Ubisoft's Assassin's Creed Valhalla will feature the equivalent of viking rap battles as a side activity, according to the game's website. Officially announced yesterday, Assassin's Creed Valhalla is slated to be the latest installment in Ubisoft's influential Assassin's Creed series, which, over the course of several installments, takes players across history and the globe as they untangle a conflict millennia in the making between Assassins and Templars, although it's been reported that Valhalla will not feature traditional versions of these factions. After years of annual releases, which led to some unpolished games and waning review scores, the Assassin's Creed formula was shaken up with Origins, which spent a little longer in development and shifted focus away from stealth to RPG-like combat. Odyssey continued the two-year development and RPG traditions, and it seems Valhalla will do the same, although not all fans are happy about that.

Valhalla is aiming to distinguish itself even further from the two most recent releases. For one, it's much bigger in scope, with a whopping 15 studios working on the title in some capacity. Players will be able to choose the sex of the protagonist, as was the case in Odyssey, along with a settlement-building mechanic similar to Assassin's Creed IIIValhalla, as the name suggests, takes players to the Viking Age, specifically on ninth-century England and Norway, and Ubisoft has promised players many side-activities appropriate for that era.

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Via a report from IGN, one of those side-activities includes the little-known tradition of "flyting," which Ubisoft describes as "verbally devastating rivals through the art of the Viking rap battle." Flyting, which comes from the Old English word meaning "to quarrel," is a documented tradition where Vikings could insult their enemies in a battle decided over words instead of weapons, not unlike the modern-day rap battle. The exact mechanics of flyting were not described, but given that dialogue wheels and deeper player customization were added in Origins and Odyssey, flyting seems to fit perfectly with the new AC formula.

Assassin's Creed Valhalla Viking Settlement

Ubisoft confirmed other side-activities for the upcoming open-world RPG, including "hunting, fishing, dice, and drinking games." Vikings are commonly perceived as reckless raiders, but Assassin's Creed Valhalla has continued with the franchise's tradition of hiring a team of historians to ensure accuracy and realism. "They were a fascinating society in terms of culture and pretty fair in the way they treated women, who had important rights at the time." said Thierry Noël, one such historian hired by Ubisoft. Rumors of a Viking-focuses Assassin's Creed had been swirling for a while, but certainly few had expected that to mean rap battle mechanics.

While the new direction Assassin's Creed has taken received a polarized reception from fans, the new setting and period for each game brings new cultures to explore and mini-games to try. The holiday 2020 release is also great timing, as this is one of the first big games confirmed for the PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X, although it will also be coming to current generation consoles. Players will be able to cut down their enemies with both axes and sick Viking rhymes when Assassin's Creed Valhalla storms its way onto shelves later this year.

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Source: IGN