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Assassin’s Creed Valhalla: Deep Dive Trailer

zkorejo

Member
The world looks amazing, the characters look like shit, especially from the faces. Their faces look like generic wax dummies.

Main character has no character. Seem like generic create a character with no personality or character arc. No plot, just going through historical highlights for the sake of it.

I was hoping for something different this time around and focus on the actual assassins order, where the Viking character has to either choose to be a viking or an assassin. Seems like it will be another one where the main villain who wrongs Vikings, also happens to be a templar.

Basically these games have no characters or story. No personality. No image. No soul. And it honestly doesn't look all that great to be playing it for the pretty landscapes, GoT beats it at that too. I wish Ubi learned some of that from Witcher 3 too.

I will pass. Or maybe wait for reviews.
 
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sertopico

Member
They surely know how to sell. But... Did you see anything which is actually new and fresh, other than the historical context and the improved graphics?
 

Dethavin

Neo Member
They surely know how to sell. But... Did you see anything which is actually new and fresh, other than the historical context and the improved graphics?

1. New customizable player settlement which actually has weight and affects how you play the game.
2. New combat system
3. New character customizations(Viking Tats!!!).
4. Ability to switch between either gender throughout the entire game
5. Streamlined/New Side quest system focusing on Quality over Quantity
6. Castle Sieges/Raids
7. New "Choice has Consequence" System
8. Animal Companions (Hell Yes!)
9. Special abilities only found through world exploration (Hell Yes!)
10. The Creed actually back in the game!
11. Jomsviking - A fully customizable Viking Lt. which can be used in game as well shared across your friends to use and vise versa.

That is just the 11 I can pull off the top of my head from the deep dive video and I am sure there is more I am missing.... So yes to answer that silly question there is quite a bit that is new and "fresh"
 

sertopico

Member
I wrote "actually". Half of the things you mentioned are pretty much pointless and the others have been introduced in other games from the franchise (and not only that) already. Being able to switch gender or petting a lion is not on my top ten priorities. It's the usual more of the same Ubisoft-style, packed in a captivating trailer. It's funny how every time we fall into the trap of believing that this game is gonna be different from the others. What I find silly is your belief you just saw smth new.
 

Dethavin

Neo Member
I wrote "actually". Half of the things you mentioned are pretty much pointless and the others have been introduced in other games from the franchise (and not only that) already. Being able to switch gender or petting a lion is not on my top ten priorities. It's the usual more of the same Ubisoft-style, packed in a captivating trailer. It's funny how every time we fall into the trap of believing that this game is gonna be different from the others. What I find silly is your belief you just saw smth new.

Where do I even start with this.... First and foremost the only thing you asked was "Did anyone notice anything new and fresh" by default that means to the series not to the entire gaming industry as a whole. If you are wanting to look at it in that regard then reallly nothing is going to be new and fresh anymore since out of the countless games put out in the past however many decades has more then likely covered those systems before in some form shape or another. Also just because YOU see something as pointless doesnt mean others will. You didnt ask for a list to tickle just YOUR fancy but for a list in general. Also I am curious as to how you consider half of those new systems I mentioned are pointless? What is your point of refrence? Have you played the game yet? No? Ok then. Also I am not sure where you get "petting a lion" is the same as a animal companion that actually is part of the combat system....
 

sertopico

Member
Where do I even start with this.... First and foremost the only thing you asked was "Did anyone notice anything new and fresh" by default that means to the series not to the entire gaming industry as a whole. If you are wanting to look at it in that regard then reallly nothing is going to be new and fresh anymore since out of the countless games put out in the past however many decades has more then likely covered those systems before in some form shape or another. Also just because YOU see something as pointless doesnt mean others will. You didnt ask for a list to tickle just YOUR fancy but for a list in general. Also I am curious as to how you consider half of those new systems I mentioned are pointless? What is your point of refrence? Have you played the game yet? No? Ok then. Also I am not sure where you get "petting a lion" is the same as a animal companion that actually is part of the combat system....
First of allt: what I write reflects my own opinion, that should be obvious.
My point of reference are games that offer fewer mechanics, but done good, not something like "let's put as much mediocre/sketched out content as we can and make a neverending game which in the end won't be remembered for anything in particular. Oh yes and let's not forget to make it grindy so that users will have to buy credits in order to update the village and make it pretty". They chose to take the path of a gdr action game, but the gdr part is lacking, specially what refers to character growth and interaction with other npcs (from what I saw in other trailers). After the experience with Odyssey I am not that confident that we will get good side quests and, above all, good dialogues. So, in the end it won't be neither that nor what it originally was, namely a wannabe stealth game. How the hell would you put stealth in a game like this? It will be present of course, but it will feel forced. Ubisoft has the means to really innovate, but they chose to recycle everything, so that every time you play one of their games you will have that feeling of eternal deja-vu. The things you mentioned are pointless in this specific context because they don't offer anything I personally consider worth a buy. Regarding the lion, well, this thing was present in other ac games in other forms, you could call your soldiers with an ability and make them attack a target. Taming animals? Already there in FC Primal for instance. Also the combat system, what did they add? Cool finishing moves? What else?

