Video Game / Assassin's Creed: Valhalla

"Wars will rage. Kingdoms will fall. This is the age of the Vikings."

They are heartless, godless barbarians. They murder and kill blindly. They scar the lands of England. Lands they will never defend, never love. The time has come to speak to them in a language they will understand.

— King Aelfred the Great

Assassin's Creed: Valhalla is a historical open-world Action RPG, the twelfth main entry in the Assassin's Creed series, and the first to be released on PlayStation 5 and the fourth generation Xbox consoles. It released on November 10, 2020 for the PlayStation 4, Xbox One, Xbox Series X|S, Google Stadia, and PC, with a PlayStation 5 coming on that console's launch on the 12th/19th. Jesper Kyd, the first composer of the franchise, returned for the soundtrack nine years after leaving the series with Assassin's Creed: Revelations. Also collaborating to the soundtrack are Einar Selvik of Wardruna fame, and Sarah Schachner, who composed for various games in the franchise; namely Unity and Origins.

The story is set in 9th century Europe during the Viking Age and centers on a Norwegian Viking warrior named Eivor (whose gender can be determined by the player) as they lead raids against the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England, including the Kingdom of Wessex led by King Aelfred the Great. It features the return of a usable Hidden Blade after it was mostly absent from Assassin's Creed: Odyssey.

A spin-off book titled Assassin's Creed: Valhalla - Geirmund's Saga was written by Matthew J. Kirby, who also wrote the young adult Assassin's Creed: Last Descendants trilogy of novels, the third of which followed Vikings in Scandinavia during the 10th century. It follows the son of Hjorr Halfsson and Ljufvina Bjarmarsdottir, Geirmund Hel-hide, as he attempts to make a name for himself in the Great Heathen Army, and was also released on November 10, 2020. A serialized manhua series titled Assassin's Creed Valhalla: Blood Brothers was released a few days before the game in China and will receive an official English-language release on August 10, 2021. The story is a prequel to Valhalla that focuses on the Stensson brothers fighting with Halfdan Ragnarsson and Ivarr the Boneless during the Viking invasion of England. Additionally, a three-part Dark Horse Comics miniseries titled Assassin's Creed: Valhalla - Song of Glory detailed the exploits of Eivor and Sigurd before their clan colonized England and established Ravensthorpe. The game will also receive a tie-in novel written by Mathieu Gabriella set for release in the fall of 2021, focusing on a Christian monk and an aspiring Hidden One traveling across Britain from the village of Ravensthorpe to the heights of Scotland. There will also be a Valhalla novel trilogy published by Aconyte Books. Eivor will also star in a children's book in the Mr. Men and Little Miss series.

Along with intermittent content updates, the game features two major story expansions. Wrath of the Druids (May 2021) sends Eivor to Ireland to quell a druid conspiracy threatening the island's political unification and economic expansion. The Siege of Paris (August 2021) heads into continental Europe as Eivor joins a barbarian coalition waging war against the Carolingian Empire. A third expansion, Dawn of Ragnarok, was released in March 2022, following Odin as he infiltrates Muspelheim to resurrect Baldr.

Like Origins and Odyssey, Valhalla features an educational "Discovery Tour" mode that goes deeper into the history and culture of the region and time period.

The following game, Assassin's Creed: Mirage, is a Spin-Off focusing on the youth of Basim in Abbasid Baghdad. It was released on October 5, 2023.

Previews: World Premiere trailer, First Look Gameplay trailer, Gameplay Overview trailer, Eivor's Fate trailer

