Questions for Assassin's Creed Valhalla Spoiler Mode

Where does this Rank in the panalists Asassins Creed lists of games? L&R Jonathan Del Valle

JDelValle21

So that ending was pretty much the ending of AC 3 ( we save the earth but at what cost? )

We're about to record so I'm grabbing questions now. Thank you to everyone that submitted a comment! - Brandon

Easy Allies

How did you approach romance in the game? And what did you think of Layla as a character?

Star Tsurugi

Hi, Jones and Huber! Do you think there's any reason that they continue animus plotline other than sticking to this unique idea of the series? For me it adds nothing to the game and since the end of desmond arc I skip right through these parts. Maybe in Valhalla it planted some seeds, but other than that it just feels like it's there in the beginning, middle and at the end simply to remind that it's all happening in the animus. L&R

KIT

You could give your guess on how the franchise will eventually end, what the climax of the assassin's & templar story will be.

D M

Would you rank Valhalla higher than Odyssey?

Felipe Fonseca

What did you think about the humor in this one compared to previous entries in the series (i.e. Otto Von Sluggerson)

At this point, is it possible for an AC game to be a 10/10 without completely reinventing itself? My initial experiences with Valhalla were amazing since nearly every gameplay aspect was improved, but I couldn't help but get fatigued once the tens of hours started stacking up. I appreciate that Ubisoft open worlds are games that you can come back to, do a few tasks on the minimap, and quit out, but they never seem like 10/10 experiences you can fully play through without taking healthy breaks. It may be a Call of Duty situation where the "if it aint broke, don't fix it" mindset prioritizes getting those $60 every few years over real innovation. P.S.: The highlight of this game to me was how well the FPS performed at launch, it was silky smooth compared to Origins/Odyssey.

NotJack

Do you feel that the game appropriately handled the inherent violence of the Viking invasion of the British Isles? Besides the raiding, the Danes and Norsemen of this time were colonizing a foreign land that belonged to English peoples. Your in-game settlement is an example of this. Also, how do you feel about the portrayal of Alfred the Great of Wessex? In English history, Alfred is highly regarded as an intelligent and merciful king who contained the Viking threat. I'm generally fine with historical inaccuracies. Honestly, I just like running around historical worlds, so Valhalla is right up my alley.

Huber: Vikings the TV show or Assassin's Creed Valhalla? L&R

Brainfreeze

Did changing the side quest system to the mystery or world event system feel like a meaningful change to you all? To me it felt like they were still checkoints on a map, only now I can't track my progress in individual world events...

Victor Pham

AC syndicate is one of the few games in the series I haven't played. Were there any Easter eggs that you noticed in London calling back the old game?

Andrew Treherne

Hey Jones and Huber, I really enjoyed playing through this game. One of my major gripes with it though was the weather. I realize this is England, but it always seemed so gloomy. I missed the beautiful sunny vistas of Odyssey, and the bright open spaces in Origins. Was the colour palette darker than it needed to be? Give me bright and vibrant! I want to escape the gloomy real world right now!

Andrew Treherne

I've been a huge AC fan since the start and have unconditional love for the series, but it was beginning to feel fatigued. I didn't get Valhalla at launch and it wasn't until I saw the EZA review that my interest was sparked again. I bought the game and dove back in, and was pleasant surprised at how fresh it felt. It seems like a good blend of new and old play styles and I enjoy the freedom of customization on weapons, skills, and tactics. What are your favorite newer mechanics (skills trees for example) and is there anything you think could be ditch/doesn't lend itself to AC?

Can you explain the Animus story line since Assassin's Creed 4?

Ibrahim Sozer

SPOILER WARNING SPOILER WARNING. In Vineland you do a quest that as far as I can tell is supposed to be a direct homage to monster hunter. You gather up warriors and then follow tracks to destroy the monster. The warriors have a big ax, sword and shield and bow and arrow. I believe the turkey is supposed to be a palico. Am I crazy for seeing this? What do you think, should assassins creed have more homages to other games like this?

klastical

Hey gents, Happy New Year! What are your thoughts on the gameplay changes from Origins and Odyssey? I feel like this game is clunky, awkward, and just feels...bad, especially compared to Odyssey. I appreciated the changes to story structure, but I think the controls and gameplay were a huge step back. Specifically, what are your thoughts on stealth? I feel like it is broken and awful, and it's not aided by Evior controlling like he's 7 times his actual size. I thoroughly enjoyed this game, and I'll probably be completing the plat while listening to this Spoiler Mode, but only once I accepted it wasn't going to live up to Odyssey. Love and Respect!

