Historical Realism Review: Assassin's Creed Valhalla

Druids: People wearing layers of leather with a skull face and horns worshiping one horrifying historical god. (because some historian said they were shamanic)
Tuatha de Danann: These guys in the 7th century called the children of Danu.
...
By the way, the Tuatha De Danann where mythical race of individuals supplanted by the Milesians about 1000bc.

Maybe my expectations weren’t as high for “accuracy” but as I read some while playing the game, I thought it was fantastic! Spoilers ahead… I was reading about the burnt cake myth and how they played that out, the maps, some of the characters were based on real people and basic relationships (Ivar, Ceowulf, Halfdan, even Birna). It’s an open world video game so it’s not going to be as likely boring and stable as a “real life” Viking game and those over the top castles and forts was almost certainly artistic liberties! I’m just saying as I’ve been playing the game awhile as I’m a 38 year old gamer since I was 5, playing many open world games like this over the years and reading about the history of the time, I’m impressed how many little historical nuggets they threw in there! The maps, looking at the history of Winchester, King Aelfred, and York, Yuletide and Samhain, the Picts, I loved the history though I know, it’s not explicitly accurate of course!

AC Valhalla looks like it was pre-tought as a really grounded experience with accuracy all over, but a hollywood-ish retard of an director of Ubisoft just screwed it all over for the sake of capitalizing in bad viking shows (like Vikings and last kingdom).

It’s a huge shame as origins and odyssey were so incredibly accurate. Valhalla is so frustrating from a historical point of view.

A Christian Church In Asgard??? Hmm

Colchester as a location was lacking. No castle but that's understandable since it was Norman but there was no inclusion of a massive Roman theatre dating back to when Boudicca sacked the place. Or the grave of the Saxon King in Southend. Honestly as an Essex native I was disappointed.

I hate that hate groups are taking Viking symbols and turning it into hate symbols it pisses me off cause I want Viking tattoos

At least this game is more realistic and lore accurate than God Of War 4 & 5.

One more critique here: You said that christian stave churches don’t belong in Asgard but you completely missed and left out the noticeably Greco-Roman statues on each side of the Bifrost bridge.

Æ

Honestly, the really weird thing to me with this game was when Vinland Saga advertised it in the manga. Yeah, Makoto Yukimura wrote a Pamphlet-length story of Thorfinn hunting and losing the game's protagonist, Eivor... which males me happy to know that it's not Canon because... how?

They should have just made it a straight Viking game. As a Norse Pagan with Viking Ancestors I love the game especially the inclusion of Ragnar Lothbrok’s death pit and his sons. Although it isn’t historically accurate with the Vikings 100% they did a good job. I wouldn’t call it a complete fantasy as your comment saying Vikings couldn’t win a fair fight just isn’t true. There’s historical records of one Viking taking on many men and winning, yes every story is exaggerated on but for example one of the last true Vikings: the story goes he single handedly killed 40 Saxon warriors before dying after all his men had already died. Now this is a perfect example of over exaggeration. Maybe he held off an killed 10 if that but not 40. When the Vikings first attacked England under Ragnar’s command they were all simple farmers they didn’t have a military force yet. Ragnar really is the one that develops that over time. So their fighting would throw off trained armies because they just fought unpredictably as there only real formation when they first invaded was the shield wall tactic

i like the duel wielding purely because i can run around with either
Two Excaliburs for full unrealism, or Two light shields for haha funny brawler class

I really dont mind the historical inaccurate stuff
Its super fun
Nd i get them. Tryna put castles nd everything in there bc they will probably never do England again so might aswelll but everything in there

The staff churches were most likely based on the design of earlier pagan temples, so having them in the game is probably accurate.
When talking about "historical evidence" for viking women warriors, are you refering to the graves featuring female skeletons buried with weapons and armor? Because that is not evidence that they actually used them in battle. Most likely they were ceremonial.
Or are you refering to sagas about women warriors? Because those are most likely fictitious.

They designed the Vikings to look that way because "MUH VIKINGS ON DA HYSTRY CHANLE" . If they were historically accurate,you'd have raging DUDE BRUUUUUH twats troll rating this game.

What racist hate groups share overlapping stylization with Vikings? Idk about that bro. At best you could say Biker gangs are similar to Vikings but there not all racist. So yeah no

This was an anti-British, anti-Christian exercise.

What's worse about the castles is that they appear to be ancient and run-down. It's like if a game set in WWI featured a rickety, old, beat-up F-15.

To quote from you..'the game's credibility'...is that it's a Freaking GAME!. I'm all for historical accuracy in game's, but you nerdy over intellectuals take it to the extreme. I'm sure the majority of players who actually played AC Origins, Odyssey and valhalla didn't play the games for their historical accuracy, but for it's fantastic storyline and gameplay. If I wanted history lessons, I'd go to a class or watch a documentary..not buy a video game!
So try being less of a gloomy intellectual, and more of an actual Gamer!

