Ubisoft has been rolling out a number of details for Assassin’s Creed Valhalla, it’s next big open world RPG in the franchise. The story focuses on Eivor who travels with his merry gang of Viking raiders to pillage and loot the kingdoms of England. All of this is for the sake of upgrading the Vikings’ settlement and ensuring it thrives.
But with all the focus on the settlement, there’s still the question as to how large the overall world map will be. Speaking to Game Informer, creative director Ashraf Ismail was asked about the scope of the world, whether it was just one big map of England and how Norway fits into it all. Ismail responded, “It is Norway and the Dark Ages of England – specifically the ninth century. In terms of England, it is quite a large map.
“We focus on four major kingdoms of England during this time period: Wessex, Northumbria, East Anglia, and Mercia. So for history buffs, they can look for that. It’s a large part of England, and within that you have three major cities: London, Winchester, and Jórvík (now called York in modern days, but Jórvík back then). And then we have a ton of towns, and of course, we have Norway as well.”
That doesn’t seem to be all of it though. Ismail says that this is the “core” but “We have other surprises that I won’t get into in terms of the world and map. But that’s the heart of the journey. We start in Norway, and we see the natural beauty of this world, but we also feel the difficulty of living in this barren land…so we move from there and settle in England. And then it’s about the journeys through the kingdoms of England. Of course, players can go back and forth to Norway as they please. There’s a lot to see and do in Norway.”
This all sounds faintly like The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt which had several large regions – like Skellige and Velen – that players could travel back and forth to. It would certainly help to make Norway and England feel distinct from one another without having to depict the sheer distance between them. Hopefully, this means that the locations selected have less empty space to explore and more meaningful quests and content.
Assassin’s Creed Valhalla is out this holiday season for Xbox Series X, Xbox One, PS4, PS5, Google Stadia and PC. Its first gameplay will debut on May 7th during Inside Xbox where Xbox Series X titles will be showcased. Stay tuned for more details in the coming days.