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Tropes

Tropes A-C

• Absurdly High Level Cap: Eivor's power level caps out at 400, but they can continue to level up beyond that to gain Mastery Levels that give minor stat boosts across the board. Even without Mastery, level 400 is on par with the strongest Superboss in the game and far above what the most difficult regions recommend. Several patches have increased this cap by adding new skills to learn.
• Acceptable Breaks from Reality:
  • England's rivers are depicted as a single network of connected canals. Geologically, this is complete nonsense, but it would be much harder to sail around a realistic England.
  • The ice-cold waters of Norway will damage Eivor if they ever take a swim, but getting out of the water is easy and will instantly stop the damage instead of being one step in a protracted death of freezing.
• Action Girl: Eivor can be played as a woman and is a woman, canonically, with her male option appearing due to her Odin DNA interfering with the Animus, and there is no shortage of ass-kicking women, such as Soma. While the development team have noted in interviews that the historical existence of shieldmaidens is disputed, they chose to include them anyway.
• Adaptational Name Change: Kjotve the Rich's son was Thor Haklang and not Gorm Kjotvesson.
• Age Without Youth: McDevitt states in an interview that the Yggdrasil can support a body effectively indefinitely through feeding them nutrients through its neck injections, while uploading their brains, but only barely. Hence why Basim/Loki is shriveled up until he grasps the Staff dropped by Layla and it restores his youth.
• All for Nothing: Played for laughs and zigzagged in the "Eivor the Sheepdog" world event. It has them kill wolves attacking a sheep named Fenton and bring Fenton back to his master, only for the shepherd to kill him because the ealdorman demanded a sheep sacrifice, and doubly cause Fenton was a pain in his ass. Eivor looks at it as mutton stew for dinner.
• Alliterative Name: Sigurd and Styrbjorn Sigvaldison.
• Alternate Timeline: Discussed between Layla and The Reader at the end of the game. The duo discuss ways to prevent another catastrophe from happening by looking at other timelines. Layla suggests looking into one timeline where Desmond never sacrificed himself in 2012.
• Always Chaotic Evil: There's no negotiating with bandits or the Picts - if they spot you, they attack no matter the circumstances.
• Anachronism Stew:
  • The world event "Otta, Son of Slugga" in Sciropescire has Otta Sluggason donned in what can be best described as a Middle Ages version of a baseball player, his club being a bat and smacking stones like baseballs. He even has an American accent, being voiced by Los Angeles Dodgers outfielder Cody Bellinger.
  • Some weapons and armor are depicted much earlier than they developed in real life, particularly the giant swords.
• Ancient Tomb: The Tombs of the Fallen, a set of post-game content where Eivor explores the tombs of historical Britons, starting with three, with two more added in late 2022.
• And Now for Someone Completely Different: Basim/Loki, a 9th century era Hidden One/sage of an Isu, replaces Layla as the modern day protagonist at the end of the game.
• Animal Motifs:
  • Eivor is a member of the Raven Clan. They also have a pet raven named Sýnin. The name of the settlement in England that they and their brother Sigurd settle in? Ravensthorpe.
  • Kjotve the Cruel is the leader of the Wolf Clan, a vicious band of Viking raiders affiliated with the Order of the Ancients. It's also fitting for someone as savage as Kjotve.
  • The skill tree is split into animal motifs to represent the different aspects of Eivor's abilities. The Bear (Warrior), the Wolf (Archer), and the Raven (Assassin) which is further expanded on in the Mastery Challenges.
• An Arm and a Leg: Almost any melee deathblow on a non-boss enemy results in dismemberment, and it's even more common for finishers. Squeamish players can disable the gorefest in the options menu. However, this trope does come into play at a certain point in the story.
• An Ass-Kicking Christmas: The Jorvik arc takes place around Yuletide, an end-of-year celebration and precursor to Christmas. Right around "Christ-mass" time is when Eivor and their allies take over Hamtunscire.
• Annoying Arrows: Averted in the main game, but played straight during the battles in "Valhalla", where Eivor takes an arrow to the eye and shrugs it off.
• Anti-Frustration Features:
  • Eivor automatically puts their hood on when they enter a distrust zone.
  • The game brings back the "chase a flying page" parkour challenges, but this time the page will stop at the end of the course for about ten seconds before vanishing. This gives you some extra time to catch up after missing a few jumps, or, alternatively, plenty of time to simply run to the end and wait on your next attempt.
  • While the game doesn't track the "World Event" sidequests, they're usually very short and take place in a small area to compensate for it. That said, they can still be quite confusing.
  • Although the map uses the same icon for regular loot chests and uncovered "Wealth", the chests are only visible on the closest zoom level. This way the player can tell them apart and thus prioritize between them just by zooming out the map.
  • Going full speed on horseback normally drains the horse's stamina bar, making it impossible to sustain its top speed indefinitely. When traveling on roads, the horse doesn't consume stamina while galloping; a horse set to canter will automatically gallop while on roads and have its stamina replenished after a little while.
  • Likewise, while there's a stamina bar in combat, it doesn't drain while running or climbing (even in open combat).
  • Eivor can switch pledges between regions, by speaking to Randvi.
  • As in Odyssey, stealth attacks are not a guaranteed One-Hit Kill. However, an early passive skill allows you to instantly stealth kill any non-boss if you time a (fairly easy) button press right. And if one doesn't want to bother with that, the options menu allows turning all stealth takedowns into instant kills, although it also warns that doing so may affect the game experience.
  • Photo mode can only be exited by holding down the close button for a second, preventing an errant finger twitch from ruining a good shot.
  • One of Eivor's skills lets them automatically pick up loot as well as berry bushes and food pots without needing a button press. However, they will not auto-loot mushrooms since poisonous varieties exist.
  • A quest on Skye has a man ask Eivor to fetch a firefly. Fortunately, rather than hunt across the entire island for one, there's a small swarm of them nearby, and enough to make catching one a certainty.
• Apocalypse How: The second instalment of Tombs of the Fallen has Eivor having to deal with a malfunctioning Isu site that threatens to wipe out all life in England.
• Apocalyptic Log: Everywhere. If you come across a destroyed or abandoned dwelling (using the word loosely), expect there to be skeletons or corpses, animal carcasses in the case of farms, and at least one note to explain how this ruin came to be.
• Arc Welding: The Mastery Challenges and "Tombs of the Fallen" expansions initially appear unrelated, but they do turn out to be connected at the end of the second installment of the later.
• Artifact of Doom: The cause of Eivor's problems in the crossover storyline is another Apple gone haywire. It's actually trying to defend itself from Kassandra.
• Artifact Title: Zig-Zagged. Unlike Odyssey, Valhalla does focus on the Assassin-Templar conflict and Eivor has the Hidden Blade as one of their weapons, not to mention that they work with the proto-Assassin Hidden Ones to re-establish their presence in England by building a bureau in Ravensthorpe. However, Eivor chooses not to join the Hidden Ones for personal reasons, making Valhalla the second Assassin's Creed game to not have an Assassin protagonist.
• Artificial Stupidity: The AI has no concept of a blast radius, resulting in enemies with fire damage setting everything ablaze with arrow barrages or torches, regardless of who gets caught in the blast, including themselves. This even extends to Eivor's raiders, who will set things on fire and start explosions even if they, or Eivor, are in the blast radius. This is especially frustrating in River Raids, as there are no checkpoints, so your own men can inadvertently ruin your progress and force you to start over.
  • Even if you killed all the enemies yourself before starting a raid, some of your raiders will still accidentally set themselves on fire, requiring you to either waste rations on them or leave them to die.
• Artistic License – Biology: Valhalla features the same ultra-aggressive lynxes as Odyssey despite real lynxes being known for avoiding humans like the plague.
• Artistic License – Geography: Somewhat inevitable in trying to condense most of England to an easily navigable open world; even then, some of the game's choices are more than a little egregious.
  • Treating the country's myriad rivers as a series of connected waterways is just the tip of the iceberg; somehow Gloucester has made its way inland and avoided the Severn entirely, instead sitting on the River Avon.
  • The Derbyshire Peak District, where Mam Tor is situated in the top left of the map, whilst undoubtedly hilly, is polar and much more mountainous than in real life.
  • There are quite a few towns and villages incorrectly placed in relation to each other — perhaps due to condensed map-warp. For example, Snotingham (Nottingham) is north of Sudwella (Southwell) on the game-map, when in reality Southwell is located north of Nottingham (very near Fiskartun aka Fiskerton, in fact), and it’s certainly not in Leicestershire. Similarly, Snotingham is placed west of Sherwood Forest, when the actual forest is on the other side of the town and to the North.
  • The game world is particularly bad in the southern counties. Portsmouth and Southampton simply do not exist in Assassin's Creed-world, despite both being settled since the time of the Romans. The white cliffs of Dover are apparently visible from the Isle of Wight. Portchester, which is in reality near Portsmouth, is in Sussex. Most egregiously, Stonehenge, which in reality is in Wiltshire, is in Hampshire for some reason.
• Artistic License – History:
  • Several of the details in the World Premiere trailer owe more to modern pop culture depictions than to actual historical evidence, such as the Vikings having Pict-ish warpaint, wearing leather armor with furs, and having metal-rimmed shields with arm-buckles. Additionally, the Anglo-Saxons' elite soldier with a Roman-style helmet wields an anachronistic two-handed sword that would be more fitting in the 15th century. In the Assassin's Creed: Valhalla Official Trailer #2, one of the enemies has a windlass crossbow on his back — a weapon not invented until the 15th century.
  • Upgrading Eivor's equipment level requires nickel, titanium, and tungsten. The peoples of that era were barely able to smelt and forge iron. While nickel and titanium have melting points in roughly the same bracket as iron, working tungsten with its 3400°C melting point would've been impossible back then.
  • Flails are an obtainable weapon despite not being attested to in this period, and their existence in general being a subject of controversy.
