At anywhere from 20ish to closer to 60 hours long depending on how you play, Dawn of Ragnarök is decisively large for an expansion. And with plenty of new ideas woven into the fabric of its host game, Valhalla, the $40 price tag feels pretty fair. There are many full-priced games for sale right now in the same genre that offer similar amounts of content. So the quantity is certainly there for Assassin’s Creed fans who already know what they’re getting into as well as those fans of the older games who have been waiting for something a little more off-the-wall to come out of the franchise before jumping back in. The story also mostly delivers too. With a genuinely fascinating cast of supporting characters with which Havi crosses paths, and dialogue that often feels thoughtfully yet succinctly written, Dawn of Ragnarök’s story is one of the stronger ones I’ve come across in the Assassin’s Creed series.

"With the mostly solid foundation of Valhalla to stand on, Dawn of Ragnarök ends up delivering a worthy follow-up that brings enough new ideas to the table to make it often feel like a little bit more than a simple expansion to another game – even if some of the series’ notable shortcomings continue to linger within it."

The Dwarves in particular seem to have been given special attention and consideration with their diverse personality types and eccentricities. From a withered old stable woman who gripes about how she can only trust animals after her husband left her, to a mine-dwelling dwarf who thinks he can talk to crystals, the game never seems to run out of odd and intriguing characters. Rushing through the game’s various shelters and failing to soak them in will result in you missing a lot of that though, as many of the story-related characters like Frigg, while still well-written, are less interesting on the whole. Havi himself is presented as a flawed misanthrope who needs to learn to reflect on his own personal failings, which does lead to a bit of an arc for his character. It’s enough to push the story forward, but nothing nearly as good happens to or with him as fellow ancient Norse video game protagonists Kratos or Senua. Havi’s one-notedness doesn’t drag the experience down much, but it does create a lower ceiling for its narrative than it could have had.

Among Dawn of Ragnarök’s new ideas are a series of new abilities that include invulnerability to the game’s many pools of lava, an ability to fly around the world as a raven, short-range teleportation and more. Holding down the right trigger still reveals four action abilities like it does in Valhalla, but now it additionally gives you access to these Havi-specific abilities that are triggered by accompanying R2 with the D-pad. These abilities can be found and absorbed from fallen enemies, but also purchased and upgrade-able too. They’re fun to experiment with and can greatly change how you play in an instant. I never felt like I needed to stick to any one of them or avoid any one of them either, which is more than I can say for a lot of similar games.

New weapons and enemy types also fill out the experience well and fundamentally set it apart from Valhalla. Even if you’ve never played the base game, Dawn of Ragnarök has you covered with a generous number of weapons and runes in your inventory and a sizable chunk of already-unlocked abilities ready for you to tinker around with. This not only creates a smooth opportunity for new players to hit the ground running, but also makes sense narratively for where Havi is in his journey when we take control of him. It can feel like a lot is dumped on you at first, but the open-ended nature of the first few hours serves as a great way to acclimate yourself at your own pace – although I do wish it held onto that approach a bit longer, as you will be cluttered up with familiar objectives, waypoints, and other superfluous things before you know it.

"The world in Dawn of Ragnarök is as much of a breeze to explore as you want it to be with its approach to traversal."

The world in Dawn of Ragnarök is as much of a breeze to explore as you want it to be with its approach to traversal. Setting your horse to autonomously take you to your next objective lets you devote more of your attention to scouring your surroundings for resources or some of the game’s many marauding mini-bosses to take down. It’s a bit hand hold-y but you don’t have to do it. Of course, the enthralling raids on enemy encampments are also a thing here, and can be a fun way to spend many hours collecting spoils of war and leveling Havi up even more.

Given that the game is firmly built upon the foundation of Valhalla and its other expansions, it should be no surprise that it looks and runs beautifully on the PS5. While some of the combat – particularly execution animations – are occasionally robbed of their oomph by the less-than-perfect camera and audio randomly cutting out, Dawn of Ragnarök still gets the big picture stuff right with vivid sunsets, gloomy overcasts, and a densely-detailed world all running very smoothly throughout. The favor resolution mode on PS5 does bring out a bit more sharpness and more vibrant effects, but I found the performance mode to be the ideal solution nonetheless as it still looks fantastic and runs consistently smooth. You can’t really go wrong either way, though.