I haven't of course played the game yet but what I saw, after getting past the facade of the usual graphical embellishments is just another empty shell, a game without soul. I will be happy to be proven wrong.
 
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skneogaf

Member
Blatantly copied the TV show vikings but that's what I wanted so I'm in.

It looks great, very interested to see the performance on all formats as odyssey is very difficult to run at 4k@60fps.
 

cormack12

Gold Member
Anyone seen a picture of the map?

Only snippets of kingdoms I think - ight be buried in one of the millions of videos now though

Assassins-Creed-Valhalla-Map3-1536x925.jpg


Assassins-Creed-Valhalla-Map2-1536x864.jpg


1602701813840.png
 

Sybrix

Member
Good trailer and almost convincing, however remember this is an Assassins Creed game..... think of those classic AC missions of following someone for 20 mins, the god awful AI and idiotic fighting mechanics.

However the game world itself may be enough to overlook the above if you like exploring rather than fighting.
 
The combat and stealth mechanics still seem to be as bad as ever and I can`t see any noteworthy graphical advancements compared to Odyssey/Origins either. The character`s faces are especially disappointing. It`s "Attack of the wax-figurines" again.
 
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ruvikx

Banned
The combat and stealth mechanics still seem to be as bad as ever and I can`t see any noteworthy graphical advancements compared to Odyssey/Origins either. The character`s faces are especially disappointing. It`s "Attack of the wax-figurines" again.

The character movement was far too light in Odyssey (worse than Origins, for xyz reasons), as was the horse riding (which was very poor compared to stuff like Red Dead & even The Witcher). It seems to be very similar here in Valhalla.
 
They talked about the fact that to get the canon experince you switch between Male / Female characters in the story and it will "make sense" once you play it. I would loooooove for that reason to be that inside the animus the character who belongs to this Viking Assassin lineage is actually a transgender undergoing re-adjustment surgery and the character flips are because of this. I would looooooove this.
 

Andodalf

Banned
Good trailer and almost convincing, however remember this is an Assassins Creed game..... think of those classic AC missions of following someone for 20 mins, the god awful AI and idiotic fighting mechanics.

However the game world itself may be enough to overlook the above if you like exploring rather than fighting.

Trailing missions haven't been a real issue for the series in a long time
 

oagboghi2

Member
1. New customizable player settlement which actually has weight and affects how you play the game.
2. New combat system
3. New character customizations(Viking Tats!!!).
4. Ability to switch between either gender throughout the entire game
5. Streamlined/New Side quest system focusing on Quality over Quantity
6. Castle Sieges/Raids
7. New "Choice has Consequence" System
8. Animal Companions (Hell Yes!)
9. Special abilities only found through world exploration (Hell Yes!)
10. The Creed actually back in the game!
11. Jomsviking - A fully customizable Viking Lt. which can be used in game as well shared across your friends to use and vise versa.

That is just the 11 I can pull off the top of my head from the deep dive video and I am sure there is more I am missing.... So yes to answer that silly question there is quite a bit that is new and "fresh"
a lot of that has been done before in the franchise.

The only thing on that list that I would say is truly new and unique is some elements of the combat system
 

GymWolf

Member
First of allt: what I write reflects my own opinion, that should be obvious.
My point of reference are games that offer fewer mechanics, but done good, not something like "let's put as much mediocre/sketched out content as we can and make a neverending game which in the end won't be remembered for anything in particular. Oh yes and let's not forget to make it grindy so that users will have to buy credits in order to update the village and make it pretty". They chose to take the path of a gdr action game, but the gdr part is lacking, specially what refers to character growth and interaction with other npcs (from what I saw in other trailers). After the experience with Odyssey I am not that confident that we will get good side quests and, above all, good dialogues. So, in the end it won't be neither that nor what it originally was, namely a wannabe stealth game. How the hell would you put stealth in a game like this? It will be present of course, but it will feel forced. Ubisoft has the means to really innovate, but they chose to recycle everything, so that every time you play one of their games you will have that feeling of eternal deja-vu. The things you mentioned are pointless in this specific context because they don't offer anything I personally consider worth a buy. Regarding the lion, well, this thing was present in other ac games in other forms, you could call your soldiers with an ability and make them attack a target. Taming animals? Already there in FC Primal for instance. Also the combat system, what did they add? Cool finishing moves? What else?