  • Instead of following real world-consensus on Vinland being in eastern Canada, Valhalla's map depicts New England and upstate New York, and the area features natives that speak Mohawk instead of any Algonquian languages. The game offers a justification: Eivor specifically visits the "real" Saint Brendan's Island. There is also the real-world argument that the term "vinland" may not refer to a specific location, but any area along the North American east coast that can support the eponymous grapevines. In that light, it's somewhat reasonable for one viking clan to settle one "vinland" in the 870s and Leif Erikson to discover a completely different "vinland" in 1000.
  • Stave churches can be found in Norse-controlled areas, even in Asgard, for presumably aesthetic reasons despite the fact that the game takes place 200 years before Norway was Christianized.
  • Despite their commonality in the game, the earliest known proper Dane axes (as opposed to nonspecific two-handed axes used in battle) are attested to from the 10th Century as opposed to the 9th when the game takes place.
  • The world event "Ledecestreshire Sauce" is one for what would be the creation of Worcestershire sauce by a good thousand years before it became known, though the man putting it in the basement because it wasn't quite right does line up because it has to properly age before it's palatable.
  • The Picts are depicted as fur-wearing or topless. Despite still being a distinct ethnic group at this time, their dress would probably have been broadly similar to the Anglo-Saxons.
  • The Viking longships in the game have the heads of dragons and the like in the front. As any scholar well-versed in the history of the Viking Age can tell you, dragon heads are far too small to fit on a ship.
  • While it was likely done for the sake of Rule of Cool, no Viking ship would ever consider attacking heavily armed fortresses. Vikings were raiders and pillagers, but they did not care about fortresses. Vikings usually attacked minor settlements and especially monasteries because they were lightly defended (though they would also attack and raid cities across Europe).
  • 9th Century flyting involved a lot of alliteration, kennings, and a particular meter, but no rhyming. According to Word of God rhyming was chosen as the method of determining a correct verse because it was deemed more intuitive for the average modern player to follow, even if it wasn't very accurate to the time period.
  • The Glowecestrescire Arc follows a group of pagan holdouts, but by this time paganism at this scale would've already been eradicated for centuries. Additionally, human sacrifice by Celtic pagans is only attested in biased Greek/Roman sources and may not have even been practiced.
  • The Raven Clan are depicted using their longship to move from Norway to England. In real life, the longship would not have been used for such a voyage due to the lack of room to carry cargo, and would have instead only been used for local raiding. For such a journey, a knarr would be used instead. The longships in the game are also much smaller than the ones in real life, at least on average, being based more on the karvi than on the larger snekkja or skeid more commonly used in warfare.
  • Prehistoric material is all over the place throughout the game. Bronze Age round barrows are treated as if they're Neolithic chamber tombs. Seahenge is fairly accurate but called Seahenge by a Viking over a thousand years before the name exists. Arbor Low uses the commonly speculated etymology of Eorthburg Hlaw but otherwise bears no resemblance to the actual monument. This while the game does little to distinguish these things from 'Celtic' materials, and goes all in on conflating them in Wrath of the Druids. Doon Fort - an Iron Age ringfort - is turned into a Stonehenge-esque array of trilithons, seemingly because of the fact a Druid - one outright ascribed as 'he of the Stone Circles' - has to be found and assassinated there. Despite their association in popular culture, Druids were not responsible for the building of Stonehenge or other monuments like it, as such precede even the broadest definitions of proto-Celtic by a thousand years.
  • There is no Goddess called Danu found in Irish mythology; her existence was hypothesized by scholars as an explanation for the name Tuatha Dé Danann, and the true meaning of the word Danann is still ultimately unknown.
  • The existence of Druids in Ireland is something of a contested topic in modern historical scholarship; there is no contemporary evidence for their presence and their first mention in the historical record comes almost 400 years after Ireland was Christianised as the word druí, generally meaning 'mage' or 'wizard', having no apparent association with the Celtic priestly caste of popular imagination.
• Assassin Outclassin': Who does Eivor meet on the Isle of Skye? None other than Kassandra. No, not a Hidden One, but an occasional ally. They easily hold Eivor to a standstill even though they're not trying to kill Eivor, though the latter isn't returning the favor. And why not? She has 1500 years expericence at this point.
• Attack Animal: Wrath of the Druids introduces Irish wolfhounds as an animal used by enemies against Eivor.
• Attack! Attack! Attack!: When Eivor takes the second potion from Valka, they relive the travels of Odin in Jotunheim as he attempts to learn the Jotnar's hugr magic. During a deal with the witch Angrboda, he takes a potion revealed to be a sort of truth serum and is held hostage by the witch and a resurgent Loki. Both try to force the information of his plans for the son they sired together, the wolf Fenrir who is destined to devour Odin at Ragnarok and who he had Tyr imprison in a bid to avoid this fate. The dialogue options provided in response to this? "I will kill him." As in, you're presented with three options that all say the same line.
• Attack Its Weakpoint: When using the bow Eivor can target glowing parts of their opponent's bodies in order to open them up for stun attacks.
• Awesome, but Impractical:
  • Thor's Armor is this game's ultimate armor set. It looks awesome and has great defensive stats, but it's also the heaviest armor in the game, meaning it drastically increases stamina consumption. Its Set Bonus is also less useful those on more mundane armor sets.
  • The Isu weapons generally fall under this trope as well:
    • Gungnir (Odin's spear) can only be wielded near the end of the game; if the player grabs it the first opportunity they get, the only storyline bosses they can use it against are Basim and Goodwin.
    • Mjolnir (Thor's hammer) can only be obtained after the end of the story, meaning there are no storyline bosses to use it against.
    • Excalibur is potentially the Isu weapon the player can get the earliest, but this involves fighting three Zealots with recommended levels in the 200s in order to get the tablets needed to release the failsafe on its pedestal.
  • The "Miasma" and "Battlefield Cremation" upgrades make clearing outposts incredibly easy, but also make elemental attacks very risky in towns. These abilities cause NPCs that die of poison or fire to spread the status effect to other nearby NPCs, meaning you can easily cause a plague among innocent townsfolk until too many die and you get a game over. Cremation also makes it slightly harder to collect loot from bodies, but that's a minor annoyance compared to the above.
• The Bad Guy Wins:
  • Aelfred ultimately succeeds in his long-term scheme to remove all pagans from the Order of Ancients, which will subsequently gain new life as the Christian Knights Templar. He ends at a low spot for his other goal, unifying England, but only because the game decides to end there. In the historical record, he quickly rebounds from this loss and succeeds on that front, as well.
  • Basim/Loki wins. It's unclear if Layla coming into contact with The Reader was part of his plan, but his millennia-long gambit to be released in the modern world pays off. To hammer the point home, Loki gloats over Eivor's grave in the postgame.
• Batman Gambit: As it turns out, the events in Origins, Odyssey, and Valhalla are all part of a plot cooked up by Alethia and Basim so that Layla would bring the Staff of Hermes to the temple Basim is imprisoned in. Basim steals the Staff from Layla, reversing his millennia of aging.
• Battle in the Center of the Mind: The final task of the Mastery Challenges is Eivor against Hildran in one of these.
• Battle in the Rain: The duel against Dag takes place during a raging thunderstorm.
• Battle Rapping: Eivor can get into flyting duels, which were a Nordic precursor to rap battles.
• Bears Are Bad News:
  • Both England and Norway are home to various species of bears, all of which are dangerous opponents that should never be underestimated.
  • Two of the legendary animals Eivor has to face are the Bear of the Blue Waters and the Beast of the Hills, massive polar and brown bears respectively.
  • Vinland has hostile black bears.
  • Eivor can also throw down with Steinbjornn, a bear-shaped monster from Norse mythology that's made of ice and rock. At power level 400, it's the highest-leveled enemy in the game, though thankfully it's an Optional Boss.
• Beef Gate: World regions have level recommendations that you shouldn't undercut too much if you don't want to get bogged down by normal enemies killing Eivor in one or two hits. Also, keep in mind that these recommendations are for the main quest only. Any Superboss you encounter there has a level completely independent from the region they inhabit, with some outranking their home by 200 levels or more. For instance, Jotunheim, with a recommended level of 190, is home to level 400 Steinbjornn, and you can enter his stomping ground as soon as you arrive in the area. Another is Daughter of Lerion, Cordelia, in East Anglia with its recommended level of 55, rocking her own recommended level of 340. This often results in some very nasty surprises for adventuring players trying to earn the requisite achievement/trophy by going region by region starting from the lowest.
• Been There, Shaped History: Among other things Eivor does is help Asser the acolyte get the idea to chronicle the life of Alfred the Great. Eivor gets a glimpse at his first drafts, and thinks it's both dull and badly written.
• The Berserker:
  • There are literal mooks called Berserkers that dual-wield axes and fight with extreme speed and ferocity, but without any sense of self-preservation. Certain quests and conversations reveal that they're shot up with a potentially lethal drug cocktail that sends them into a battle frenzy.
  • Two of the optional drengr fights also fit: one of them is a high-powered version of the Berserker archetype, while the other drinks a frenzy potion before battle (and asks you to do the same, so that it's a fair fight).
• Best Served Cold: Hildiran reveals she and her family have been passing down the knowledge of Hilde so they can get revenge on Odin since the Toba Catastrophe, roughly seventy-five thousand years. Hell of a long time to hold a grudge.
• BFG: Many strongholds are equipped with mounted springalds, basically the .50cal machine guns of their time. With their huge range, pinpoint accuracy, good rate of fire, and bolts that can't be evaded and deal very high damage, bolting for cover is the only sensible thing to do when you come under fire from one of these things.
• BFS: All player-usable swords in the game are massive two-handed blades almost as long as Eivor is tall. With the right skill unlocked, Eivor can wield them one-handed, and even two at a time.
• Big Bad:
  • King Aelfred the Great is the ruling monarch of Wessex and the Grand Maegester of the English Order of the Ancients. Aelfred is also responsible for reforming the Order into the "Poor Fellow-Soldiers of Christ" otherwise known as The Knights Templar.
