Precious few RPGs have explored the Dark Ages and even less the Viking era of British history. It’s a three-hundred or so year period absolutely rife with opportunity for storytelling, a time when a dramatic clash of cultures had a pivotal effect on the political and sociological shaping of an entire continent. Also, axes, longships, and epic battles! All good reasons to be excited about Ubisoft’s Assassin’s Creed Valhalla.
Particularly so, given that while Assassin’s Creed stories have always played fast and loose with history, Ubisoft has typically done a great job recreating the look and feel of historical settings with commendable authenticity.
So much so, in fact, that Assassin’s Creed Odyssey debuted the Discovery Tour mode in 2018, an educational tool aimed at schools and universities that offered students a digital field trip across its ancient Greek setting.
As a history buff, it’s a feature I’d hoped would become a mainstay of the franchise moving forward. Well, that is until I saw this week’s big cinematic reveal of Assassin’s Creed Valhalla, which is riddled with so many baffling historical inaccuracies that now I think Discovery Tour might be better as a one-off.
