Ubisoft's promising next-generation launch title (and current-gen release) Assassin's Creed Valhalla is set to appear in just under a month, and looks to continue the series' recent surge of evolution. Several years back, the Assassin's Creed franchise completely stalled out when its annual release pattern resulted in stagnant gameplay, and Assassin's Creed: Unity released in a borderline unplayable state as a result of many glitches. The series was desperate for a complete revamp, and Ubisoft did just that.

With the success of games like The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt, Ubisoft put Assassin's Creed on the shelf for a little while and reevaluated the direction of the franchise. After a two year hiatus, the series returned with Assassin's Creed: Origins; an open world game set in Ancient Egypt that featured familiar stealth mechanics alongside more action-based gameplay and RPG elements. Just one year later, Assassin's Creed: Odyssey built upon that foundation with a phenomenally well-designed Ancient Greek world. With just those two releases, Assassin's Creed had completely reshaped itself as a franchise and has been on an upward trajectory since.

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The central feature to Assassin's Creed Valhalla is going to be its settlement feature. Ravensthorpe, a Viking settlement that players will develop over the course of the game, will serve as the hub of the Assassin's Creed Valhalla's world. Players will frequently visit Ravensthorpe to embark on quests, interact with characters, visit vendors and journey to other realms, among many other activities. Ravensthorpe is going to be a key element of Assassin's Creed Valhalla's gameplay and it can learn from Odyssey's ship. In Assassin's Creed: Odyssey, the ship was a key part of the player's journey and it could be upgraded over the course of the game for faster travel and combat. However, the resource costs for the ship rapidly became quite expensive, even for players completing a high percentage of the game's content. Building up a settlement is a great concept for a game in a Viking setting, but it needs to develop naturally as players progress, rather than however long it takes to gather an excessive amount of resources for it to be practical.

What Assassin's Creed Valhalla Should Leave Behind

Assassin's Creed Valhalla Viking Settlement

On the flip side, the biggest thing Valhalla needs to abandon is Odyssey's open world map size. As open world games continue to grow, there aren't many that reached the obnoxious scale of Odyssey. While Odyssey was an excellent game, the content started to thin out towards the end and it became clear that there were just a few too many islands than the game needed. A large world can be great for exploration, but if it's too large then it can result in fatigue for players who may ultimately not even be able to finish the game. It's been said that Valhalla will downgrade a bit in scale, but it needs to be noticeably smaller given that the empty map was arguably the biggest issue with Odyssey when it released two years ago.

If Assassin's Creed Valhalla can learn the right lessons from Odyssey to enhance its settlement feature, making it a convenient hub for a more compact world, then the game will be better off for it. Ubisoft has generally done a really nice job as it relates to game design, in spite of a laundry list of problems within the company. Ubisoft really defined what it meant to be an open world game in the past decade, and when that formula grew stale, they took the necessary actions to overhaul the foundation for their flagship franchise. Assassin's Creed has done a fantastic job with its previous two installments and it looks like that trend is going to continue with Assassin's Creed Valhalla.

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Assassin's Creed Valhalla will be available for Xbox Series X/S, Xbox One, PlayStation 4, PC, and Stadia on November 10, 2020, and it launches on PS5 on November 12, 2020.