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Six tips to get you going in Assassin's Creed Valhalla
Time to shine some light on the Dark Ages. Why not let us show you the path to glory?
Let's go a-viking! Assassin's Creed Valhalla is the highly anticipated new instalment in Ubisoft's seemingly endless open-world action series, and much has changed. After the sun-drenched historical theme parks of Origins and Odyssey, the idea of Dark Ages England might seem a gloomy prospect, but there's a lot of fun to uncover as you join Eivor the Wolf-Kissed on his or her adventures. Here are six tips to help you get to grips with things.
Don't linger in Norway
There's plenty of time to collect stuff in England
© Ubisoft
Assassin's Creed Valhalla starts off in Norway, which is glorious visually but perhaps not quite so dynamic and exciting in terms of things to do. The story missions help you get a grip on Eivor, Sigurd and the Scandi political situation, after which you're invited to up sticks and set sail for new horizons, and we recommend blasting through this stuff fairly quickly. Get yourself installed in England, where the bulk of the game is set and where there is a lot more variety and excitement. There's still stuff to do in Norway, but apart from grabbing a couple of viewpoints, you'll be fine saving exploration for when you can return with fast-travel later on.
Upgrade your settlement
Lute drops
© Ubisoft
Eivor's clan quickly establishes the settlement of Ravensthorpe once they land in England, and there are a great many ways to expand it. While it may be tempting to run off and start chasing down story missions and secrets on the map, we recommend building out Ravensthorpe as much as you can, as quickly as you can, and spending some time there too. Once you gather enough materials, you can establish things like a Hidden Ones bureau, a hunting tent and much more. Expansion also increases Ravensthorpe's reputation, which attracts new settlers. Without giving too much away, these additions open up new gameplay opportunities. You can even organise a rowdy feast to buff your stats.
While you gain certain materials just exploring the world, the key to expanding Ravensthorpe is going on raids. Jump in your longship and consult the map to find red icons that represent raid opportunities, and once you get there you can land your boat, blow your horn and go a-viking. Hack and slash your way through defenders and then hunt down every gold-marked resource and treasure stash in the vicinity to bag those critical town materials. Just make sure you pay attention to the recommended power level of the area you're raiding. Otherwise you might find yourself cut down before you can get off the beach.
Check out Dual Wielding
I need to axe you a question
© Ubisoft
Combat in Assassin's Creed Valhalla is superficially similar to recent instalments, with an emphasis on dodging and using rechargeable abilities to beat down enemy mobs. But there are a bunch of changes that add some spice to proceedings, not least of which is the opportunity to dual-wield weapons. You know what's better than an axe? Two axes!
By choosing a weapon for each hand (rather than an axe and shield or some other combination), you can use unique combos. Hold down the left bumper as you wade into combat and you'll unleash a flurry of attacks from both your weapons, which lasts as long as your stamina bar holds up. You can then build stamina back up by landing regular blows. Alternating the two is great for cutting through rank-and-file enemies, and combos are great for raining down attacks once you find windows in tougher defences. Learning the intricacies of the combat system is a good idea generally, as there is a greater emphasis on brawling than stealth, at least in the early hours.
Seek out Books of Knowledge
Grab a horse and really take in the English countryside
© EA
Recent Assassin's Creed titles included special abilities with cooldowns for use in combat, but initially Assassin's Creed Valhalla doesn't seem to have them. There are some active skills to unlock by probing through the vast constellations of the skill tree, but there's no immediate heir apparent to our beloved Spartan Kick.
All that starts to change when you find your first Book of Knowledge. These tomes are hidden among the treasures you gather as you pillage the world around you, and a new Abilities tab opens up in the menus once you bag the first one. After that, each new Book of Knowledge adds an ability to this well-populated suite of options. Early highlights include the ability to mark and execute enemies with a flurry of arrows, or a Mortal Kombat-style harpoon pull. It's not clear why Dark Ages monks were squirrelling this specific knowledge away in one of their monasteries, but hey -- perhaps they were all Scorpion mains.
Pay attention to your Rations
Make the most of skill trees to power yourself up
© Ubisoft
Assassin's Creed Valhalla has a bit of an old-fashioned health system. Rather than relying on cooldowns or recharging out of combat, your health bar needs to be topped up manually by consuming food. In the early hours, it's easy to find yourself low on health points if you don't pay attention to this.
Fortunately it's simple enough to stay on top of things. Whenever you run past a bush, patch of mushrooms or a stove pot, make sure you mash the Interact button (triangle/Y), and Eivor will grab anything consumable. This replenishes the health bar, and any excess is stored as rations, which can then be consumed manually by pressing right on the directional pad. You can expand your ration pouch on the inventory screen, providing you have enough leather and iron, and it's not a bad idea to prioritise these upgrades once you begin rinsing all the icons on the map for loot. You can also upgrade your arrow capacity, but that can wait.
Explore the world!
You're going to have to get a little bloody
© Ubisoft
Assassin's Creed Valhalla isn't as immediately busy as its predecessors, preferring to introduce gameplay concepts gradually over many hours, but it's still a pretty bustling game once it gets going. Settlement expansion and story missions feel like urgent priorities as you strive to progress. But take our advice: spend time on the bits in between, because this is where the real character of the game reveals itself.
Those glowing orbs you see everywhere are more unusual and varied than recent games might lead you to expect. You might find a cute environmental puzzle to solve in order to bag some treasure. There might be a local weirdo to assist, like a shady man who claims he's invented an elixir that bestows wealth upon the drinker. And then there are corrupt Animus data packets, which are well worth finding -- to get you started, there's one up on the hill behind Ravensthorpe, near the local viewpoint.
Assassin's Creed Valhalla is a more serious game than Odyssey, and can be a slow burn compared to the swashbuckling carnage of its predecessor, but sometimes change is a good thing. Once you get used to Valhalla, there's an awful lot to find and enjoy. Skål!
