It might be crazy to imagine, but Assassin’s Creed: Valhalla has become the biggest launch in the decade old series. The action-adventure series travels to new frontiers to England during the Dark Ages. It is up to the player to grow their Viking settlement and forge alliances with the waring kingdoms.
Ubisoft continues the RPG trends found in both Origins and Odyssey, but there are a few twists this time around that might throw off even veterans to the series. Thankfully, these tips will make your vacation to the scenic countryside of warring England just a little bit more enjoyable.
Pick your difficulty
Your options on customizing the difficulty in Valhalla have been greatly expanded compared to past games. When you start a new game, you will find three difficulty categories: exploration, combat, and stealth.
Exploration difficulty modifies how the game communicates to the player the different points of interest. Raising the difficulty leaves more of the points of interests as a surprise to the player. Combat difficulty modifies the health of enemies and their damage outputs.
If you played either Origins or Odyssey, its recommended that you raise the difficulty to at least hard for a bit of a challenge.
Meanwhile, altering the stealth difficulty determines how quickly enemies will detect you. For those who pride themselves as master assassins, try maxing this one out. Also remember that you can change the difficulty anytime you wish.
Treasure hunting: Viking style!
Chances are, you will encounter a chest full of loot but may not know how to get to it. Ubisoft has included more environmental puzzles this time around to make looting a more involved experience than just walking into a place and cleaning out a chest.
The best course of action is to think like a Viking! You will find that most solutions to your problems involve either breaking it, burning it, blowing it up, or some sort of combination of all three. Just remember to pay attention to your surroundings to figure out what is the best course of action.
Use abilities wisely
Abilities were first introduced into the Assassin’s Creed franchise with Odyssey, and these moves were practically superpowers. In tune with the more grounded tone of Valhalla, abilities are not quite as flashy, but are still very powerful.
The important change to note is how adrenaline works this time around. Adrenaline charges slower than it did in Odyssey and you can’t store as much either. Therefore, instead of throwing abilities out as you please, abilities will need to be used more tactically such as dealing with a large crowd of enemies or doing some serious damage to a boss-type minion.
The other thing to note is that, in Odyssey, activating an ability gave you invincibility frames while the animation played out. If you saw you were about to take a hit, activating an ability could help you tank the attack while dishing out some punishment.
This isn’t the case in Valhalla. You can still be hit while using an ability in Valhalla and this can not only know you out of your ability, but also make you lose an adrenaline bar as well, so try to remember to use your abilities at the right time.
Manage your stamina
For the first time in the Assassin’s Creed franchise, players will now have to manage their stamina during combat. Stamina is consumed during attacks, while dodging, and when firing the bow. If you played any action RPG like Dark Souls before, then this mechanic should be easily recognizable.
While stamina does regenerate rather quickly, the best way to keep it us weirdly enough is to keep attacking. When light attacks connect with an enemy, instead of expending stamina, it will grant some back to the player for each hit. This encourages the player to stay in the fight and keep up the aggression.
The best way to attack is to use a combo of at least two lights attacks and end the combo with a heavy attack. This will expend little stamina and deal some serious damage.
Making money merrily
If you find yourself in need of some extra silver, one of the best ways to make money is through drinking challenges. Nearly every settlement you come across will have a loud-mouthed braggart ready to challenge you to a drink off.
Place the maximum bet and lock horns with your opponent! The minigame itself is not too difficult so long as you keep a careful eye on the prompts. However, remember that the drunker you get, the harder the minigame becomes. Should you prove successful, you’ll find yourself with an extra 200 silver to spend.
Fight like an Assassin
It might be easy to forget, but Valhalla is still an Assassin’s Creed game. Early on, Eivor will unlock the ability to assassinate unaware enemies with the hidden blade.
While helpful against weaker enemies, tougher minions can survive Eivor’s surprise attack. This will sound familiar to those who have played Origins and Odyssey, and it can be annoying that assassinations aren’t one-shots like they were in the past. However, Valhalla provides a few solutions to this predicament.
Early in the raven (yellow) skill tree, you can purchase the critical assassination ability. This will allow players to assassinate higher-level targets so long as they complete a timing-based minigame. This makes playing stealthy a lot more fun as it forces you to pay attention when the minigame pops up. However, if you rather not bother with the minigame, players can toggle on guaranteed assassinations in the options menu under difficulty.
It should be noted that the developers have warned against toggling this option on during your first playthrough as it can potentially trivialize many stealth encounters.
Experiment with dual wielding
Another first for the Assassin’s Creed series is the ability to dual wield different types of weapons. There are some seriously fun combinations that players should try, like dual wielding two shields to turn yourself into a Beyblade of death.
However, one important thing to remember is that each weapon has a unique perk, and these perks will affect not only the original weapon that the perk was on, but also the weapon that is in the other hand. Try messing around with not only different weapon types, but also find synergies between the different perks.
For example, I found one dagger that gave me a boost in damage after I dodged, and a spear that provided a speed boost after dodging. These perks worked superbly together, so don’t be afraid to mess around with your loadout.
One more thing to note is that heavier weapons can also be dual wielded if you get the heavy dual wield perk. This perk can be found far into the bear (red) skill tree. This can open up even crazier combos for the player to try out.
Respec to your heart’s desire
In a wonderful change from Odyssey, players can respec their skills at anytime at no cost. This means that you can choose to alter your build to fit the situation. Need to sneak into an enemy fortress? Respec and invest in sneak-related skills.
About to face a tough boss? Respec and invest your points in areas that improve your survivability. This is extremely useful to do early in the game when you don’t have many points to spend but want to try different builds.
Another useful thing about respecing is how it helps navigate the skill menu. The skill menu in Valhalla is covered in fog, meaning the player will need to invest points to certain nodes to reveal parts of the skill tree.
However, respecing your points can allow you to invest heavily in certain part of the tree to lift the fog and preview some of the higher-level skills on offer. This way, you can use respecing to plan out a path for your future build.
