the game, which is about 13/16 chapters of the game, you run along and do a very large range of tasks and missions for local states and cities trying to gain allies for your clan.  Pretty simple stuff, right?  You go to England and try to establish allies to eventually conquer the land.  Along the way, like all AC games, you encounter The Templars or in this game – The Order.  All cool stuff and very typical AC game.  That is until you start playing.

The first few chapters of the game are fun, because it’s new but let me tell you chapter 1 is exactly like chapter 16.  The only cool chapters are when you take this LSD drink and go to Asgard and play as Odin.  This is where you fight Fenrir.  But overall, this isn’t a part of the main Eivor storyline.  Nope, I wish.  The main Eivor storyline is full of going to a new place, riding to do stupid missions that could be handled with a cut scene, then riding to another part of the state, and finally a very expected, very frustrating one on one fight with a boss.  TRY DOING THIS FOR 16 CHAPTERS OF A GAME!  It gets boring.

But this game could have bailed itself out and didn’t.  In chapter 15 I believe, you go back to Norway with Siguard (your brother who you are supposed to betray and kill because it was your prophesy spoken at the beginning) and it’s one of the more exciting chapters in the game.  The game gives you an all-time betrayal with Basim (your assassin friend throughout the entire game) trying to kill you and Siguard.  Which he fails and Eivor locks him in The Orders animus thing.  That’s it.  You and Siguard have a heart to heart and he names you the king of the clan and then he says you can fuck his wife (not kidding).  But the thing that got me, outside of the boring and very similar 16 chapters, was how little the writers included The Order.

Most chapters in this game have you killing at least 1-2 Order members and occasionally 3 members.  But they are low members.  The Order family is a big ass family tree:

As you get to the bottom that last guy is obviously the big boss right?  HA I thought that too.  Well anyway, the five people above the last guy, only two of them are a part of the main story.  The other three have nothing to do with the story and yet they hold this big power within The Order… It doesn’t make sense.  But after you have everyone dead you get a tip of who The Father is.  So you go to this place and it turns out The Father is… the King of England – King Aelfred.  But this is what did it for me.  I was so hype that it was the King because he’s the main bad guy and once you kill him then you can conquer England and the game would be over.  But NOPE!  King Aelfred was actually the person helping you the whole time because he hated The Order.

I know it sounds confusing, the leader of The Order hated The Order and left you tips and helped you kill his coworkers?  Yes, that’s correct.  King Aelfred wanted them all dead so he can leave The Order and rule England with no corruption.  Fine, but why would the game do this?  The whole game was trying to kill King Aelfred so you can rule England.  YOU’RE LITERALLY AT WAR WITH HIM THE ENTIRE GAME!!!  This is the bad guy.  He was the bad guy the entire game and then it turns out he’s the leader and you don’t even kill him??? No, you don’t kill him.  He surrenders to you and says The Order is dead and the game ends.  I wish it was joking about this.

The game just ends and you don’t even finish what the game was meant to be.  You literally start a war on King Aelfred that you don’t finish, you don’t kill The Father who is King Aelfred (like hello two birds one stone!), you don’t betray and kill Siguard like your prophesy said would happen literally in chapter 1, and nothing you did from chapters 1-13 meant anything.  The game didn’t mean anything!  Nothing ended.  You started and were promised a whole bunch and nothing happened.

I want to apologize if this blog didn’t make much sense but if you played and beat Valhalla, I hope you feel my frustration in this blog.  There was so much they did wrong and just left completely unfinished.  Each chapter was the same and everything you worked for lead to nothing.   It’s very frustrating and it will 100% make me reconsider buying another AC game.

Score: 2/10

-John (Uncle_mac4)