What’s changed in the beautifully buggy world of Assassin’s Creed Valhalla since patch 1.1.1? The 12th mainline title in Ubisoft’s popular Assassin’s Creed series, AC Valhalla released on November 10, 2020, and quickly earned a top spot among its brethren by posting the highest first-week sales of any Assassin's Creed game. Unfortunately, the game’s debut was marred by glitches and bugs, but Assassin's Creed Valhalla update 1.1.1's patch notes address many of these.
Glitchy Assassin's Creed games are nothing new. Every title in the series has suffered from bugs to varying degrees, especially at launch. For example, when Assassin’s Creed Unity released in 2014, the game initially had so many malfunctions that Ubisoft publicly apologized and offered free DLC as compensation. And to be fair, this is far from a Ubisoft-only problem. Just look at the notoriously buggy release of Cyberpunk 2077.
Although Assassin’s Creed Valhalla has been well-received overall by gamers and critics, the amount of bugs has been a real problem. Some of them are silly, like the "drunk bug," which causes protagonist Eivor to stay sloshed when players reload a save after participating in the drinking minigame at Valhalla's Yule Festival. Other bugs are game-breaking, such as when key NPCs refuse to appear during story quests, thus rendering progress impossible.
Assassin's Creed Valhalla Patch 1.1.1 Bug Fixes & Changes Explained
Assassin’s Creed Valhalla patch 1.1.1, released on January 14, addresses a multitude of these issues, as well as improving basic functionality with regards to performance and stability. In a Reddit post revealing the full Assassin’s Creed Valhalla update 1.1.1 patch notes, Ubisoft broke down the more than 100 bug fixes into eight categories, including fixes for everything from misplaced objects to looping audio. It’s a decently chunky patch (ranging from 2GB on the PlayStation 5 to 7.5GB on the Xbox Series X|S), but considering it contains so many fixes, the size is certainly understandable.
Besides the expected amendments to clipping, textures, and missing NPCs, other noteworthy corrections included in Assassin’s Creed Valhalla's 1.1.1 update are improvements to color blind and subtitle options, as well as a little help for Assassin’s Creed Valhalla’s notorious monster children, whose faces would distort in photo mode. In-game support for Ubisoft Connect achievements has also finally been added. Considering Ubisoft now forces players to create a Ubisoft Connect account, locking them out of the game unless they have one, this lack of in-game support was fairly conspicuous.
Bugs have long been a point of ongoing debate for gamers. Some say that glitches are inevitable, especially in games as large as Assassin’s Creed Valhalla, and that developers shouldn’t be expected to make a perfect game. Others argue money-minded publishers push out unfinished titles without regard for player experience and then rely on patches to complete the game. Both sides of the debate have merit, which is why the discussion will not likely end any time soon. Regardless of where they fall on the issue, those experiencing Assassin’s Creed Valhalla bugs should now be seeing significant improvements to their gameplay experience.
Source: Ubisoft/Reddit