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Assassin's Creed Valhalla: Wealth, Mysteries and Artifacts exploration tips
If you want to discover everything Assassin’s Creed Valhalla has in store for you, you’re going to need to keep your eyes peeled
Across both England and Norway, you’re going to need to keep your eyes open in Assassin’s Creed Valhalla. The game’s default ‘Explorer’ setting doesn’t give you an awful lot of notice when it comes to tracking down items and treasures. You have to put in a lot of the legwork (and eye-work) yourself if you want to uncover the secrets of Ubisoft’s newest open world.
Rather than simply smearing the locations of anything and everything on your map, Ubisoft this time nudges you in the general direction of treasure and booty, leaving you to fill in the missing pieces. This makes for a more engaging, player-focusing approach to open world exploration, and there are a few things you can do to ensure you never leave any stone unturned.
Get a bird’s eye view on things
Synin is useful for observing the ground below
© Ubisoft
Synin, your loyal raven, will be flying overhead at all times in Assassin’s Creed Valhalla – similarly to Ikaros and Senu in Assassin’s Creed Odyssey and Origins, respectively. If you’re uncertain about where your next mission objective is, or if you want more guidance on that special treasure chest that your map is telling you is definitely around here somewhere, simply tap up on your D-pad and you’ll be taken to Synin’s view on things.
From here, you can hone in on specific areas of the map, allowing you to tag enemies, ping treasure locations or even plot an escape route should your current situation become too unpredictable. Synin is a useful tool for practically every part of the game – whether you’re focussing on stealth, exploration or combat. So don’t forget to make liberal use of the keen-eyed avian.
Blast Odin’s Sight constantly
Hitting R3 on your console pad will cause a radial burst of spiritual energy to emanate from Eivor, tagging all intractable items in the immediate area. This is handy if you’re looking for enemies to batter in a busy Raid situation, or if you’re on the lookout for healing rations or treasure. Odin’s Sight is particularly helpful for alerting you to locks that can be broken, or mechanisms that can be destroyed – each reveal new or otherwise inaccessible areas to you.
Odin’s Sight is also handy for quick, quiet resource-gathering missions, too. Sneaking into a settlement, using Odin’s Sight to tag nearby enemies and show you notable plunder-worthy items and then making a quick escape is sometimes a better idea than offing a whole town’s worth of soldiers. As a wise man once said, ‘discretion is the better part of valour’.
Break things and burn things
Breaking glass, burning wood and smashing doors will unveil secrets
© Ubisoft
Is it really a viking game if you’re not encouraged to break and burn pretty much everything that stands in your path? In our humble opinion, no. Luckily then, Valhalla pretty much forces you to smash up anything that looks smashable and burn anything that looks flammable if you want to clear your map of those tempting gold and silver auras. Notice a chest in a locked hut? Chances are you can break through that wooden mesh on top and climb in through the roof. Enemies holed up in an abbot? Break that gorgeous stained glass window and invade their ‘sanctuary’.
Typically, you’re rewarded for being thorough in Assassin’s Creed games, so keep an eye out for breakable and burnable things because – chances are – there’s something decent waiting for you behind them.
Sync and Swim
The iconic dive is back – make the most of it
© Ubisoft
Though it may be a given for the veteran players in the Assassin’s Creed community, some newer players may not realise the importance of synchronization points. Thanks to the sprawling and spread out nature of Valhalla, you will need to locate and complete each of the eagle-symbolled sync points on your map. Completing these high-elevation objectives will add icons to your map, mark the locations of various exploration items, and allow you to fast-travel back to them later on.
These vantage points will also, somehow, mark underwater treasures for you. Don’t neglect to dive into the waters of Norway and England to search for sunken treasure – often, you’ll find decent amounts of resource material or quite impressive gear down in the depths. Bear that in mind if you’re barrelling across the Norfolk Broads in your longboat without a care in the world.
