Assassin's Creed Valhalla Confirmed As Vikings Head To England

At the end of the livestream revealing the Viking setting of the next Assassin's Creed game, Ubisoft announced the game's official title: Assassin's Creed Valhalla. A full trailer also released April 30, showing off the new protagonist and some brutal combat. The game will come to PS4, PS5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X, PC, and Stadia in Holiday 2020. The Xbox versions will support the new Smart Delivery feature, giving Xbox One purchasers access to the Xbox Series X version as a free automatic upgrade when the console launches.

As previously rumored, Valhalla takes place during The Viking Age. Occurring between the ninth and eleventh centuries, The Viking Age occurs roughly 100-400 years prior to the events of the original Assassin's Creed. That could mean that this game will continue the origin stories of how the Hidden Ones and The Order of Ancients went on to become the Assassin Brotherhood and Templar Order, respectively--a narrative first started in Origins and continued in Odyssey. Origins director Ashraf Ismail serves are creative director for Valhalla.

The storyline will cap off some of the threads we've been dealing with in the series for years. As with Odyssey, you'll be able to play as a man or woman, both named Eivor.

In the artwork used to announce Valhalla's setting, a Viking warrior separates two different scenes. On the left, you see Viking raiders sailing in longboats and on the right you see Viking raiders attacking English soldiers. The Viking warrior in the middle is holding an axe, with the symbol of the Assassin Brotherhood engraved into its blade. Additionally, there is a raven flying over the shoulder of the Viking, which could suggest the bird takes on the in-game role of reconnaissance that the eagles Senu and Ikaros did in Origins and Odyssey, respectively. In Norse mythology, ravens are seen as the eyes of Odin--so getting a drone-like view of the world through one would fit into the Viking theme of Valhalla.

Assassin's Creed Valhalla will be the first new game in the series since 2018's Odyssey. Instead of returning to the franchise's typical annual release schedule, Ubisoft instead used 2019 to further flesh out Odyssey with two massive DLC expansions, Legacy of the First Blade and The Fate of Atlantis. Both DLCs were split into three episodes each and together all six chapters almost doubled the length of Odyssey's story.