  • Basim Ibn Ishaq/Loki becomes this mixed with Villain Protagonist. Not only does he succeed in his quest for revenge against Eivor Varinsdottir/Odin but he is able to steal the Staff of Hermes from Layla Hassan and free himself from the temple that entrapped him for millennia with the help of his wife Aletheia.
• Bilingual Bonus: The Native Americans encountered in Vinland/Saint Brendan's Island by Eivor, while friendly, speak in completely untranslated Mohawk, so they're forced to use sign language to communicate with them for trading purposes, and the player won't understand what they're saying either unless they themselves know the language.
• Bittersweet Ending:
  • Sigurd & Basim: Eivor is successfully able to bring Sigurd back from the brink of glory-obsessed madness; and thwart Basim's plot against the duo. In the aftermath, Sigurd realizes he is no longer fit to rule Ravensthorpe and abdicates to Eivor. If the player defied Sigurd too many times, he chooses to stay in Norway. If you have a positive relationship with Sigurd, he comes home; but the loss of his arm ensures he won't ever be going a-vikingr like he used to.
  • Conquering England: Hamtunscire is taken and the Raven Clan has successfully pacified England, yet as history would have it, Aelfred the Great lives to fight another day (see below). Additionally, Ubba, Soma, Hunwald and Hjorr all lie dead; unlike all the other battles, the feeling is overall more somber than celebratory. Upon arriving back in Ravensthorpe, Eivor even tells Randvi that the cost was high.
    • If you consider the real history, the victory is only temporary: the attack on Chippenham happened in January 878; by May, Aelfred had managed to levy fyrds from areas west of Hamtunscire and defeat the Dane army at Edington. Guthrum and other high-ranking leaders were forced to convert to Christianity and pull back to Mercia.
  • Modern Day: Like Desmond before her, Layla ends up sacrificing her life to end the global magnetic crisis, but she ascends to a higher plane of existence, and resolves to work alongside The Reader (heavily implied to be Desmond himself) to explore timelines and find a future where the flares are permanently stopped. However, this was all part of Loki's plan to take revenge on Odin, and reunite with Aletheia. Furthermore, Loki is set to meet William Miles face-to-face, and the answer to stopping the flare is implied to be in a timeline where Desmond didn't activate the Grand Temple mechanism and possibly let the solar flare destroy the world.
  • The Forgotten Saga: Odin defeats Hel only to find out that Balder faked his death with her help, he confronts Balder who confirms this saying it is part of a plan to protect himself from Ragnarok and enemies that will survive it while Odin won't, he then erases Odin's memory of the meeting trapping him in an Amnesia Loop of trying to rescue him over and over not knowing he can never win.
• Black Vikings:
  • A literal example. Vagn is a Viking of Black African descent who is a member of the predominantly white Scandinavian Raven Clan.
  • Yanli is a Chinese merchant living in Ravensthorpe. However, no Europeans would visit China in the time span of the game.
  • Ljufvina is an indigenous Siberian of Mongol descent, possibly Buryat.
• Blade Below the Shoulder: The Hidden Blade makes a return, with Eivor using it to stab a soldier equipped with heavy armor through the eye in the World Premiere trailer. The blade can be used in open combat by having nothing equipped in Eivor's left hand, with a long charge time for a stabbing attack with it that can do substantial damage if pulled off.
• Bling of War: Upgrading equipment to mythical level usually adds lots and lots of gold to it. Metallic surfaces often gain a Damascene texture, and most fabric pieces switch color to royal blue or red for that extra bit of classiness, not to mention all the extremely elaborate engravings and embroidery.
• Bloodier and Gorier: This is, by a wide margin, the most visceral Assassin’s Creed game to date. While the franchise is no stranger to decapitation and dismemberment (Unity was set during the The French Revolution, and four of the main titles use real-life wars as their main backdrop), the other games relegated the gorier bits to cutscenes. This time around, NPCs have their heads and limbs lopped off pretty regularly during gameplay, and there’s a new form of 'X-ray Assassination' that looks like it’s ripped straight out of Mortal Kombat 11.
• Britain Is Only London: Averted. Not only do Eivor and the Raven Clan settle in the English village of Ravensthorpe located in the East Midlands region but they also visit the rest of England and Wales. Additionally, the hub cities of Winchester, York, Norwich, and London itself can be explored by the player both within the story and free-roam exploration.
• Bond Creatures: As in Origins and Odyssey, the main character is accompanied by a bird. Unlike those games, the bird is a raven named Sýnin instead of an eagle. However, a wide variety of skins allows you to have her appear as the previous two eagles or many other species, such as a pigeon or rooster.
• Book Ends:
  • Ceolbert, while talking to Eivor at the beginning of the game, notes that they sound different than Ivarr despite both being Danes, causing Eivor to remark that Ceolbert has a good ear, and that not all "Danes" are Danes. At the end of game, Eivor makes a joke to Aelfred about the trouble they had with a "Dane" ended up leading to the Order's demise in England, Aelfred remarks that Eivor is Norse instead of a Dane, leading Eivor to give the same response they gave Ceolbert.
  • At the beginning of the game, Eivor's clan starts singing a song to celebrate their union with King Styrbjorn before getting interrupted by Kjotve's attack. After Eivor successfully pacifies England, the Raven Clan sings once more to celebrate her becoming their new Jarl.
  • The tragedy of Eivor's life began on the day their father is remembered as a "coward" for letting go of his axe and dying on his knees so that his family may live.... twenty years later, upon learning that also letting go of the axe and refusing to fight Odin was the only way they could escape his grasp and save their brother Sigurd, Eivor finally learns the nobility and heroism of swallowing one's pride to protect that which one loves.
• Boring, but Practical:
  • The ability "Feign Death" allows Eivor to play dead; this simple concept has a multitude of uses, as it can be used to end an alarm, escape combat, and/or to avoid fights with high-level Zealots you stumble upon. At level 2 you can even assassinate people from the position, which is useful on its own but also refunds the adrenaline the move uses.
  • In Orlog, the "Thor's Strike" God favor is by itself enough to take down almost any opponent, as it can cause up to 8 damage in a minigame where max health is 15. The "boring" part comes from the fact that it's always available and isn't nearly as flashy or complicated to use as the other favors. The practicality is that the opponent has to resort to a defensive God favor (like healing or downgrading the spell) to mitigate the damage.
• Braids, Beads and Buckskins: Eivor can acquire a Native American outfit that checks all the boxes during their sojourn to Vinland/Saint Brendan's Island. Sadly, you can't keep it despite (or possibly because) of its surprisingly good stats, as it disappears from your inventory upon your return to England.
• Brainwashed and Crazy: The Apple on Skye turns a lot of the locals into minions, and makes them speak in Ancient Greek.
• Bratty Half-Pint: Barring a few exceptions, almost all children in the game treat Eivor as their personal servant and doormat, though Eivor doesn't take this personally.
• Braving the Blizzard: The first time the player goes to look for Yggdrasil in Norway, there's a blizzard going on, and Sigurd insists on going through it over Eivor's suggestion to just go back to the ship and wait it out.
• Bribing Your Way to Victory:
  • You can buy all upgrade materials from traders. Even fabric, tungsten and titanium become available after fully upgrading Ravensthorpe, although getting there takes a while.
  • Eivor can come across wandering explorers, who will happily share them the location of one random collectible item (type of which the player can choose) for 30 silver. You can also hire a cartographer to Ravensthorpe, who sells maps of "Wealth" you haven't discovered yet.
  • This is also present as Microtransactions, which allow you to purchase upgrade materials and map filters that reveal all collectibles on the map. Store-bought gear mostly averts this however, as their stats and special properties are more or less the same as those found in weapons obtainable in-game; while there are some exceptions, their special aspects usually boil down on their unique appearance.
• The Bus Came Back: After their last onscreen appearance in Syndicate, Shaun and Rebecca make a return as Layla's Mission Control.
• Call a Rabbit a "Smeerp": In "The Dawn of Ragnarok", everyone in Eivor's visions call what we'd name lava "fire sludge" (since, as a Viking, Eivor has no idea what lava is).
• Call-Back:
  • Most of the "groups of three" Order members infiltrating Lunden, Jorvik and Wincestre have stories and gameplay scenarios that reference those of assassination targets from the very first game. Some examples: The Leech -> Garnier de Naplouse, The Compass -> Sibrand, The Fireband -> Jubair, The Vault -> Abul'Nuquod, The Gallows -> Majd'Addin.
  • The Animus Anomalies that Layla and Basim can do are basically an extended reference to The Truth clips in Assassin's Creed II and Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood.
  • One of the stories Reda can tell the kids in Ravensthorpe is about a Protector and his wife the Scholar in a faraway desert land. Completing the six Assassin Bureaus and collecting the pages of the Magas Codex also gets you a letter from Bayek to his wife Aya/Amunet, read by his voice actor Abubakar Salim.
  • The final "Tomb of the Fallen" is one of the failed attempts at preventing the Toba Catastrophe mentioned back in III, the defensive towers intended to try and absorb the coronal mass ejection.
  • During the party at the end of The Fated Encounter on the Isle of Skye, Kassandra comments that trying mead for the first time can't be any worse than Markos' wine, referring to his two disastrous attempts at running a vineyard in Odyssey. Kassandra also makes allusions to the beginning of her quest in The Vacation DLC of Odyssey.
• Call-Forward:
  • An audio recording between Desmond and Rebecca that Layla can listen to has him mentioning a Bleeding Effect moment where he ended up on a beach in the Caribbean with a bunch of pirates, which is implied to be a memory of Edward Kenway.
  • The medallions that Eivor takes off the bodies of felled members of the Order of the Ancients, that serve as the symbol for their order, are of the exact same design as the one worn on Templar Shay Patrick Cormac's belt.
  • It's implied that the Piece of Eden that Eivor gives the Iroquois for safekeeping after killing Gorm is the exact same one belonging to Kanatahséton that Connor will use around 900 years later. Before that, Eivor even manages to find the entrance to the Grand Temple. Those facts combined mean that Vinland isn't just any random part of North America, it's the Frontier some 900 years earlier.
  • After Odin speaks with Gunlodr/Minerva about her attempts to communicate with the future and they leave, Ezio's voice can be heard coming out of the mirror from the moment he met her in the Vault beneath the Vatican.