I haven't of course played the game yet but what I saw, after getting past the facade of the usual graphical embellishments is just another empty shell, a game without soul. I will be happy to be proven wrong.
Some gore, dual wielding with different weapons, a very generous stamina bar to look even more like a souls light and...a foot stomp for knocked down enemies.
 

Burger

Member
Still with these weird computer generated cutscenes/dialogue sequences? Compare some of that shit to RDR2.

Odyssey had the same issue. In some occasions you could have 3 or 4 (long) loading screens as they had to change the scenery during a cutscene (Battle of Pylos for example). It was so shit and stilted.

This looks barely upgraded from Odyssey - which also used Anvil Next which is really showing it's age now. Ubi's tools look to suffer from a chronic lack of attention. The amount of clipping and weird animations and the jankyness of their systems that they sort of don't really seem to care about is bizarre.
 

GymWolf

Member
Still with these weird computer generated cutscenes/dialogue sequences? Compare some of that shit to RDR2.

Odyssey had the same issue. In some occasions you could have 3 or 4 (long) loading screens as they had to change the scenery during a cutscene (Battle of Pylos for example). It was so shit and stilted.

This looks barely upgraded from Odyssey - which also used Anvil Next which is really showing it's age now. Ubi's tools look to suffer from a chronic lack of attention. The amount of clipping and weird animations and the jankyness of their systems that they sort of don't really seem to care about is bizarre.
They made an ac game every year or two, not nearly enough to polish games this big.

Rdr2 was in the oven for almost 9 years with the biggest budget in gaming history.
 
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TheStam

Member
Looks cool, will enjoy until burnout. Wish this had DLSS 2.0 though, 4k is gonna murder my rig for sure.
 
They made an ac game every year or two, not nearly enough to polish games this big.

Rdr2 was in the oven for almost 9 years with the biggest budget in gaming history.


They dont make ac games in one year, different teams are working on them. They make them in 3 years or more now. They're polished enough. Its about priorities. If everyone worked their games like rockstar we would have one game every 7 years that costs 250 million to make and if its doesnt pan out commercialy every company that attempted this would go bankrupt after release
 
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GymWolf

Member
They dont make ac games in one year, different teams are working on them. They make them in 3 years or more now. They're polished enough. Its about priorities. If everyone worked their games like rockstar we would have one game every 7 years that costs 250 million to make and if its doesnt pan out commercialy every company that attempted this would go bankrupt after release
I get your point but 2-3 years are still not enough and it shows.

You say they are polished enough, a lot of people really doens't think that.
 

jigglet

Banned
Why did they do a deep dive? The XBSX "first gameplay" reveal was already a very substantial look at the game.
 
I get your point but 2-3 years are still not enough and it shows.

You say they are polished enough, a lot of people really doens't think that.

its not 2 or 3 years, its 3 years at the minimum. The Black Flag team released that game in 2013 and they worked on Origins until 2017. Its not 2 years.

They're polished enough. When you think about it, what other games are there with this scope and systems at work at the same time ? That have more polish ? Pretty much nothing. We like to give ubisoft grief, but even when you look at its impersonators like Horizon or Tsushima, they're infinitely less ambitions and restricted compared to an absolute behemoth of content and interactivity like Oddisey
 
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Andodalf

Banned
its not 2 or 3 years, its 3 years at the minimum. The Black Flag team released that game in 2013 and they worked on Origins until 2017. Its not 2 years.

