Ubisoft revealed the next chapter of its long-running game series with Assassin’s Creed Valhalla — and it’ll be set in The Viking Age.
Ubisoft recently unveiled Assassin’s Creed Valhalla — the next installment of its best-selling franchise of all time. News of the game’s official title broke towards the tail end of a Ubisoft livestream confirming it’s Nordic-based Viking setting.
The upcoming title has also received a four-minute blood-soaked cinematic trailer detailing the game’s central plot and revealing the latest assassin to join the fray.
Assassin’s Creed Valhalla is scheduled for a Holiday 2020 release on PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, PC, Stadia, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X.
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Valhalla’s setting
The rumors of Assassin’s Creed Valhalla’s Scandinavian setting were confirmed as the game is set to take place in The Viking Age, predating the earliest Assassin’s Creed game by a few hundred years.
This could mean monumental implications to the direction of the series as Assassin’s Creed Valhalla is likely to continue the precursory story-line of how the Assassin Brotherhood and Templar Order came to be.
Theories of the next Assassin’s Creed’s theme circulated the internet upon discovery of a few posters as easter eggs in Ubisoft’s third-person shooter The Division 2. One of the game’s areas featured multiple Viking style posters showing a Norse figure clutching what seems to be the Apple of Eden.
Ubisoft has just filed a trademark for Assassin's Creed: Valhalla.
Based on the various leaks, teaser in The Division 2 & current progress of the #AssassinsCreed teaser, all but confirmed of a Viking theme/setting for the next AC game. https://t.co/cY9sz35yz4 pic.twitter.com/e7Czeemkwo
— Michael (@LegacyKillaHD) April 29, 2020
Assassin’s Creed Origins and Odyssey
The Assassin’s Creed franchise’s paradigm shift started when Ubisoft completely revamped the series’ gameplay and story direction in Assassin’s Creed Origins.
Taking a great deal of inspiration from CD Projekt Red’s The Witcher series, Assassin’s Creed Origins incorporated multiple role-playing elements including meaningful side-quests, a deep equipment customization system, a more mythical-based story direction, and the introduction of skill trees.
This newfound RPG trend continued with Assassin’s Creed Odyssey as the developers added a more non-linear player-controlled narrative that gave gamers the chance to influence the game’s story-line in certain ways.
Assassin's Creed Odyssey skill tree has Warrior, Assassin and Hunter paths: https://t.co/LanqewwhTW #thisweekingaming pic.twitter.com/3epHdXaGJ5
— Stevivor (@Stevivor) June 17, 2018
Odyssey also broke Ubisoft’s inclination to release a new Assassin’s Creed game every year and instead made use of large-scale story-driven downloadable content to extend the game’s lifespan.
Hopefully, Assassin’s Creed Valhalla continues down the same path, since it was the system overhaul that reinvigorated the franchise— which had begun to go stale prior to the previous two games in the series.
Image courtesy of Life at Ubisoft @Home/Twitter