  • A Mentor of the Hidden Ones named Fuladh asks Hytham to meet them at Aluh-Amut, aka Alamut, in 879 to discuss Basim's betrayal of the Order by attacking Eivor and Sigurd. This also happens to Call Forward to the (at the time unreleased) Assassin's Creed: Mirage where the Alamut branch of the Hidden Ones is focused on, as well as a Mythology Gag to Alamut, one of the inspirations of the original Assassin's Creed.
  • One of the locations in the game is Lunden, the setting of Assassin's Creed Syndicate. Since Valhalla takes place 995 years earlier, the city is completely unrecogniseable and is the tiniest fraction of the size of Syndicate's London.
  • Similarly, Paris can be visited in the Siege of Paris DLC, 916 years before its depiction in Assassin's Creed: Unity. It's again much smaller than its later version, but not quite as tiny as Lunden.
  • In "Wrath of the Druids," a letter in Barid's longhouse written in Old Gaelic by his mother, after some translation, reveals that the mac Imhair family are the distant ancestors of Shay Patrick Cormac.
• The Cameo:
  • Bayek has a voiceover cameo in the mission "A Brief History of the Hidden Ones" when Eivor finds the pages of the Magas Codex.
  • Ezio Auditore's voice is heard by Gunlodr/Minerva while trying to communicate with the future.
  • Ragnar Lothbrok has a brief cameo that depicts his execution at the Snake Pit in Northumbria.
  • Both Aethelflaed and Ealhswith appear in a Mercia World Event.
• Canis Major:
  • One of the legendary animals is a gigantic wolf called the "Cricket-Wolf of the Pit".
  • The Eald-Wulf is at least twice the size of a man.
  • Two of the three Corpse Feeder wolves are about as tall as Eivor.
  • The Asgard arc involves two battles with Fenrir, the wolf prophesied to kill Odin during Ragnarök. He starts out horse-sized and rapidly grows bigger from there.
  • With the Berserker Pack installed, Eivor can turn their horse into a horse-sized white wolf. Sadly, it still behaves like a normal horse.
• Canon Character All Along: The Jötunn that Eivor met during their visions as Odin have blue skin and are towering in size. These are actually Eivor's interpretation of the Jötunn and they are actually Isu that have already been encountered in previous games. For example, Hyrrokin is actually Juno, as she is seen communicating through a crystal ball, using the exact same words she spoke to Desmond in Brotherhood, and mentions of her late husband.
• Canon Name: Eivor's surname is revealed to be Varinsdottir from a letter by Goodwin, confirming that the character is a woman.
• Captain Obvious: On solving the Standing Stones on Skye, Kassandra remarks that it's a map of the island. Eivor responds that she didn't say so because she didn't feel the need to point out the obvious.
• Casting Gag:
  • Magnus Bruun voices male Eivor and Varin who are Norse Viking warriors as well as Odin. He previously portrayed Cnut the Great in The Last Kingdom which takes place in the same time period and setting as Valhalla.
  • Jeppe Beck Laursen is cast as Halfdan Ragnarsson, a fierce warrior who participates in the raids against the English Anglo-Saxon kingdoms. Much like Brunn, he played a major character in The Last Kingdom known as Haeston who also fought in England alongside other Vikings.
• Catch and Return: After purchasing the skill "Missile Reversal", if you time your parry right, you can take any projectile thrown at you and turn it back on the attacker for a One-Hit Kill. The time frame to pull it off is fairly generous, making this an extremely useful skill to have, especially since many of the most resilient Elite Mooks and even some bosses can be taken down this way quickly and efficiently. Some normally difficult elite/boss fights can outright be reduced to just using this skill until they die.
• Cats Are Mean: One of the animals Eivor can encounter in Vinland/Saint Brendan's Island are cougars that attack them on sight. England gets in on the fun with hyper-aggressive lynxes that are somehow even worse than the cougars, mostly because they attack in packs.
• Character Customization: Eivor's face and body shape are fixed, but you can customize their haircut, hair color and the tattoos on their arms, chest, back and face anytime you like and as often as you want. Some side activities only exist to unlock more tattoo schematics for them.
• Christmas Episode: Patch 1.1 introduces a Yule event to Ravensthorpe that unlocks as early as completing Ledecestrescire, the town decorated for yule thanks to some "revelers" from afar. The Jorvik arc also takes place during Yule in a vein similar to the Glowecestrescire arc taking place during Samhain. The battle for Hamtunscire takes place days before "Christ-mass".
• Christianity is Catholic: Justified, since much of Western Europe (including England) was still predominantly Catholic and Protestantism would not exist until several centuries later after the events of Valhalla.
• Circle of Standing Stones: Common landmarks in England, and always tied to a mystery that consists of looking at a hidden runic symbol at just the right angle to channel the place's ancient power and gain a single power point. Stonehenge is just one of many standing stone circles dotted across the land. There's even one in Vinland as well.
  • Their presentation in game can be a little... curious. Stonehenge proper is explained away in the codex as being an attempt by Neolithic peoples to imitate the structure of the Isu Barracks which is hidden beneath the site. Considering that it's not even the oldest megalithic complex in the game, going by real world inspirations, and the disproportionately high presence of trilithons - otherwise a unique feature of Stonehenge IRL, in the British Isles - what this implies of other Isu ruins potentially buried beneath Britain is unclear. This is before you even consider the second 'Stonehenge', which mirrors even the inner horseshoe of the original, which can be found in the Ochre Cave beneath Aelfwood.
• Color-Coded for Your Convenience: Each of the warring factions has different colors for their soldiers:
  • Norse: Blue (Friendly), Red (Hostile)
  • Britons and Danes: Green
  • Saxons: Dark yellow
• Color Motif: The green color is very prominent in the game's promotional material (including the many displays of an aurora borealis in it) as well as in its title.
  • The skill tree applies this to the different sections. Bear, the warrior, is red. Wolf, the archer, is blue, and Raven, the assassin, is yellow. The mastery challenges also include the colors extensively.
• Convection, Schmonvection: All over the place in "Dawn of Ragnarok", where Odin can walk near lava flows but be perfectly fine right up until he sets foot on it. Several quests and side-quests have him lugging someone over flows, and getting no more than an ear of grumbling for his trouble, usually about the heat.
• Cool Boat:
  • Eivor and their fellow Vikings ride around in a Viking longboat that can travel up rivers due to its shallow hull. It's their primary means of raiding the juiciest of targets: monasteries. However, unlike previous games, there is no ship-to-ship combat; it's purely a mode of transportation.
  • In the River Raids free DLC, Eivor and co use a longer longboat in order to do river raids and collect more loot.
• Cool Helmet: The elite soldier shown in the World Premier trailer is wearing a helmet that blends Anglo-Saxon and Greco-Roman aesthetics, sporting a distinctive red fur crest on top.
• Cool Sword: Eivor can acquire Excalibur in the form of a Sword of Eden. The Carolingian Greatsword is also a pretty neat piece of gear, especially once fully upgraded. The final "Tomb of the Fallen" grants the player an Isu sword which, in-game, doubles as a portable engine.
• Composite Character: Composite Location in the case of Vinland, it's actually known as Saint Brendan's Island and the area stretches from the present-day Canadian province of Newfoundland to upstate New York in what is now the modern United States.
• Continuity Nod:
  • Eivor and other Vikings use the term "Odin's Sight" to describe Eagle Vision. This is a reference to the last book of the Last Descendants trilogy, Fate of the Gods, whose historical portion is in the later years of the Viking Age, more than a century after Valhalla ends.
  • During her duel with Eivor, Kassandra wields the Hero's Sword that was given to her by Barnabas' daughter. She also holds the broken handle of a battleaxe the same way when she holds the Spear of Leonidas while dual-wielding.
• Courier: Eivor can become one for Yanli, by delivering items to four of her clients. The twist is that the items to be delivered have to be carried by Eivor physically (no Fast Traveling allowed). While the longship helps greatly with the deliveries, one of the destinations is within a Distrust Zone, and entering combat can easily make Eivor lose the item, forcing a restart.
• Crazy Cat Lady:
  • A quest in Grantbridgeshire has Eivor encounter a woman who has dozens of cats in her house. Eivor successfully convinces her to let them out to deal with a local rat problem.
  • The "The Farewell Meow" world event in Linconscire has a woman mourning her cat Sphinxy, who's been dead for 11 years. Eivor offers to go inside to find offerings for a shrine to the cat and finds it's full of cats, which are Sphinxy's children.
• Crossover:
  • A free downloadable sidequest has Eivor encountering and working alongside Kassandra. Another sees you working with Roshan, a character from the presently-upcoming Assassins Creed: Mirage.
  • In late 2022, Destiny 2 and Monster Hunter: World items packs were added to the Helix shop. Destiny 2 also got Assassins Creed items added to its store, such as armor cosmetics that resembled the classic robes, Odyssey Spartan armor, and Valhalla viking armor, as well as a Ghost shell that makes it look like an Apple of Eden.
• Cruel and Unusual Death: The infamous Blood eagle ritual makes an appearance, and although most of it isn't shown, the sounds alone aren't for the faint of heart. Even Eivor is visibly uncomfortable during the process, but that might be more about the perpetrator's insane glee about the agony he's inflicting on a helpless victim who really didn't deserve such a gruesome fate.
• Cruel Mercy: Sparing Rued the first time you fight him is this, since dying in glorious combat to enter Valhalla is Norse tradition and he's denied an honorable death. He then takes matters into his own hands by escaping and crashing Oswald and Valdis' wedding, forcing Oswald or Eivor to face him in combat. The trope is continued if Oswald fights him, as Oswald exiles him from East Anglia instead of killing him after the victory.
• Culture Clash:
  • 9th century England was a chaotic place populated by continually feuding Christian Anglo-Saxon kingdoms, Celtic Briton tribes, and vestiges of the Roman Empire even before the Norse Vikings arrived. King Aelfred's xenophobic speech in the World Premiere trailer particularly emphasizes the prejudices involved between these rival cultures; and the First Look Gameplay trailer further emphasizes the divide with contrasting shots of each culture's holy sites: a church for the Saxons, a rune-engraved stone for the Norse, and Stonehenge for the Celts.
  • Notably averted in Wrath of the Druids, where the viking settlers have long stopped raiding and have assimilated with the locals as Norse-Gaels.
• Cutscene Incompetence: Early in Norway, Eivor must deal with some of Kjotve's men infiltrating the vilage. Even if the player effortlessly defeats or assassinates them, the following cutscene still has Eivor bloodied.
• Cutting Off the Branches: In the modern day section, reading the file on the Staff of Hermes Trismegistus shows that Kassandra is indeed the canonical Eagle Bearer who handed the staff to Layla before dying. The Eagle Bearer herself shows up in a free post-launch mission.

