Assassin’s Creed Valhalla 90 Hours Impressions

You can read my original thoughts 30 hours in here!

I’m still going pretty strong with Assassin’s Creed Valhalla. I am currently at 90 hours of game time and honestly have been enjoying the game entirely. There are a few things that I posted in my original 30 hours thoughts that I have to go back on. After paying more attention to a few things, I do have some gripes with the game at this point.

The biggest thing I was originally wrong about in my initial thoughts was stealth. I thought that it was much better than Odyssey, giving the ability to blend in again being a huge boon, and pulling your hood over your head super useful. After spending more time trying to be more stealthy and not a true Viking, I have come to realize the stealth super sucks.

In any village or town that is on any sort of alert, walking semi-near any guards will automatically aggro them, even while wearing your hood. It makes me wonder what the point of the hood is. It doesn’t hide you at all. Blending in with groups of people is still nice, but the opportunity doesn’t present itself that often. You can also blend in by sitting on some benches or making milk or something. Valhalla doesn’t seem to want to embrace the stealth aspects of previous games. It feels like it just wants you to be a Viking and rush in all the time. Which, arguably, is a lot easier.

The story is still interesting enough to get me to keep going. I’ve hit every viewpoint on the map now, and I think I’m pretty close to finishing the main story of the game. I think this, but there are still quite a few Order baddies that haven’t been revealed to me yet, including the top of the list. I honestly don’t mind as much, but now that I have explored each area, for the most part, I will be exclusively doing the story stuff to wrap up this adventure.

I know people really enjoyed going to Vinland, and it was a pretty cool area to explore. The fact you lost all your equipment and had to start from scratch here was interesting, but the area itself wasn’t all that interesting. The main thing I enjoyed from it was seeing the connection that Valhalla has with Assassin’s Creed 3. It’s a great way to tie together this little bit of story and doesn’t necessarily feel too forced in a canon aspect.

Ubisoft has been updating the game with the Yuletide event adding exclusive armor, weapons, and fashionable stuff in your village, and also the Raiding update. I haven’t played any of this update yet, only because I was trying to finish the story first. The Raiding update adds a bunch of new areas to raid and get badass weapons and armor. I really can’t wait to get into it since it feels like the main map doesn’t have a ton of raid-friendly areas early on. Unless I’m missing them, I haven’t had a good raid in quite some time.

The next update is coming on March 18th. I haven’t read too much on it, but I believe it is more akin to the Yuletide limited event. So expect limited weapons, armor, and some events to do in your village. Also, brand new abilities in the skill tree!

I think the next big update from me on this game will be me finishing up the story. After that, I will continue my grind until I don’t have much more to explore. I don’t ever plan on 100%ing a game, especially an Assassin’s Creed game, but I can see this game holding my attention for a lot longer than most. It’ll be a great game to turn on for those updates, and we haven’t even seen the DLC from the season pass show up yet. I’m glad they supposedly delayed the next AC. This one is going to be a two-year-long event.