Unmarked spoilers below.
Gameplay
- If Eivor lights someone on fire during a fight, they let out unsettling, bloodcurdling screams until they finally fall dead.
- The sheer brutality of this game is a sight to behold when compared to the other games. Dismemberment during combat, screams of pain and terror from those on the battlefield and on the sidelines, and way more blood than any other game in the series.
- Adding onto this, the finisher animations, while undeniably awesome, are messed up. Just a few examples include Eivor hacking away at someone with a sword before stomping their skull in, wrapping a chain around someone's neck and pulling so hard it snaps their neck, slicing off arms and legs, punching someone's head clean off with assistance from an axe... Jesus.
- The fates of the poor souls that happened to live within the vicinity of the various Cursed Objects Eivor can find and destroy throughout the game, and the very nature of the Cursed Objects. It’s never truly explained how the Cursed Objects ended up being made, though Eivor and various notes Eivor can find attribute the Object to some form of malicious magic, nor is it explained how the Objects kill. All that’s left are just the rotted corpses of people and farm animals alike.
- "Wrath of the Druids" hints that the Cursed Zones are left behind by the Children of Danu, a renegade druidic cult and the Irish chapter of the Order of the Ancients.
Story
- Young Eivor's perspective during the raid on Raven Clan at the beginning of the game. Everything is a blur, being dragged along by their mother and then Sigurd, while people they have probably known all their life are being murdered right in front of them. Add to this witnessing their parents being brutally murdered, and even then after they and Sigurd escape, they get attacked and nearly killed by a pack of wolves. It's a wonder that all that resulted was a burning hatred for the man who led that raid, and not lifelong trauma.
- The modern day situation. Ever since Desmond’s Heroic Sacrifice back in Assassin's Creed III, the writers have completely embraced Like Reality, Unless Noted since there's no 2012 apocalypse to worry about… except that now, as a result of no one being able to turn the "global aurora borealis" planetary shield off, the Earth’s magnetic field has been growing far, far too strong, which is causing massive interference with radio and satellite signals, dangerous levels of radiation to crop up at the earth’s poles, and a worldwide aurora borealis that will not fade away. If Shaun, Rebecca, and Layla don’t find a way to fix the problem, earth will likely be left as a barren wasteland, making all of their previous efforts to save the world All for Nothing.
- Between the poor, staticky audio, the words themselves, and the context of the message, the recording left by Basim that led Shaun, Rebecca, and Layla to find Eivor's remains is rather creepy.Basim: I lived, I died, and now I sleep. And in my sleep, I dream. And in my dream, I see an end to the doom that will grip the earth once again. Find the Wolf-Kissed, find the Mad One, find me, and save us from another death.
- As you progress through the story, spending enough time outside of the Animus will reveal the constant earthquakes that Shaun and Rebecca have been putting up with, and if you leave the cabin you can watch a satellite fall out of the sky.
- Between the poor, staticky audio, the words themselves, and the context of the message, the recording left by Basim that led Shaun, Rebecca, and Layla to find Eivor's remains is rather creepy.
- How quickly Sigurd seems to fall prey to Loki as Basim's whisperings and how drastically it affects him. At the start of the game he is a braggart but still grounded, but after he's been away on his own for a while suddenly he's talking about being the ruler of all England, believing he's descended from the gods, and also single-minded in his pursuit of Fulke and the artefacts she claims to have in her possession. Also despite Eivor trying to make him see sense he is very much beyond listening to their very reasonable concerns.
- The ending of the Cent arc. Eivor and Basim infiltrate Fulke's stronghold in Canterbury in the hopes of rescuing Sigurd. When they get there, they find nothing; all Eivor discovers instead is a locked room containing nothing more than an iron chair covered in blood, and a box with Sigurd's severed forearm, opened up so that the bones are fully visible as a parting gift/taunt from Fulke.
- The event is thankfully off-screen, but Ivarr performing the "Blood Eagle" ritual to King Rhodri is still horrifying to listen to. And although the act itself may be censored, the aftermath is less so; the poor guy's body is put up for all to see, with the skin on his back notably stretched backwards. Even Eivor, no stranger to brutal violence themselves, is disturbed by the whole spectacle.
- And then, to further goad Eivor, Ivarr reveals that he was the one that murdered Ceolbert. Considering that, when Eivor originally had brought the mortally wounded Ceolbert into camp earlier and at the time Ivarr had screamed for someone to bring him an axe note , his dissonantly serene amusement at the death of Ceolbert is jolting.Ivarr: Poor Ceolbert...he barely said a word.
- And then, to further goad Eivor, Ivarr reveals that he was the one that murdered Ceolbert. Considering that, when Eivor originally had brought the mortally wounded Ceolbert into camp earlier and at the time Ivarr had screamed for someone to bring him an axe note , his dissonantly serene amusement at the death of Ceolbert is jolting.
- Audun's plot at the end of the Jorvik arc isn't anything too crazy. It's akin to something out of Game of Thrones, wine poisoning and all. But the way the wine kills is horrific. Those who take a swig of it almost immediately begin to choke and cough up their own blood before falling to the ground and convulsing slightly, then going limp.
- Basim's defeat in the historic portion of the game, while not nightmarish per se, is still somewhat unsettling due to how quick it is. One moment he's yelling threats at Eivor, the next he's pricked in the neck and... just goes limp, before the claw lifts him back up. And you know he's not dead since he was just trapped in a Lotus-Eater Machine, where he's presumably boiling of anger for being denied his revenge which - while clearly misplaced - stems from the love for his son.