Tropes D-K

• Dark Age Europe: Valhalla's main story takes place from 872-878 AD, shortly before the establishment of the Danelaw.
• Death of a Thousand Cuts: Skirmisher-type enemies don't deal a lot of individual damage with their puny daggers, but they're extremely quick on their feet, constantly darting in to deliver a quick stab before jumping out of your reach again. They're also surprisingly resilient if you do manage to hit them, so if your blocking/parrying skills are subpar, skirmishers will whittle down Eivor's health stab by stab while nimbly avoiding your attacks themselves.
• Death of the Old Gods: A major theme throughout Wrath of the Druids is the dominance of Christianity within Ireland's Norse-Gaelic society and the near-extinction of the Druidic faith with the Children of Danu being the last surviving remnant of this otherwise dead religion.
• Death Seeker: Eivor can come across a number of remnants of Ragnar Lothbrok's personal bodyguards, the so-called Lost Drengr. Each of them wishes to die in a glorious duel against a worthy opponent so they can reunite with Ragnar in Odin's hall in Valhalla. You can indulge them, but be warned, they're very powerful warriors that can flatten Eivor in no time flat if you're ill-prepared.
• Deliberate Values Dissonance: This is a central theme of the story: clashes arise as the Vikings settle among the early medieval English, whose values are different from ours, certainly, but much more different from the Vikings':
  • To Vikings, "heaven" is basically a fun boot camp, for eternity, where you train as a footsoldier for the upcoming war of Ragnarok. As such, to earn your way in, you must die in battle, and even more narrowly, with an axe in hand. Those who die in a more subdued, everyday life sort of way are forced to spend eternity in Helheim, a featureless plain covered in mist. There are multiple instances of Odin popping into Eivor's head and reminding them that some war crime they just witnessed actually earned the perpetrator entrance to Valhalla, while someone who showed kindness to others deserves no reward.
    • This is taken to extremes in the Sciropescire Arc: Ivarr intentionally ruins a peace negotiation with the Britons by killing the hostage. When a truce is successfully negotiated, he rekindles hostilities by killing Ceolbert, the boy he was supposed to install as leader, and framing the other side. All of this to get another chance at killing King Rhodri and cementing his own reputation as Ivarr Kingkiller. After successfully capturing Rhodri and subjecting him to the blood eagle, Ivarr challenges Eivor to a deathmatch, just to make things as unhinged as possible. Eivor is the only Viking that blinks at this behavior; Odin absolutely loves it and thinks it's a perfect tribute, while Ivarr's brother Ubba is only concerned about whether Ivarr's death met the requirements for Valhalla. Despite his bloodlust and glory-seeking nearly costing his side the war, Ivarr is apparently a paragon of Viking virtue.
    • Eivor's father Varin allows Kjotve to execute him to spare the rest of the Raven Clan, a promise Kjotve immediately breaks. Varin is therefore considered a "bad Viking" not because he made a Senseless Sacrifice, but because you're supposed to go down fighting. He later appears in Sigurd's false Valhalla, giving Eivor an obvious hint that something is wrong.
    • Despite the above examples, you're given several opportunities to flaunt Viking morality; the axe-in-hand requirement leads to the choice of letting someone into Valhalla, or denying it to them, on a technicality. Odin will sternly remind you of the spirit of the law, but whether they're holding an axe as they die is up to you.
  • This theme logically develops into a narrative about the Christianization of the Vikings. The Raven Clan arrives hot-blooded, ready to conquer, and fully Norse, but once they are divorced from the hostile environment they're used to and immersed in a different culture, it becomes difficult to remain Norse in their thinking. The Church is also highly integrated into English political systems, so they must deal with them and even convert if they expect to effectively rule. These influences come to a head near the end of the game. Upon Soma's death, Guthrum is driven to despair and begins to find the Christian heaven much more comforting than Valhalla. Later, the final battle against Odin is a rebuke of Viking values for Christian ones: Eivor rejects glory and conquest for a more quiet life centered around family, community, and agriculture. After that, she meets with Aelfred in hiding, to basically admit defeat to his Christian agenda despite the Vikings' momentary political gains.
  • The Glowcestrescire Arc deals with willing human sacrifice, in the form of Cynon choosing to sacrifice himself in a Wicker Man as the Harvest King in order to secure a good harvest.
  • The only punishment Eivor faces for killing two of Harald's men over an insult is having to pay 50 silver per man in compensation (weregild, a fine for murder based on the victim's social standing, also common to the Anglo-Saxons during this age). Once Styrbjorn promises to cover it, Eivor is free to leave and set off for England.
• Description Cut: Played for Drama in the World Premiere trailer to illustrate King Aelfred's preconceived notions about Viking culture. He describes the Vikings as godless, murderous, destructive barbarians, and each matching scene in the trailer immediately contradicts him by showing Eivor's clan performing pre-raid rituals, sparing women and children while attacking, and overall focusing more on trying to make a new life for themselves in England rather than just raiding for raiding's sake.
• Deuteragonist: Basim is second only to Eivor in terms of overall importance to the story. He's also the reincarnation of Loki who wants revenge against Eivor/Odin for killing his son.
• Developer's Foresight:
  • If Eivor stays in the haypile long enough after doing their first Leap of Faith in "To Serve the Light", Hytham will think that they might've botched it and died and starts panicking.
  Hytham: Dear God, Basim will have my head for this.
  • It's entirely possible to run into a Zealot in game before the storyline brings them to Eivor's attention (or vice-versa). Doing so can trigger idle conversation between Eivor and the Zealot, provided the player doesn't pick a fight, where the Zealot essentially tells them to piss off.
  • If Eivor's head goes underwater while using "Feign Death", the oxygen meter will not only appear but actually drain faster.
  • If you tackle Animus Anomalies after finishing the main story, the out-of-commission Layla is replaced by Basim, who's taken over exploring Eivor's life in the meantime. When starting one, Basim expresses curiosity at how the Anomalies he placed turned out. Additionally, Rebecca & Shaun's commentary is replaced by Loki & Aletheia discussing their plan to take revenge on Odin.
• Dies Differently in Adaptation:
  • In real life, Kjotve escaped the Battle of Hafrsjord, the same one that led to Harald Fairhair regaining the Norwegian throne, and fled with some of his allies to an island. Here, he is killed by Eivor, with his son Gorm taking his role.
  • Likewise, Gorm or Thor Haklang was killed in Hafrsjord as opposed to his game counterpart who escaped to Vinland/Saint Brendan's Island and was killed years later by a disguised Eivor.
  • Alcuin of York was implied to have been killed by Charlemagne after he warned him about the pagan beliefs of the Order of the Ancients. In history, his true cause of death is unknown.
• Doing In the Wizard: Oddly for a franchise with explicitly supernatural elements, the game does this with the Beowulf saga. Eivor investigates a mass murder, then discovers that Grendel is merely a deformed and simple-minded man who Does Not Know His Own Strength, not unlike Lennie from Of Mice and Men. His mother was likewise a normal, elderly woman (albeit with some druidic magic) who just wanted to keep her son safe. Eivor is forced to kill them both, and the whole thing is a tragic Shoot the Shaggy Dog story. Eivor tells the Quest Giver what happened, and she decides to make the story more heroic and exciting when she writes it down.
• Doomed Hometown: The village of Heillboer is destroyed by Kjotve the Cruel and his forces at the beginning of the game. Eivor can revisit the place for a Fast Travel point, treasure, and some experience points as they interact with certain items.
• Dual Wielding: Any combination of two weapons are possible, including fighting with a pair of shields. An upgrade in the skill tree even allows for Eivor to dual-wield two-handed weapons. To illustrate this, the cover art shows Eivor wielding a pair of axes.
• Dueling Player Characters: Eivor fights Kassandra in the Isle of Skye arc, believing her to be responsible for the island's nightmares. They fight to a standstill and only stop when they both see they're using Hidden Blades, leading them to believe their goals are aligned. While the physical fight is a cutscene, the player does get to challenge her to a drinking contest and flyting.
• The Dung Ages: While parts of the world can be beautiful, most of the man-made areas, especially in England, are wretched at best, as it is war-torn, disorganized, muddy, and full of ruins of the once-great empire of Rome.
  • Francia is definitely this, with ravenous and unkillable rats blocking some paths, a part of Paris actually called The Plague Slums, and the countryside outside the city littered with the rotting bodies of the dead being fed upon by murders of crows.
• Dungeon Bypass: A lot of collectible puzzles are built around walled-up doorways and the explosive barrels required to open them, which usually require some searching and freerunning to get where they're needed. All of this can be avoided comfortably by just shooting an Incendiary Powder Trap arrow at the door.
• Easter Special: The Ostarra Event is this, being a precursor to modern Easter Day traditions. Eivor can indeed go on an egg hunt around Ravensthorpe and wear a floral wreath, with a male Eivor even getting flowers braided into his beard.
• Elite Mooks: Anyone with a title above their health and stamina bars hits harder and has better defenses than a common soldier.