Yeah but it's cool

I mean, it's a video game. It's expected that there will be some inaccuracies since it's not a pure reenactment of history. There are some liberty taken to make it as interesting as possible. And the thing is, there might be stuff that we don't know and that make it possible to take some liberties. The spread of chirstianism in nordic cultures might have happened earlier than we think (not by much, but by the assassin's creed range), so there might have been small nordic christian churches at that time. As big as the game portrays them? Most likely not. But shrines and small temples? I wouldn't be surprised as culture tend to mix as soon as they come in contact. As for churches in Asgard, spiritual places like that are based on beliefs. They don't exist outside of that from what we can prove. So if a culture was in contact with another religion, it's possible that they add the other religion's architecture/cultural markers in their conception of their own spirituality. Culture is way more fluid than it is, and so is creating the fictional universe of a video game.

All arguments he’s made so far can be responded to with the same argument I give people who say “how come all them people are talking perfect English? Ahahah inaccurate game!”

Buddy buddy buddy, listen….they’re not actually in that time period nor are you seeing the character travel from location to location like this. The animus is like a “dream” where the main character’s interpretation of the past is being blended with her ancestors’ memories through their dna 🧬

So far, loving the review tho, keep it up

Don't know if it matters much but the raid on the seafortress, is a sort of political move to rid east anglia of a cruel viking leader to gain an alliance with them

"We can see that the world map is pretty true to life as well" bruh they turned Yorkshire into a snowy mountain range.. it is not that far north for that much snow and we definitely do not have mountains..

my biggest problem with this game is the armor and weapons, they are pure fantasy it looks like they were taken from WoW

Its esp interesting how the developers said they were fans of professor Jackson Crawford.

I dont agree with the "vikings had women warrios", the sources we have of "shield maidens" are most likely fiction like the sources for gods, valkiries, trolls, unexisting noblemen and heroes etc, we cannot know it for sure but analizying anthropology of the time we can say its very unlikely women could have a space in warfare, the gender roles were way to strong in society and we know exacly how men in armies or even worst in raiding groups would treat women amoung them, no way a woman could pretend to just be a warrior like the others, she would probably get raped, big organized armies often had women with them but they also had children and a lot of workers and servitude, all those people were not there to fight but to serve the army or because their husband was amoung the warriors and they decided to follow (some armies were also immigration groups).
And yes I know there has been found a female grave with many belongings and some were weapons but there are so many other reasons to bury someone with things they didnt use, it could have been property of the husband who died far from home so he never got buried, it could have been a showing of respect because the sword was more of a simbol than an actual war tool, being buried with sword and weapons was an honor even the noblemen who never fought in their life wanted.
If you think about it the only concrete instance of females in the army was during WW2 in soviet Russia and they were only-female platoons cause they knew mixing with the men would have been a good idea.

At least they didn’t do horned helmets

Valhalla a fun game but its no origins or odyssey

Uhm there are 3 mentions of female viking wariors in the eddas and countless more mentions that women and children were kept away from battle. "Shield maidens" were an extreme rarity

What kept irking me as a snake fancier is the lazily reused snakes from previous games. The only venomous snakes in England are European adders, which are only about 3 feet long, do not rear up like cobras, and notoriously will flee if they see humans.

The only viper anywhere near that big is the bushmaster, endemic to South and Central America.

And you collect viper eggs..... Almost all vipers, including European adders, are ovoviviparous, meaning they give live birth

On top of Asgard having a stave church, they also feature hoplite statues, which arguably makes even less sense.

Note on the runes - Dr. Jackson Crawford was the consultant for them. He's got a YT channel as well and knows his stuff.

I never played this cus it looked like a non assassin creed game but also know nothing about the histoy of vikings

Double bladed great axes, female Vikingr, The cringe tastic Fur everyone wears, on top of it all there isnt even a Norge option for voice actors, they added Portuguese, etc. lmfao

My one complain about the map is that York has so much snow. It really doesn't get that much. It may be relatively far north in england, but it's only 50ft or so above sea level. Repton get's far more snow despite being further to the south, as it has a higher elevation

Ragnar Lothbrok is FICTIONAL and didn't exist. That should tell you everything you need to know about the story

You won't read this, but the "woman being warriors" thing is itself is a highly sensationalized piece of pop-history.
Or let's say if we conclude that there were women warriors because we found weapons in graves, then there were also child warriors....

so the celtic are behind the times and architecture is ahead of the times

I remember tuning inn for the art teaser of Valhalla and feeling my heart sink, they were doing the problematic esthetic Vikings, not historical ones. I was not surprised just disappointed. It was what I, a Viking LARPer at the time, feared and expected. Sometimes I hate being right. The game was as bad as I expected. I feel even more offended by the geography, Eivor is from my area, but they have mountains from Lofoten. That’s like pretending the Nederlands looks like Mallorca. London is closer, Rogaland looks like the Scotland with extra fjords.
Stavanger didn’t exist yet, it’s officially 900 years old next year, just like its stone cathedral, no stave church here. The population centres were elsewhere, like Utstein. Harald fair hair supposedly wan his final battle at Hafrsfjord, but that a bike-ride away, it not the city.

Norse women weren’t abundant as warriors

What did Ireland do to Ubisoft their always doing us dirty😭

Ac Valhalla confused me from the start. The initial trailer is about how the English are misrepresenting raiding Vikings, while at the same time the Vikings are misrepresented by the game itself.

Armor in this game bothers me, and haircuts. Like Jesus Christ why does everyone have a side fade like Ivvar Ragnorson