Assassin’s Creed has wisely traveled down an interesting creative corridor with Dawn of Ragnarök. While I suspect they will treat it as a fun diversion rather than a new general direction for the series at large, I still hope that the developer can learn from the successes that are had here and apply them in the future in some way. While it may not be every Assassin’s Creed purist’s cup of tea, I still think that the decision to take this conceptual leap of faith can only help the series going forward as fresh ideas inevitably become harder to come by.

"While it may not be every Assassin’s Creed purist’s cup of tea, I still think that the decision to take this conceptual leap of faith can only help the series going forward as fresh ideas inevitably become harder to come by."

It’s unfortunate that this expansion is held back a bit by main characters who are dry and the combat still suffers from the same nagging camera found in the base game. I would have really liked to have seen those elements brought up a few notches considering how much experience this team has with those things at this point. That said, Dawn of Ragnarök is a passably worthy expansion to Valhalla if nothing else. It feels like more of Valhalla but with a few twists, and that’s basically what any good expansion should be. It also helps that it’s willing to play around with some new ideas, despite not really leaning into that mentality as much as it probably should’ve.

This game was reviewed on the PlayStation 5.

Billed as the biggest Assassin’s Creed expansion ever, Dawn of Ragnarok continues the Odin storyline of the base game, seeing the Allfather travelling to the mythical dwarven Norse realm of Svartalfheim to find and rescue his kidnapped son, Baldr. New story content, new locations, weapons, mechanics, enemies, and more await, in an expansion that, according to Ubisoft, has over 35 hours of new gameplay content. Check out some gameplay footage through here.

Assassin’s Creed Valhalla: Dawn of Ragnarok is not part of the base game’s season pass, which only covered year 1 content, and can be purchased separately for $40. It is available on PS5, Xbox Series X/S, PS4, Xbox One, PC, and Stadia.

PREMISE

Set in the mythical dwarven Norse realm of Svartalfheim, the expansion will continue the Odin half of Valhalla’s story. As Eivor steps back into the shoes of Odin, players will be tasked with finding and rescuing his kidnapped son, Baldr, from the dwarven realm. Valhalla’s base game progressed the larger Assassin’s Creed story forward in some major ways, and the Odin storyline contributed to that significantly, so we’re curious to see what events will unfold in Dawn of Ragnarok.

HUGR-RIP

As you’d expect from an expansion of this size, Dawn of Ragnarok isn’t just going to have new locations and a new story- it’s also bringing new gameplay mechanics. One of this is the Hugr-Rip, a new mythical bracer worn by Odin that players will be able to use to acquire powers (on a temporary basis) from fallen foes. At a time, players will be able to have two of these powers on them, which means if you pick up a third, one of your existing two gets replaced. Meanwhile, as opposed to abilities in Valhalla’s base game, which used adrenaline, these new abilities in Dawn of Ragnarok will instead remain active for as long as your Hugr meter remains filled up. Ubisoft says these new powers are going to “open new doors to gameplay and strategy”, which should be interesting to experience.

NEW POWERS

So what exactly are these new powers that players will be able to steal from foes and use for themselves? In total, Dawn of Ragnarok is bringing five new powers for players to use, and they sound quite interesting. Power of the Raven will allow you to transform into a raven, Power of Muspelheim will transform your skin into magma and allow you to walk over lava (which there will be plenty of in the expansion), Power of Winter will infuse your weapons with ice to deal more effective attacks against fire-based enemies, Power of Jotunheim will allow you to transport across short and long distances, and finally, Power of Rebirth will let you resurrect dead enemies and have them fight by your side. Collectively, one would imagine these new abilities will shake things up for stealth, combat, and exploration in some interesting ways.

VIKING ATGEIR

Of course, new Assassin’s Creed content also means new weapons and gear- and in Dawn of Ragnarok, those new weapons will take the form of a new type. Called Viking atgeir, these new weapons are long-bladed polearms. Ubisoft hasn’t gone into too much detail about what to expect from these or how many different varieties of this new weapon type can be found in the game, but the developer does say that these polearms will allow players to use “a mix of light and heavy attacks to deal some serious damage.”

NEW GEAR

Meanwhile, players will have access to new gear to pair with their new weapons and abilities as well, though again, we don’t have an awful lot of granular info on this front yet. We do know that new mythical gear can be obtained in the expansion, coming with their own unique perks and attributes. Ubisoft says that while Odin’s new powers are, of course, exclusive to Dawn of Ragnarok, this new gear can be used with Eivor in Valhalla’s base game as well.

