Review of Assassins Creed Valhalla: Dawn of Ragnarök – The Road of Revenge

I am one of those who enjoyed Assassins Creed Valhalla. I liked the changes in the structure of the story (two-hour episodes in each region), I was amazed at the beauty of the landscape in the game and I liked Eivor with his tragic fate. Obviously, I was not alone – Valhalla became the second best-selling game in Ubisoft’s 35th anniversary, the most successful part of the AC series, earning over $ 1 billion and selling about 20 million copies. These things are useful to remember in light of how loud a group of people are cursing at the modern episodes of the AC series, Valhall and the latest DLC. But I will not join this group this time either. Although some things at Dawn of Ragnarök also disappointed me, others pleasantly surprised me.

• Platform: XSX (peer-reviewed version), PS5, PS4, XSS, X1, PC
• Date of publication: 10. 3. 2022
• Producer: Ubisoft Sofia (Bulgaria)
• Genre: Action RPG
• Czech location: born
• Multiplayer: born
• Data to download: 15 GB
• Game time: 10+ hours
• Price: 949 CZK (Xzone)

Sins of the fathers

Valhally’s latest chapter takes place practically entirely outside our reality, in the mythical realm of the dwarves called Svartálfheim. This means that you play for the most time as an Odin, into which Eivor “reincarnates” after drinking a special potion. In practice, however, you can still use the skills and equipment of your character from the main game. In addition, you will receive five new “active” abilities, which will allow you to turn into a raven (including the possibility of air murder), teleport with a shot arrow or revive fallen enemies around you to fight on your side. Although these new tricks are relatively fun and sometimes necessary for the game, don’t expect too much difference from the gameplay of the original game. Personally, for example, I continued to rely on my character’s traditional abilities and equipment when fighting bosses (I had already invested some 200 hours in their development, along with two previous additions).

The Dwarven Empire is under attack by the fire giant Surtra and his army of fire and ice warriors. But that in itself would not drag Odin into the fight. But Surtr also kidnapped Odin’s son Baldr – and the whole thing became very, very personal. While dwarven refugees welcome the coming of the almighty god (you) as a sign of salvation, in reality, in the first, second, and third rows, you care about the fate of your son. His mother, as well as your opponent’s wife and children, will be involved in the conflict. While it may not be completely obvious at first glance, this story is very personal, and once it begins to die, the decline and emotions of the narrative take it to a whole new level. In this regard, I would like to pay tribute to the writers of the allowance, because some of the characters in the characters seemed strong or, on the contrary, sarcastic in a great way. And although the plot seems very predictable at first, I really didn’t expect at least one big twist.

The story is very personal.

From the point of view of the expedition, Svartálfheim does not look so different from the previous parts of the game, however, the traditionally impressive views of the beautiful nature are spiced up by the golden peaks of some mountains and the floating giant lava rocks with which the enemy army flew into the dwarven empire. The actors do quality work again and the new music doesn’t match the great soundtrack of the original play. The filmmakers didn’t spare film sequences either, so the story gets the right grades at the right times, although it never comes close to its biggest competitor (the God of War of 2018).

The third allowance

I admit that I didn’t like it until I turned it on – we now have three very big open world games, literally weeks in a row, and the idea of ​​immersing myself in fourth again is not so good for me as an ACV fan. she didn’t like it. But as soon as I turned on the game, I almost immediately succumbed to Valhalla’s storytelling and fun. This is certainly influenced by my very ornate setup equipment (one ax in each hand, a combination of features and runes, where each of my strikes is stronger, faster and has a higher chance of critical strike than the previous one) with which it is a pleasure to roll enemy settlement, as well as with my ornate predator bow, which reliably kills in one shot at maximum distance. In my opinion, ACV is a beautiful and fun game even after three years, although I completely agree that it has stuck in its own template and it is not very innovative or surprising.

Related to this is my main disappointment with the addition: before the release, the creators promised a thirty-hour epic full of new enemies and a mechanic that sounded boldly similar to the rival God of War. But the reality is very different – I finished the main story in a comfortable ten hours, while the next ten hours are offered by side missions and activities in the open world. The scope is therefore exactly the same / small DLC as in the case of the two previous ones (Druids and Paris). The gaming experience itself contains a minimum of innovation and is simply another part of Valhalla as we know it. However, I was pleased to add a new raw material, which allowed me to improve all my equipment to an even higher level. If someone plays the original game with all three additions together, the new raw materials will fit very smoothly into the overall process and economy.