Some Assassin's Creed Valhalla fans have already been hard at work creating mods for the new game, with such creation allowing players to further customize the main character, Eivor. Assassin's Creed: Valhalla was just released on November 10, so it's as impressive as ever to see modders work their magic so quickly.
Mods have become of staple of PC gaming communities for their ability to preserve a video game's lifespan long after release. The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim was the poster child for modding over the past decade, as fans are still adding new mods to the game nine years after its initial launch. In that time, more and more modders have joined the scene and added their creative twists to an ever growing number of games. Assassin's Creed Valhalla is still young in its modding lifecycle, but many hardworking fan creators have already made impactful additions and changes to the extensive game.
Created by user hypermorphic and uploaded to Nexus Mods a few days ago, a mod called Eivor Customizer does exactly what its name suggests. With this mod, players can further customize the look of Assassin's Creed Vahalla's main character, specifically focusing on hairstyles, facial hair, and body proportions. Interestingly, all of the elements used in this mod were originally created for the game's NPCs and were never intended to be used on Eivor. A prerequisite to make Eivor Customizer work is the Forger Patch Manager (v. 2.10 or later), which can also be found on Nexus Mods.
The hairstyle elements in Eivor Customizer are not gendered, allowing for any hairstyle to be used on either version of Eivor. Hypermorphic does warn, however, that some hairstyles will clip through outfits as they were not originally designed to fit the main character. Beard customization has been greatly simplified and expanded, allowing players to easily customize their facial hair look from over 1000 possible combinations. Body proportions can be scaled up or down, including arm and neck length, shoulder and hip width, muscle size, and upper body scale. These particular changes are warned to have a potential effect on cutscene animations and combat.
There is little doubt that more extensive mods will be created for Assassin's Creed Valhalla, but just how extensive will not be known until the next title in the franchise is announced. Bigger and more intricate mods tend to appear for games and franchises that have longer release cycles than the Assassin's Creed franchise. Skyrim's legendary modding success comes from the fact that it is the last single player Elder Scrolls game in nine years. Fans of the series have had to continually add to it to keep it fresh. In contrast, Assassin's Creed Valhalla is the ninth Assassin's Creed game released in that same amount of time. Ubisoft's quick turnaround is not conducive for extensive modding because the latest Assassin's Creed game usually has a year or so before it is replaced by the next title. It will be interesting to see what modders come up with before Assassin's Creed Valhalla is no longer the newest entry in the franchise.
Assassin's Creed Valhalla is available now for PS5, PS4, Xbox Series X/S Xbox One, and PC.
Source: hypermorphic