VALKYRIE TRIALS

Vakyrie Trials are looking like one of Dawn of Ragnarok’s most intriguing new additions. On paper, these are just combat arenas where players will take on waves of enemies, but the game frames them as retellings of Odin’s past victories, which means you might encounter foes and bosses you’ve already previously fought in the story. What’s more, in keeping with the theme of retellings, before each trial, you’ll also be able to select up to 14 Boasts, which are essentially combat modifiers to make the trials more challenging or interesting in various ways. Selecting Boasts will make each trial harder, but as you’d expect, that will also lead to better rewards.

NEW ENEMY TYPES

Of course, with Odin traveling to new realms and having new abilities to use in combat, you’re also going to be facing off against new enemy types. The highlight on this front is the Muspels, who’re the lava and fire-infused new enemies that we mentioned earlier, and will be found in abundance in the expansion. Interestingly enough, one of the Muspel enemy types, called Firekeepers, will also have the ability to resurrect low level enemies during combat and have them fight by their side, similar to Odin’s Power of Rebirth, which should make fights against them quite interesting.

SOCIAL STEALTH

Stealth has been heavily de-emphasized in recent installments, much to the dismay of many series fans, but Dawn of Ragnarok is going some interesting things in this area. Two of Odin’s new abilities – Power of the Raven and Power of Muspelheim – allow him to shapeshift and transform, with the former allowing you to become a raven and the latter turning your skin into magma, like the new Muspel enemy types. As a raven, more stealth options are added in obvious ways, while with the Power of Muspelheim, you can use the fact that you look like Muspels to your advantage and walk right into enemy camps without raising any alarms. Social stealth came back in a big way in Valhalla’s previous expansion, The Siege of Paris, so we’re excited to see how this will be implemented in Dawn of Ragnarok.

LENGTH

A large section of the Assassin’s Creed fanbase has grown progressively disgruntled with the series for how bloated and overly long its recent instalments have been, but Dawn of Ragnarok, as an expansion, is going to feel like a much more balanced experience on this front. With over 35 hours of new content on offer, it’s certainly going to be longer than any of Valhalla’s previous expansions by a significant margin, but thankfully not as long as Assassin’s Creed experiences tend to be these days.

PRICE

When Assassin’s Creed Valhalla’s season pass was announced before its launch in 2020, Ubisoft confirmed that it would include two expansions, both of which came out last year. Dawn of Ragnarok, unsurprisingly, isn’t part of that expansion pass, and will have to be purchased separately. It’s not going to cost as much as a full-fledged new game, of course, but it’s also a pretty meaty experience, which is going to be reflected in its $40 price tag.

FILE SIZE

You’re not going to require an awful lot of free storage space to install Dawn of Ragnarok, especially given how big the expansion is going to be. Its size is going to be roughly 15 GB- or that’s what it’s supposed to be on the PS5 at least. There will probably be some variation in its size across all the platforms it will be available now, though the number should still fall roughly in that same ballpark.

DEVELOPER

Assassin’s Creed games tend to be huge productions, with studios from around the world contributing to each new one’s development, but Montreal and Quebec usually take the lead on mainline games in the series. Assassin’s Creed Valhalla itself had Montreal attached as its lead developer, but Dawn of Ragnarok, interestingly enough, is being led by Sofia, which is the studio that developed Assassin’s Creed 3: Liberation and Assassin’s Creed Rogue.

As per the expansion’s PlayStation Store page, Dawn of Ragnarok will cost $40. As you may have expected, it will not be included in Assassin’s Creed Valhalla’s season pass. The season pass, of course, was also going to include only the two expansions that released for the game in 2021 – Wrath of the Druids and The Siege of Paris – and year 2 content was not announced as being included. In fact, back when the season pass was unveiled, Ubisoft hadn’t even announced that the game would receive any content beyond its first year, so this doesn’t come as much of a surprise.

Of course, both Assassin’s Creed Odyssey and Valhalla have also received new free content with crossover story quests featuring the protagonists from both games. Read more on that through here.

Assassin’s Creed Valhalla: Dawn of Ragnarok will launch on March 10 for PS5, Xbox Series X/S, PS4, Xbox One, PC, and Stadia.