Joseph La Russa

How would you compare this experience with the last 2 entries? I enjoyed Origins, LOVED Osyssey (minus the final DLC) but Valhalla felt like a drag to me. I stuck straight to the main quests and even then there were only a few moments (like the Basim twist) that stood out to me. For me, this is easily the worst of the newer style AC games, and I’d even rank some older titles ahead of it too. I’m curious to hear your thoughts on it overall.

NeO JD

Hey Allies, I feel like a muppet grump, but I do still want to share my two cents. I absolutely adored Assassin's Creed up to Black Flag and have tried to keep up, but I'm falling off more and more. I jumped back in with Odyssey and 100% completed that, despite some disappointments here and there. With Valhalla I _really_ wanted to like the game, but it's just not working out for me. The biggest issue I have is the lack of incentive. I have been burned on the rebranded side quests (that are still side quests, but with worse tracking) too many times, having to carry someone from point A to point B for them to thank me and let me be on my merry way, to the point that I've started to skip them. And that has happened to me with a lot of the content in the game. I've built myself towards Raven gear, because that's the outfit I get at the start. I found a nice Raven fire axe that does the trick and I don't need anything else. At about power level 80 I just ran around the world stealing wealth (which was admittedly the most fun I might have had, just randomly running through the world) until I was able to upgrade all my gear to mythical after getting annoyed by random one-hit KO's and I've been set ever since. I don't care for the gear I get, because it's either an incomplete set, making it useless because I don't get the set bonus, or it's worse by default for having to level it first with only a chance of maybe becoming equally good after pumping a lot of resources into it. I haven't seen any tattoos that are worthwhile or not covered by 5 layers of armor, so that's not working out. I mainly traverse the land and sometimes cross rivers by having my horse swim through them, so I rarely use my boat anymore, so those cosmetics are not that interesting. I stopped doing raids, because I have all the buildings except those for the feast, but that's a measly 30 minute boost that I don't need, so I'm not getting those anymore. The buildings that I do have offer little incentive, giving me more runes that my inventory is already filled with, wealth that I don't need as my gear is maxed, cosmetics that I don't care for, roman statues that add quite little... I am a good 50 hours in and have felt like the game is just presenting a todo list for me to tick off, where the ticking off is the biggest reward. The more I did, the more I decided not to do anymore (the first thing I dropped was Orlog...). I now just want to mainline the story and be done with it. I'll do things like the Drengr and Witch battles, maybe the Legendary Animals, the Treasures of Britain, just because the set dressing is cool, definitely not because the combat is that great (literally mowing my axe through skirmishers that are immortal because they are constantly dodging :c). The world looks pretty, but it feels empty. A lot of characters Eivor apparently already knows, but I don't, so I don't connect to them. The rest get a predictable arc of 2 hours tops. Asgard was neat, but I ran around for what felt like hours gathering Tears of Ymir to just get a measly 5 skill points, that's it... I don't like trashing the game and am glad people have a good time with it, I'm just seeing a lot that isn't working for me. I'm very curious what your thoughts on the game are, however, and with some luck, maybe you can change my perspective and make it a more enjoyable experience :D Lots of love and respect, Zkarts (pronounced as one word :P)

Zkarts

Hey Jones and Huber, Did either of you ever feel constricted by how the game was structured? In previous games, I would venture off to the far reaches of the map well before the story ever had me travel there, but Valhalla felt very strict in where the game wanted me to go. Even when I would travel beyond, I found I would be arbitrarily locked out of locations and unable to loot certain treasure simply because the game said I couldn’t yet. For a such an open and expansive world, it felt very small by being level and story-gated out of seeing it all. Outside of that, do either of you plan on diving into the DLC once it launches? And how do you feel these two expansions will build on the story? L&R, Frankie

Frankie

Hello Brandon and Mike. What do you think about little stories that weren’t part of any quests or mysteries and if you liked them, which one is your favorite? Personally, I’ve enjoyed reading various letters and documents. My favorite are two notes that expand the lore of Sciropescire Mystery about talking dead body. Inside that cave you can find Charlatan’s note in which he tells how hard it is to convince others that they are talking to a dead man, but how rewarding it feels when people save lost soul and feel happy for doing something good in this sad world. It’s easy to feel sorry for this charlatan after reading his note, but in an outpost to the south you can find another note from a traveler who encountered this talking dead man and got so frightened that he gave all his silver and thought that he is cursed. I also want to say that I really appreciate the scale of this world. In so many open-world games settlements are either inappropriately small or too close to each other, and summer and winter regions are separated by just a few steps. But in Valhalla every part of the world is given enough space, making transitions between different regions much more natural. P.S. I’ve cleared every map in 104 hours including some time to just wander around and appreciate views.