• Epic Flail: Flails are one of the obtainable weapons in the game, notable for their long sustained combo attacks once the wielder starts flailing them around. Flail-wielding enemies are the most likely to break through Eivor's guard due to how often they can strike in succession.
• Eternal English: The Mohawk spoken in Vinland/Saint Brendan's Island is indistinguishable from the language spoken today despite that being mostly unlikely, which McDevitt says was because they didn't know for certain how the language might've changed.
• Eternally Pearly-White Teeth: Mostly played straight, but notably averted with Halfdan Jarl. His teeth are disturbingly black. Truth in Television as it turns out, as Saxon skeletons have much better teeth than modern people, as there was very little sugar in their diet.
• Even the Subtitler Is Stumped: Brigid, Gunnar's fiancée and later wife speaks in such a thick Welsh accent that the subtitles say "(Unintelligible.)" Tyra's dialogue meets a similar fate in Dawn of Ragnarok.
• Excalibur: The legendary sword of King Arthur can be found at Stonehenge and Eivor can use it as a weapon.
• Expansion Pack Past: This game gives us a previously unrevealed sect of the Isu enemies of Minerva and Juno's group. Here they are presented as the Norse gods, primarily through Eivor's visions of Odin, while Minerva and Juno are Odin's enemies, the Jotnar.
• Exposed to the Elements: Pict warriors only wear light leather armor, with the men frequently being Walking Shirtless Scenes, despite operating in the snow-covered north of England. You can make Eivor get in on it as well by turning their armor pieces invisible via the inventory menu.
• Eye Scream:
  • In the World Premiere trailer, Eivor is seconds away from having his throat slit by a brute wearing heavy armor before he jams his hidden blade into the brute’s eye. We’re treated to a lovely shot of the eye’s gloppy remains as Eivor pulls the blade out.
  • Played for laughs near the end of the game while in Valhalla Eivor gets an arrow to the eye near the end of the third iteration of the "Groundhog Day" Loop. This being Valhalla, it doesn't really hurt them and will get reset anyway, but Eivor is clearly annoyed.
  • In the Odin visions, Odin pulls out his own eye in order to gain access to the magical mead that will guarantee he will resurrect as a human after Ragnarok.
  • It's difficult to see accidentally, but losing the Warm-Up Boss battle against Kjotve the Cruel results in him ramming his axe into Eivor's stomach, lifting them up by the head, and finishing them off by gouging out both of their eyes with his thumbs.
  • In The Siege of Paris, a certain cinematic kill involves Eivor slamming a ceremonial dagger through the Little Mother's eyeball. This doesn't kill them, however. It takes a bit more brutality from Eivor to do them in.
• Face Death with Dignity: When Ragnarok, or rather the Great Collapse comes, the Norse pantheon walks to their destiny with their weapons drawn.
• Failed a Spot Check: A justified example. The scars Evior received from a wolf bite as a child prevents Basim from seeing the mark on her neck that identifies her as a Isu reincarnation. He even laughs upon realizing this.
• Failure Is the Only Option: Downplayed. When you first arrive in Saint Brendan's Island, you cannot pick up any plants to make rations. However, your first "death" results in a cutscene where Eivor wakes up in a tent, having been rescued by one of the natives. They're then taught a species of berry that's safe to eat, after which said berries become eligible to use for healing.
• Fake Difficulty: The "Mastery Challenges" often not only require effectively perfect play with mechanics that rarely allow it, but also require at least some luck - for example, the Lolingestone melee challenge requires you to kill enemies with fire, yet only gives you gear that has a random chance to create a fire cloud upon parry, meaning most of the challenge meant to "prove your strength" is spent parrying enemies without attacking them directly and hoping that A) Mook Chivalry applies, B) the fire is actually enough to kill, C) they don't die from the parry itself, and D) that you still have enough enemies for the other objectives. Similarly, Odin Mine camp has just enough enemies to perform all challenges, making it extremely easy to accidentally kill someone in the wrong way. And that's just the melee challenges, as archery challenges tend to be rather picky over what counts as a headshot and stealth still suffers from the same unpredictable detection mechanics as the main game.
• Fan Disservice: Two of the three Daughters of Lerion run around with their ample breasts exposed, but with the rest of them clad in sinister shamanistic outfits made of bones and their being bat-shit insane mass murderers, it's hardly titillating.
• Fast-Killing Radiation: Justified. Due to Yggdrasil being the machine that boosts the magnetic field of the entire planet, it emits outrageous levels of radiation, and as a result the underground facility in which it's located now has extremely high temperatures, on top of several other side effects. The Reader tells Layla that without the healing effects of the Staff she'd only survive for less than two minutes there before the radiation becomes lethal.
• Fed to Pigs:
  • While Eivor is interrogating Lady Aethelswith, Ivarr the Boneless comes in and throws some severed heads for the pigs to devour right in front of her as an intimidation tactic, and Eivor has the choice to either use it or tell him to leave, but the pigs continue eating regardless.
  • In "Wrath of the Druids," this is Konstantinos's final fate after Azar gets done slicing him up for leaving her for dead and taking her eye.
• Fictional Counterpart: Orlog is a Fictional Board Game that meant to be a stand-in for Tafl, the Norse and Celtic equivalent of chess. The developers admitted that they created the game to feel credible to the time period and couldn't find any clear rules for contemporary Norse board games.
• Final-Exam Boss: Of a platforming variety as the final Animus Anomaly in Hordaflyke requires you to use every trick you used in those levels to get to the top of that Platform Hell.
• Final Speech: As per series tradition, the assassination targets in the Order of the Ancients each get one, or rather a dialogue, in a shadowy void and often the presence of Odin. They serve to give extra depth to even the minor Order members and highlight Eivor's motivation.
• Finishing Move: Quite possibly the biggest new addition to the series' combat system is a wide variety of cinematic moves to finish off defeated opponents, most of them spectacularly gory and involving anything from a brutal No-Holds-Barred Beatdown to decapitation to multi-dismemberment. There's also a set of special animations that play when Eivor assassinates an Order member, which always involves an X-ray-style shot of the target's inner organs being pierced by the Hidden Blade.
• Finishing Stomp:
  • An actual skill Eivor can learn to quickly finish off stunned enemies. It's moderately helpful against early-game Mooks, but Elite Mooks are too difficult to stun most of the time, and late-game cannon fodder tends to die so quickly that they rarely get a chance to get stunned.
  • Several Finishing Moves end with Eivor stomping the victim's head into the ground.
• Fishing Minigame: Building the fishing hut in Raventhorpe automatically gives Eivor access to a fishing line they can use to, well, go fishing in the world's rivers and lakes. Caught fish can be traded for certain items at the fishing hut, or sold for silver at the general trader. Some are also required at sacrificial altars. A similar mechanic exists for land animals, but in their case no special equipment is required.
• Flashback with the Other Darrin: Ezio Auditore's brief vocal cameo was done by an imitator, despite the line being taken directly from the ending of Assassin's Creed II.
• Flawed Prototype: The Eden Ring Station, one of the Isu attempts to prevent the end of the world. Even with centuries of lead time, the AI in charge of it makes it clear it was never actually finished before the Toba Catastrophe. Not helping is the project lead went off to confront Odin about a disagreement and never came back. The result is that in Eivor's time it's starting to overload, and that is extremely bad.
• Flunky Boss: The majority of (bonus) bosses have backup when they're fought, including several of the legendary animals. One that stands out is Gemad-Wulf, a giant striped hyena that calls in packs of wolves as reinforcements ... however that's supposed to work.
• Foregone Conclusion: Aelfred is going to survive his self-imposed exile from Wessex after the Battle of Chippenham and return to take control of the kingdom. Additionally, he will reform the Order of the Ancients into the Knights Templar, otherwise known as the Templar Order. This eventual reformation is alluded to in a letter by Goodwin in the study room which reveals that Aelfred called himself "a Poor Fellow-Soldier Of Christ" (a reference to the historical name for the Templars) when he provided information to the Hidden Ones on key targets in Lunden, Jorvik and Wincestre.
• Foreshadowing:
  • When Ceolbert lays dying, he tries saying Ivarr's name repeatedly before passing. While it seems like he's just asking for a loved one, Ivarr's admittance that he killed him means that it was most likely Ceolbert trying to tell everyone who killed him before passing.
  • The first hint that the Asgard/Jotunheim dreams have a grain of truth to them is that most of the "magic" seen in them - such as forcefields and teleporters - look just like Isu technology from past games. Why would Eivor, a person whose culture believes in natural magic, and who has never seen such technology, imagine them in such a specific way?
  • Several of the Aesir have the same voices as people Eivor knows. This hints at the roles they might play in Eivor's life.
  • During Fulke's White Room scene, Odin prevents Eivor from attacking her by pulling them backwards by their axe. His entire Boss Battle near the end of the game is built around this trick, with the battle being less about defeating Odin and more about finding a way around this specific ability.