- For that matter, the Yggdrasil is super creepy in and of itself. It's a machine that allows for Brain Uploading where the user is suspended in a simulation of what the machine calculates would be the user's happiest fantasy (in Sigurd and Eivor's case, a simulation of the Norse afterlife of Valhalla). But the machine has its limitations: it seemingly cannot create much more than a loop of a singular event and day, it starts to glitch out if the user realizes that what they're experiencing isn't real (unless they know it's not real but accept that anyway, like Svala). And that's not getting into the fact that the machine works by pricking users in the neck with hellish-looking metallic implements.
- Basically, the experience of Yggdrasil is so damaging to Eivor's psyche that it essentially turns them into The Anti-Nihilist: willing to create joy and meaning in the moment, but bitterly disillusioned with the notion that there is something beyond the life they're currently living. In finding the gods, Eivor now no longer seems to truly believe in their divinity.
Eivor: (Referring to the deaths of Hjorr, Soma, and Hunwald after the battle of Hamtunshire) Nothing awaits them after this. Their saga ends here. - The Yggdrasil as lost, possibly malfunctioning Isu technology turns what every Norse thought was paradise into a horrifying subversion of their ideals. As shown and mentioned numerous times, the pagan Norse really did believe that if they died in battle, or else with honor, then they would go to Odin's own hall in Asgard where they would fight and feast all day and all night in preparation for Ragnarok, so they would be ready for the end of the world. Sounds nice, if you're part of a Proud Warrior Race, right? Well, as we see here, that might not be so great. You feast, you run out to the field, you fight each other, you kill each, you get dismembered, often in the same place every time....forever.
- For that matter, the Yggdrasil is super creepy in and of itself. It's a machine that allows for Brain Uploading where the user is suspended in a simulation of what the machine calculates would be the user's happiest fantasy (in Sigurd and Eivor's case, a simulation of the Norse afterlife of Valhalla). But the machine has its limitations: it seemingly cannot create much more than a loop of a singular event and day, it starts to glitch out if the user realizes that what they're experiencing isn't real (unless they know it's not real but accept that anyway, like Svala). And that's not getting into the fact that the machine works by pricking users in the neck with hellish-looking metallic implements.
- The final showdown with Basim can be this due to how...sudden it is. While Eivor has clashed with Basim occassionally, especialy in Oxenefordscire, throughout the entirety of the story Eivor and Basim were allies and possibly even friends. Then, just as Eivor is finally able to bring Sigurd down from his Sage-induced madness, Basim suddenly turns on them and tries his damndest to murder them, all while raving about how Eivor killed his son. While we, the player, know that this is Basim/Loki lashing out in grief and rage over Fenrir's death at Odin's hand, from Eivor's perspective this is a once trusted ally turning on them while babbling nonsense about something they know they never did.
- The confrontation with Charles the Fat at the end of "The Siege of Paris", after his attempt to burn his wife at the stake fails due to a convenient rainstorm putting it out and the crowd believing it to be an act of God, Charles suffers a Freak Out and retreats to his fortress and starts massacring his men and engaging in Self-Punishment Over Failure, when Eivor arrives at the fortress he sees impaled, dismembered and/or hanged bodies everywhere, one of the surviving servants ends up mistaking Eivor for Charles and decides to kill himself by self immolation rather than letting Charles kill him and you hear Charles insane rambling echoing throughout the castle the whole time.
- The Apple in the Crossover arc reveals another terrifying wrinkle with the Apples. Previously, it had been assumed that Apples needed someone to be touching them to work. Turns out this isn't so. The Apple on Skye can work itself just fine, and its area of effect is the entire island. Some people just become unable to sleep, some go mad and start tearing one another apart, and some are turned into meat puppets for the Apple. And why is it doing this? Kassandra setting foot on the island made it freak out.
- Similarly, Eivor - having had no prior experience with Pieces of Eden - hears about how dangerous they are and thinks this sounds like a mighty cool thing to have. Less so once she gets up close and personal with it. The Apple starts talking, and generating an image of... something not unlike the creatures from Odyssey. Eivor just narrowly misses ending up like the poor bastards who got turned into monsters.
- On Eivor and Kassandra's approach to the Apple, it starts generating images from Ancient Greece like statues and shields from Athens and Sparta. Then it generates a cultist mask, and Phoibe's wooden eagle, revealing that Apples can in fact read minds, and will hit a person's traumas to defend themselves.
- The scene in the Dawn of Ragnarok DLC when Odin finds Baldur's dead body and has a Heroic BSoD, which includes a Demonic Head Shake and Odin killing respawning waves of Surtr's lieutenants as the screen zooms out.
Mysteries
- The Lady of The Lake Mystery. Like, every part of it. A seemingly innocent cottage in the forest, save for the almost ghostly wailing woman in all white who wanders the paths outside. And the shrine to some god surrounded by actual, living vipers. And the man hanging upside down over a barrel of blood. And the dozen or so corpses filling the nearby lake, which you might not even see until you dive in to collect some sunken treasure. And throughout this cavalcade of viscera and bodies, the woman never says a word. She. Just. Sings.
- if you "speak" to her, she'll keep on wailing, but now, her previously locked door will somehow unlock - and this isn't the kind of lock that requires a key to open, it's BARRED shut! - and the door will swing open to invite you in. Exploring the tiny house reveals more corpses in the corner and several hanging from the ceiling. Then she locks you in and tries to poison you.
- A note found on the house gives a suggestion as for what she's doing with all these people. They're her food.
- In East Anglia, Eivor can come across a blood-soaked nun standing amidst a bunch of dead Danes, muttering half coherent prayers. If Eivor approaches, the nun suddenly whips out a knife and attacks them while madly raving that Eivor is The Antichrist.
