The release of Assassin’s Creed Valhalla hasn’t been the smoothest, but it seems Ubisoft Montreal is headed in the right direction with the latest update to the game. AC Valhalla initially received a lot of high praise for its beautiful, open-world design and exciting setting when it hit store shelves on November 10, 2020. However, critics also largely agreed that the game was bogged down by plenty of bugs.
As the months have persisted, so has Ubisoft, releasing hotfixes and updates to bring Assassin's Creed Valhalla to a better state. One of the most recent updates included an overhaul on Reda’s shop to match player feedback. Ubisoft has gone to great lengths to speak back to a community that has no problem speaking to them. The developer has a fairly active forum where representatives from Ubisoft can hear out concerns, announce hotfixes, and go into detail about changes coming to the game.
This most recent update to AC Valhalla that deployed on Thursday contains “four server-side hotfixes” that address game-breaking quest bugs, according to the Ubisoft forum. This is music to the ears of any players who have found themselves stuck when attempting the quests “Old Wounds,” “Unholy Father,” “The Thegn of Lincoln,” or “Falling Stars Mystery.” The first three quest's issues involve the inability to interact with NPCs, while the “Falling Stars Mystery” hotfix addresses an bug where Ysane does not follow where the player goes.
This is good news out of Ubisoft following the Ostara Festival disaster. The Ostara Festival was released a couple weeks ago as Assassin's Creed Valhalla’s most recent seasonal event. However, shortly afterwards, Ubisoft disabled the content due to an increase in crashes reported by players. Thankfully, the Ostara Festival event was extended, so players will get more time to experience the Ostara Festival in the coming week.
Ubisoft can only hope that this patch will nail down all the outstanding bugs that have popped up recently. Assassin's Creed is grasping at straws for progress after the recent departure of Valhalla’s Narrative Director, Darby McDevitt. McDevitt has been writing for Ubisoft and Assassin’s Creed since Assassin’s Creed: Bloodlines, which released at the close of 2009. He also wrote much of Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag, and for his efforts, he was even nominated for a Writer’s Guild of America Award. With Assassin's Creed Valhalla being McDevitt’s sendoff from the franchise, one can only hope Ubisoft will get it to the quality that’s expected in the game’s upcoming updates.
Source: Ubisoft