Assassin's Creed Valhalla - Base Pack (4200)

Assassin's Creed Valhalla casts you as Eivor, a Norse warrior transplanted from Norway to ninth-century England, carving out alliances with Saxon kingdoms while building a settlement called Ravensthorpe from a muddy outpost into a proper longhouse community. It sits in that awkward genre middle ground between action-adventure and RPG - Ubisoft clearly wanted the depth of The Witcher 3 while keeping the accessible open-world formula the series is known for. The result is a game that occasionally nails both and frequently stumbles between them. The combat system is the most interesting it has been in the modern AC entries. You carry two weapon slots and can dual-wield almost anything, including two shields or two two-handed axes if you enjoy chaos. The skill tree is a sprawling web of passive nodes and active abilities - some genuinely build-defining, like the Raven, Wolf, and Bear skill branches that push you toward stealth, ranged, or melee playstyles respectively. There are also Ordeal abilities and Rune systems that let you tune damage output meaningfully by the mid-game. Past hour 40, a well-constructed build does feel distinct from a random one, which is the bar I care about. Raids on monasteries and fortifications break the open-world pace in a satisfying way, letting you call your crew from a longship and storm gates together rather than lone-wolfing every encounter. The writing is where things get complicated. The main arc connecting Eivor's personal saga to the overarching Isu mythology is genuinely compelling and pays off better than most recent AC entries. Eivor as a character has more presence than Alexios or Kassandra ever did in terms of grounded motivation. But the game is enormous - somewhere between 60 and 130 hours depending on completionism - and Ubisoft padded that runtime aggressively. The regional alliance story arcs that make up the bulk of England's content range from memorable (Lincolnscire, Hamtunscire) to forgettable obligation. Some arcs feel like they were written by a different team entirely, stuffed with filler fetch work that dilutes the stronger character writing around it. If you hate filler quests, you will find plenty to hate here. Worldbuilding-wise, Dark Ages England is a legitimately interesting setting that the game does not fully exploit. The tension between Norse paganism and encroaching Christianity gives several quests real thematic bite, and the environmental detail in the monasteries, fens, and Saxon villages is strong. But the density of content means narrative momentum constantly stalls. Choices exist and occasionally matter within arc conclusions, but they rarely carry the cross-narrative weight that would make a second playthrough feel different in any meaningful way. This is not a game that rewards re-reads the way a Larian title does. On Xbox Series X the game runs well and looks genuinely good - the English countryside in autumn light is a high point. Xbox One owners get a playable but noticeably softer experience. The base pack listed here covers the core game; the substantial DLC (Dawn of Ragnarok, Siege of Paris) is sold separately and worth factoring into your interest level if Norse mythology and Frankish politics sound appealing. Valhalla is a game for players who want a long, atmospheric Viking power fantasy with real mechanical depth if you dig for it, and who can tolerate an uneven script and a bloated map. If you need every side quest to earn its place, this will frustrate you. If you can pick your own path and skip the obvious padding, there is a genuinely good 50-hour RPG buried in here. Monika, Scout Team