‘Assassin’s Creed Valhalla’ Gameplay Trailer Offers A Glimpse Of Viking Raids And Classic Game Mechanics

During Ubisoft’s “Ubisoft Forward” presentation on Sunday, the company finally showed off some proper gameplay footage from Assassin’s Creed: Valhalla, an upcoming title for the fall and the latest addition to the Assassin’s Creed world. The game focuses on Eivor, a viking trying to support their city while dealing with the Saxons. The gameplay highlights quite a few new changes in this latest game — including an alteration to the combat system allowing players the ability to dual-wield weapons in a more brutal style of combat than we’ve seen before. Additionally, the constant string of loot from the last few games seems be vastly reduced in favor of a handful of weapons which can be upgraded to make them more powerful.
At the same time, it appears the obvious level markers are gone, replaced with a “power” system that will serve a similar function, but not gate players out of content. Higher-difficulty challenges will be available, and players are once again able to insta-kill opponents. Social stealth has also made a return, allowing players to hide amidst the crowd to avoid being caught by their enemies.

Players will be focused on raids this time around, which have replaced the presence of Assassin’s Creed Odyssey‘s conquest battles. Here, players will attack enemy armies with their own troops, breaking down fortress walls and leading their own army into battle. Victories in combat will allow the player to support their settlement back at home, which can be built up and added onto, granting new settlers as well as new tools. This will be the base players will work from politically as well, showing them all the different allies made during the game.
The mysticism focus from Odyssey seems to have made a return as well, with certain areas having enemies with strange, unknown powers making for interesting boss encounters. At the same time, they’ll also have mythical animals players can take down, drawing on another, under-mentioned part of Odyssey in which players can hunt down giant, mythical animals.
Valhalla very much feels like a game that is going to try and please as many people as possible. It’s trying to bring back several older elements of Assassin’s Creed like confessions, insta-kills, and social stealth, while also keeping things like romance, dialogue options, story choice, and weapon upgrades. Will it be able to succeed? That remains to be seen.
Assassin’s Creed: Valhalla is set for release on PlayStation 5, PlayStation 4, Xbox One, Xbox Series X, PC, and Google Stadia this November 17th.