Alexander Zyryanov

Hey handsome men. I have loved and played all the AC games. I love the stories, I love the world, I love the future stuff, they are comfort games. This was no different, a super solid jolly time..but it was too damn long. I finished it and was satisfied but exhausted. I'll always play a new AC game, but the bloat of them is starting to wear me down. Do you think ubisoft will ever roll back he size of these games to a more consice time or are we to just expect the continual growth until we are all worn out? L&R Gabe

gabehawk

Hey Jones and Huber! With other emerging open world games like Shadow of Mordor, Ghost of Tsushima, or Breath of the Wild, I found myself completely spirited away. From the artful approach of duels and the wind guiding me, to clever additions to the formula like the nemesis system; other games are finding amazing ways to tie their setting, story, characters, and tone to their gameplay. With Valhalla and most AC games in the last console generation, I just haven't felt that sort of direction. That being said, I really do love the worlds of AC and characters like Kassandra stole my heart and got me through Odyssey. But I haven't felt that magic with Eivor. In each combat situation I find myself in, it never feels like I'm getting the excitement the franchise is going for. It just leaves me rolling over baddies, without ever feeling satisfied, or in this case, like a true Viking. Do you think Ubisoft needs to let future teams make these games into their own creative visions, away from the AC franchise? Would that help some of the problems many have had, or just make things harder on themselves when the games are good as is? Sorry for going long, stay safe, and have a good one! L&R

Rikimaru

I'm currently halfway through the campaign and I'm starting to feel really burnt out. There's just way too much bloat (feels like more than the typical Ubisoft amount) in the game. Did you at any point feel the same way? Like they should cut out the pointless collectible stuff for less but more meaningful content?

Amir Rangnekar

Totally agree feel like this game moved the story of the outside world ahead more than any other game in the series in a long time.

Sage_Mode_Q

Hey Huber and Jones. my favorite things about assassin‘s creed odyssey was how they went crazy with the Norse mythology. Fighting Medusa and the Minotaur in the labyrinth to me was a highlight for the entire series. In Valhalla they did this as well with the whole side quest of being Oden in Asgard. Do you guys like the direction assassin’s creed is going in just going crazy with the mythology stuff or would you rather have a more grounded story like the first couple assassin‘s creed video games? Btw had to say that The Vinland saga for me was the highlight of this game. What you guys think of that as well?

Sage_Mode_Q

Do you feel Ubisoft would say this trilogy has been a successful change? The open world. Souls like combat.

Jordan Buitendyk

Cody Bellinger: worst cameo of the year, or worst cameo of the century?

Bradley Spies

If you could punt one guy off a cliff at the very start of the game would it be Dag or Ivaar?

What was your favorite small moment/ world event plot? There were so many good little moments. I'm torn between the absolutely bewildering event with counting stones that kept changing numbers and the old farmer that confused you for his child.

I loved how they set up the mysteries in this game. Short but often funny and quirky really enjoyable. What was your favourite mystery?

How annoying is Dag?

Salad

First time asking a question, here’s hoping the comments is the right place... how does Evior rank among the main characters of Assassin’s Creed? I found that her actor’s gruff and raspy performance really brought her to life, especially, when she was kind and sympathetic towards some of the Order of the Ancients she killed. The performance also amplified when she wasn’t. “Go my wolves!”

Christopher Knighton

Hey Jones and Huber. First question ever! Very excited for this spoiler mode. Wondering how you felt about Basim through out the story? Personally the end left me very ready for more stuff outside the animus for the first time in awhile.

Hey Brandon, How did you both feel about how they tried to integrate the Animus Storyline in the game, particularly the way in which they used Layla in gameplay?

Aidan Vilchis

Hello Jones, I haven't played Valhalla, but hearing it's 117 hours makes me want to ask...did you feel it was too long?

Samuel Hall