They're polished enough. When you think about it, what other games are there with this scope and systems at work at the same time ? That have more polish ? Pretty much nothing. We like to give ubisoft grief, but even when you look at its impersonators like Horizon or Tsushima, they're infinitely less ambitions and restricted compared to an absolute behemoth of content and interactivity like Oddisey

For sure, in terms of polish, Rockstars games are the only ones that have more for games of their size, and they take way longer to make them so it seems a fair trade off.
 

ruvikx

Banned
Yet they both charge the same RRP...

giphy.gif

You might not want to have a debate regarding the intrinsic value of Red Dead 2 versus an Assassin's Creed game. Sure Assassin's Creed now has shit animations (although I believe Origins was surprisingly superior to Odyssey & Valhalla for xyz weird reasons), but I'd take the Ass Creed minute-to-minute gameplay with its combat & traversal over Red Dead 2 any day. It might not always look so good, but it at least keeps me better engaged as a play.

Was RDR2 beautiful? You bet. But it was boring a hell to play.
 
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GymWolf

Member
its not 2 or 3 years, its 3 years at the minimum. The Black Flag team released that game in 2013 and they worked on Origins until 2017. Its not 2 years.

They're polished enough. When you think about it, what other games are there with this scope and systems at work at the same time ? That have more polish ? Pretty much nothing. We like to give ubisoft grief, but even when you look at its impersonators like Horizon or Tsushima, they're infinitely less ambitions and restricted compared to an absolute behemoth of content and interactivity like Oddisey
Agree to disagree, they can be gigantic but when the combat is mediocre, the animations janky and there is a re-use of mechanics and a general feeling of seamlessness it means that 3 years are not enough or their vision is not that great.

also lol at interactivity, 90% of the game is free the samey camp simulation through combat\stealth, there is no great use of physics or enviromental interaction to solve quest or combat and the ia both for enemies and npc is abysmal, tsushima is not better in many aspects but it's way less janky and the combat works somehow, not really a huge fan of tsushima myself tho.

And i'm not even shitting on ubisoft, i'm an open world action rpg whore so i'm gonna buy valahlla like i did with origins and odissey, i just talk like this because i wanna se an improvement from them.
 
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Burger

Member
You might not want to have a debate regarding the intrinsic value of Red Dead 2 versus an Assassin's Creed game. Sure Assassin's Creed now has shit animations (although I believe Origins was surprisingly superior to Odyssey & Valhalla for xyz weird reasons), but I'd take the Ass Creed minute-to-minute gameplay with its combat & traversal over Red Dead 2 any day. It might not always look so good, but it at least keeps me better engaged as a play.

Was RDR2 beautiful? You bet. But it was boring a hell to play.

I'm not talking about gameplay. I like Odyssey. I just find it hard to believe the tools/engine haven't improved in what, 4 years?

Every dialog scene in Odyssey was the same, Camera frame character A from Midrif to Head - Speak Dialogue. Play Exacerbated_5 then Cross_Arms_2. Cut to Character B. Repeat.

It's sooo fucking lame.
 

Hendrick's

If only my penis was as big as my GamerScore!
This game looks like another boring ass Creed game. I wanted to want to play it, but after seeing the latest footage and confirming it's just more of the same recycled Ubisoft bullshit, it's a hard pass.
 
Get off it, it’s an old grandma name. There are two old bats named Eivor in my village, and they aren’t what you would call Viking-like. Someone at Ubi fucked up on that one.

Given his track record (revelations, black flag, parts of origins) i would give Darby McDevitt the benefit of the doubt in terms of choosing the name on purpose and not only random or some "lets pick a female name that sounds male to non norwegians" thought (a theory one can find a couple times in discussions all across the web).
 

Denton

Member
AC Unity had better looking characters
Unity was some kind of weird fluke, a time travelling AC from the future.

Get off it, it’s an old grandma name. There are two old bats named Eivor in my village, and they aren’t what you would call Viking-like. Someone at Ubi fucked up on that one.

That's hilarious (and kinda unsurprising, some developers dont really give much of a fuck about attention to detail). What would be a bad ass viking-like name, usable for both male and female?
 
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Unity was some kind of weird fluke, a time travelling AC from the future.

Unity was great, suffered of one of the worst launches ever (although i never experienced it nearly as buggy as others) and as many other aspects of ac games fell a bit victom to the yearly release cycle and lack of innovation. Everybody was complaining after unity how boring and samey the games are, then syndicate came out (was already in development) and was for lots of the people "more of the same" and sold the least of all games. But the decision to change the direction was made after unity. Its kind of ironic but more than anything else a symptom of our zeitgeist that people now after only games with the "new formula" are already complaining it being more of the same and wanting "the old" back... But odyssey sold like hot cake in a year where rdr2 was the diret competition so i guess ubi will rather go with sales than fan outcries.
 
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