Assassins Creed Valhalla released November 10th, 2020 follows the story of Eivor Varinsdotti (male or female), a Viking raider who whilst attempting to establish a new Viking clan in England during the Viking raids of the British Isles between 872-878 AD becomes embroiled in the centuries old conflict between the Assassin’s brotherhood who fight for peace and liberty, and the Templar Order who desire peace through control. Unlike the other games in the Assassin’s Creed franchise the weapons in Valhalla are unique and not many can be found in the world. However, each weapon has its own unique perks, and the stats of the weapon can be upgraded using certain materials. Also, Valhalla uses a completely new power system that increases with each skill point spent in one of three unique levelling paths (the way of the raven, the way of the bear and the way of the wolf). A lot of the game focuses on naval gameplay that is solely meant for exploration and traversal, whilst in contrast other games such as Odyssey and Black Flag had ship to ship combat.
The development of the game began in 2017 around the release of Assassin’s Creed Origins. Ubisoft Montreal led its three year development and had help from fourteen other Ubisoft studios worldwide, and numerous people who had helped in the creation of other AC games had returned to help produce this one such as Ashraf Ismail who served as the creative director for Assassin’s Creed IV: Black Flag in 2013 as well as Darby McDevitt the lead writer for Black Flag and Assassin’s Creed Revelations in 2011. Although there is no concrete evidence for the budget of the game, the game prior to Assassin’s Creed Valhalla Odyssey reportedly had a budget of around $500 million, although upon release Valhalla sold around 17 million copies at $60 earning around $1.02 billion. And according to Ubisoft set a record breaking number of sales, becoming the companies top-selling PC launch ever recorded. The story of the game itself reflects a lot about the gaming market at the time due to the success and popularity of the God of War game that was released in 2018 which sold around 23 million copies and similarly both games have elements of Norse mythology and rely on similar ideologies as throughout the story there are many references to Norse mythology in AC Valhalla and God of War is solely about Norse mythology. Furthermore, the game’s composer Stephanie Economou received the first ever Grammy award for best soundtrack in video games and other interactive media.
Although the Assassins Creed franchise has a very broad audience I would assume that the target audience for Valhalla would be for people aged 18-40 due to the games PEGI 18 age rating restricting its availability to adults only and it not being suitable for the ages below due to the depictions of graphic violence to humans and the use of strong violence being in the game. This repeated representation of violence in all of the Assassin's Creed games conforms to George Gerbner's idea of Cultivation theory. This theory is the idea that exposure to repeated patterns of representation of long periods of time can shape and influence in the way in which we perceive the world around us. Assassins Creed is a game that almost prides itself upon its violent nature as with each game becoming more violent and creative in how someone can kill a person, this repeated behaviour could implant negative attitudes and due to one of the main demographics playing this game being children who are more easily influenced they may copy some of these transgressive behaviours such as stabbing people. This could show the social and cultural impact that the game has on people as it shows how people are heavily inspired by the media they consume. Furthermore, due to the game being an instalment in the franchise you could assume that this would allow Ubisoft to be able to target people who were already fans of the games prior to Valhalla and already have a huge audience of life long fans who were going to buy the game no matter the scenario, due to the games amount of inclusivity as at the start of the game you could decide if you wanted to play Eivor as a male or a female, even though historically and with the multiple clues in the games Eivor is canonically female.
