3/5 ★ – bauer_247's review of Assassin's Creed: Valhalla.

This game left me feeling very conflicted. I love the AC games, I’ve played and beaten all of them. I feel like this game could have been condensed quite a bit. I did very few side quests and it took me 63 hours to finish all regions, finish the Order and a few other side stories. I found myself getting extremely bored with most of the regions and just completely skipped through the dialogue as I had zero interest in it. The main storyline often suffers due to the many smaller story arcs players are forced to endure. I would have preferred a greater focus on the main story, I had repeated thoughts of different points that could have been expounded upon that were glossed over. Story aside, the game is still pretty buggy (played 6 months after release). Name-fully there were a handful of times my character would inexplicably launch into the air and die causing me to start the mission over. NPC’s would not move to spots they needed to to progress dialogue, and smaller dialogue cut scenes had many other bugs causing them to be fairly clunky and lose their luster. I wish Ubisoft would figure out the direction they want to go with the AC franchise. They took the franchise in a new direction starting with Origins, mostly veering away from the outer Animus world, but still keeping it there in the back of your mind. I don’t mind the whole in/out of animus stories, but I wish they would either keep it in or completely take it out of the series. There was just barely enough outer Animus activity to let you know it’s there, but it left me wanting much more explanation of different plot points. Overall, the game is mildly enjoyable (I much prefer Odyssey to Valhalla), though disappointing in many aspects. I found myself forcing myself through the last 20 hours or so. Would recommend, but definitely not my favorite in the franchise.