Despite its rocky reveal at May’s Inside Xbox stream, Assassin’s Creed Valhalla has started to look better and better with more gameplay footage. The recent Ubisoft Forward showcase offered look at the game’s core systems along with Eivor’s combat style (which you can see more of here). However, one interesting bit occurred when a kill transitioned to an X-ray showing the bone’s breakage.
Such kills are synonymous with the Mortal Kombat franchise but this wasn’t just done for effect. According to game director Benoit Richter, such kills can happen “during gameplay” and that they were “player triggered.” On being asked whether they could be disabled, Richter responded, “Don’t worry it’s only under a certain context that I won’t explain not to spoil anything.”
Even without the X-ray touch, Eivor will have plenty of brutal ways to execute his foes, from slicing heads off to tackling an enemy to the ground before stabbing them. This sense of violence helps ground the combat more but we’ll have to wait and see how the action RPG elements will influence it. It’s worth noting that Eivor doesn’t always have to kill his foes – the extended gameplay walkthrough showcased the ability to spare certain enemies when given the choice.
Assassin’s Creed Valhalla is currently slated to release on November 17th for Xbox One, PS4, PC and Google Stadia. It launches “soon” for Xbox Series X and PS5.