A huge part of the marketing campaign for Assassin’s Creed Valhalla was its social media presence, Valhalla was mainly marketed on social media platforms YouTube, Instagram and TikTok. For example the Assassin's Creed masthead depicting Eivor swinging his hammer and smashing the screen was advertised on social media websites such as YouTube to stand out and let people know that the game was available on pre-order and also using the #LIKEAVIKING which was a massive part of the marketing campaign for Assassins Creed Valhalla. Furthermore, the game was advertised on the PlayStation store with a banner advertising the games release. However, another way that Valhalla was marketed was its synergy with Reebok releasing limited edition shoes in order to market the games release. Also, one of the main strategies for the game was the use of trailers. The world premiere trailer for Assassins Creed Valhalla released on the 30th April 2020 almost seven months before the games actual release. One of the main appeals for this game that was shown in the trailer was it graphics which reflects the high budget of the game allowing it to have some of the best graphics possible for the time, as the trailer for the game feels like you are watching a film due to the high intensity and amazing graphics shown. Furthermore, the trailer does not break conventions of an assassins creed game as we see that there is a clear narrative to the game whilst still being action packed and having lots of fight sequences, and all having historically accurate costumes and mise en scene, allowing Ubisoft to target fans of the already giant franchise due to the sense of familiarity shown in the trailer. However, the trailer also introduces new characters and different storylines to the franchise, which would be intriguing to fans of the Assassins Creed franchise as they are able to explore new adventures in the franchise. However, the gameplay shown in the trailer shows a level of familiarity within the genre of many of the Assassin’s Creed game as it shows familiar conventions of the franchise itself whilst still introducing new appeals to the game. The fact that AC Valhalla is a part of a franchise conforms to David Hesmondhalgh’s theory of cultural industries as he believed the idea that it is a corporations goal to minimise risk whilst also maximising profit through vertical and horizontal integration. Assassins Creed Valhalla is an example of this is it is a part of a franchise that already have a giant audience who regardless would’ve bought the game upon release and due to the familiarity of the genre itself because of the previous games many people would've bought this.. However, it could be seen as a risk that the game had the opposition for the protagonist of the game Eivor to be a female, however due to Assassins Creed being a part of this franchise and game series that has already been built with an already discovered fan base minimises this risk as the audience are very inclusive in terms of gender and ethnicity and all the fans care about is their passion for the game. This idea reflects a change in social and cultural context as in the past the representation of gender in video games was very negative, whereas this representation is quite positive and reflects the change of representations of women in video games overtime but it also reflects the change in ideologies over time.
In the gameplay of Valhalla shown we see lots of new features in terms of fight sequences to the franchise as we are introduced to new ways in which you can get the upper hand on your opponent some of these being; throwing axes, a Viking harpoon and a new system were you are able to dual wield weapons of your choice adapting your fighting style. However, there still are some familiar parts of the games such as the stealth element which is featured in most Assassin’s Creed games as players of the game learn to adapt to the conditions and blend into the crowd. This type of game feels very typical of games in the 21st century as some of the most successful games released in recent years include and follow the same genre as Assassin’s Creed Valhalla, and the game feels very similar to God of War and other majorly successful games released in the years before Valhalla’s release. Furthermore, the representations of gender in this game feel more typical of games released in the past few years, as most games released in the 21st century subjected female characters in video games to be side characters to only be there for the male counterpart and often these types of games featured negative representations of women as women I video games were often sexualised and objectified in a misogynistic way.
Overall, Assassins Creed Valhalla wasn’t very well received and had a lot of mixed opinions about the game by professional critics and audiences specifically, Game Informer (an American monthly magazine) gave a highly positive review, praising the narrative, mix of gameplay-systems and the world of Valhalla. "Each instalment hits different sweet spots for different players with varying degrees of success, but for the first time in the series, the balance feels perfect in Assassin’s Creed Valhalla. With its engaging combination of combat, open-world exploration, crafted story content, and settlement management, this Viking saga is an epic with a little something for everyone." However, many audience members criticised the games combat as it was described as “clunky”. Furthermore, a reviewer on imdb ivanran-868805 stated about the game “I was a huge fan of AC Odyssey and had high hopes for this game. Sadly, it falls short.” Therefore, this audience member took an oppositional reading of the game as he clearly did not enjoy it and felt underwhelmed by how the game was marketed in contrast to how the game was. Although, at the time many people on Twitch Tv which is a livestreaming service which is mainly video game orientated, and on Twitch there was an offer with Twitch Prime where you could claim a Carolingian pack for Eivor. However, currently the game is not very successful on Twitch as it has less than one hundred people streaming the game at the moment. Yet, many fans of the franchise still chose to cosplay as Eivor for gaming conventions and other purposes, so overall the character of Eivor was well received by audiences. This may be due to the inclusivity the game and franchise offers itself, as Eivor can be either male or female showing the inclusivity the game offers suggesting that the power of the character is not bound to gender. This is an example of Henry Jenkins' theory of Fandom as he suggested that fans construct their social and cultural identities through borrowing and inflecting mass culture images, and this can be proven by AC Valhalla due to many people cosplaying as Eivor showing the cultural impact that Assassin's Creed haves on its audience.
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