  • Following Aelfred's deposing, Eivor and Guthrum have a talk in a church where the latter asks Eivor if the Christian afterlife sounds appealing. This foreshadows how historically following Guthrum's defeat at the Battle of Edington in 878 at Aelfred's hands, he will end up converting to Christianity.
  • When Eivor finds Gungnir, they talk about the spear as if they'd personally seen it before. That's a result of Odin's memories leaking through.
  • When you meet Alfida and learn her younger brother is about 19 when she's presumably around the same age as the, at minimum, middle-aged Birstan, that seems a bit odd. It foreshadows that her brother is actually her and Birstan's illegitimate son.
  • Towards the end of his White Room scene, Ealferth will proclaim that his allies, the Order of the Ancients will not be defeated, but rather "transform... into something far worse for all of us". With the deposed Aelfred's declaration to found a new order dedicated to Christian ideals, of which is implied to eventually become the Templar Order as we know them, he was not wrong.
  • Inside Aelfred's study room located in Winchester, Eivor discovers two letters from his personal reeve Goodwin. The first mentions a "Poor Fellow-Soldier Of Christ", an alias used by Aelfred to send crucial information to the Hidden Ones about key targets in England while the second brings up Aelfred's general dissatisfaction with the Order of the Ancients' pagan beliefs and the organization's personal connections to Charlemagne.
  • Notes inside Venetius's Tomb can be found that were written by Hildiran, spelling out her entire motivation and what happens at the end of the Mastery Challenges in one go.
  • A less serious example that borders on Brick Joke happens with Gunnar. In the first conversation with Eivor, he complains about recently splitting from a lover named Brunhilde, and Eivor jokes about the name, suggesting he try someone a little lower than a valkyrie. Gunnar replies that he never settles for anything less than the best. Eventually he ends up with a woman whose name is Brigid, a Celtic goddess's name instead.
• A Form You Are Comfortable With: The visions of Valhalla that Eivor sees are implied to be the story of the Great Collapse from the perspective of the Norse Pantheon, but related in a way a 9th Century Viking would understand using the story of Ragnarok. It's confirmed when the secret memory of the last Valhalla vision is shown after completing all 10 Animus anomalies, showing the same memory and a bit afterwards but without the mystical trappings of the visions. For instance, instead of furs and cloth, the Norse Isu are wearing metallic body suits, and instead of an actual tree Yggdrasil is a metallic, tree-like contraption with what appears to be fetuses on top.
• Freeze-Frame Bonus: In the last Asgard memory when the main Aesir drink of the mead of immortality at Yggdrasil, before facing their fate in Ragnarok, one of the faces briefly shifts to what appears to be a fetus in a sac. This foreshadows that the whole Asgard sequence is actually telling the tale of the Great Catastrophe that rendered the Isu functionally extinct.
• Friend to All Children: Eivor has a great relationship with children and enjoys playing along with their games. This ends up putting Eivor in a rather uncomfortable spot in one early sidequest, where Eivor goes along with a group of Dane children who gleefully practice raiding, only to realize once they're done that the kids are part of Kjotve's clan and they're practicing wiping out the Raven Clan.
• From the Mouths of Babes: One side quest is about helping a young boy woo his crush (King Aelfred's daughter) by presenting her with a rose, upon which his friends declare that he's now betrothed. One of the kids immediately opines that there's more to a betrothal than that, like holding hands and especially a lot of praying, because she always hears these people scream "Oh God! Oh God!" along with some grunting.
• Full-Boar Action:
  • One hostile animal species are wild boars that will attack Eivor on sight.
  • "Wrath of the Druids" has Black Stout, a giant boar Legendary Animal in Black Pig's Dyke in Connacht. Killing it gives the Bone Sickle.
• Game-Breaking Bug:
  • Some localizations require downloading the English language pack for the game, otherwise there will be no captions and no voice acting. Also, in the Polish localization, flyting doesn't work correctly due to sloppy translation of the dialogue options.
  • Starting the game before downloading the Day One Title Update (v. 1.0.2) can prevent the game from triggering the main story mission A Seer’s Solace. It’s recommended that players download the latest patch before playing for the first time.
  • The PC version has a problem with Eivor being unable to shoot arrows backwards while on horseback. They can aim and draw their bow but won't release the string. Needless to say that this makes getting rid of pursuing enemy cavalry and especially predators a whole lot more annoying.
  • The Animus Anomalies sometimes don't let you interact with beam emitters or the data packet at the top, forcing you to reload and restart. If you're lucky, getting Layla desynchronized is enough to fix it, but don't rely on it. The anomaly in Norway in particular proved impossible to complete for some PC players thanks to this until the 1.0.4 update fixed it.
  • Many players have reported their legendary animal trophies randomly disappearing from Raventhorpe's longhouse, or never showing up in the first place.
  • Anything that requires cooperation with an NPC, like forcing doors or the lid of large treasure chests, is prone to not working as it should. Always save before raiding a monastery because if running away and trying again a minute later doesn't fix it, only reloading a save will.
  • In the Suthsexe arc, if Ljufvina is knocked down during the final assault and is not revived before the battle is finished, she will spawn in as dead in future appearances. This is a serious issue in the Eurvicscire arc, where the assault on Magnis cannot begin until you speak to her, and you cannot speak to her corpse. As of patch 1.04, the only fix would be to reload a save from the Suthsexe arc, ensure Ljufvina is still standing during the fight, and play through the game again from there — something that is frustrating for how much it sets players back and might be impossible if players don't have a save that old. ^note Fortunately, there is an easy way to monitor if she had survived the battle: Eivor can converse with her (and other participants) after the battle.
• Gameplay and Story Integration:
  • Instead of the iconic leap of faith, Eivor jumps into haystacks and water with their limbs flailing as they prepare for impact. Once you progress enough in the Hidden Ones subplot, Hytham teaches them the iconic move, after which the original jump is replaced by the leap.
  • The Asgard & Jotunheim dreams don't give any physical rewards, since, you know, they're All Just a Dream. "Spiritual" rewards, however (skill points and charisma increases), do carry over into the real world, since they rely on knowledge Eivor learnt from their dreams.
  • During Eivor and Kassandra's cutscene duel, both use the skills they can acquire in-game, such as the former using Harpoon Impalement and the multi-axe throw and the latter the Sparta Kick.
• Gameplay and Story Segregation:
  • While Eivor's dreams don't give any physical rewards, gear can be changed and improved during them. Sure, Eivor may wake up in different clothes than they went to sleep with, but at least you don't need to wake up every time you want alter your stats.
  • In spite of the fact that some of the kings you encounter, such as Oswald, are devout Christians; none of them will ever comment on, or even react to, Eivor pillaging and looting the various monasteries that dot the English countryside.
  • The story (quite correctly) treats the decision to sail to England as a serious, momentous choice on the part of Eivor, Sigurd, and the rest of their clan. It's a long journey, and everyone is intensely aware that they are leaving their homes, probably for good. But once you get settled in England, Eivor can fast travel back to Norway without any obstacles or delays (unless you count the loading screen).
• Gang Up on the Human: So long as they can detect Eivor, enemies will always priotize them over any other target, most notable when fighting an Order member and Saxons or Bandits interrupt the fight.
• Gender Is No Object:
  • The Norse Vikings and the Saxon bandits have women amongst their Faceless Mooks, which goes without commentary. As a result, you might not realize there are women there save for their cries when hit in battle. Surprisingly Truth in Television, as examined burial sites for both have revealed biologically-female warriors' remains, and both had warrior women as part of their cultural heroes, folklore, and legends. Even outside of that, Sweet Polly Oliver was a very common practice and, thanks to a lower standard of living and many other factors, gender dysmorphia would have been far less noticeable.
  • All Romance Sidequests are available to Eivor of either gender.
• Garnishing the Story: In-Universe. The author of Beowulf added in the dragon in the story. Not because it was attached to what actually happened, but because that's the kind of thing the English tend to do anyway.
• The Ghost:
  • While Bjorn Ironside and Sigurd Snake-in-the-Eye are mentioned by Halfdan in a conversation with Eivor, they're never seen and are thus the only Sons of Ragnar that Eivor doesn't meet over the course of the game.
  • Fuladh and Rayhan are mentioned a few times by Hytham when he's discussing Aluh-Amut, the Hidden Ones' base of operations, but they never appear in the flesh.
• Giant Mook: A large number of Elite Mooks tower head and shoulders over the normal infantry, but what takes the cake are the aptly named Goliaths and their variants. These guys are as wide as they're tall, yet surprisingly fast regardless and (unsurprisingly) immensely strong melee fighters. And how resilient are they, you ask? They're the only enemy type that Eivor can only finish off by snapping their neck with quite some effort involved, as opposed to the usual dismemberment anyone else is subjected to.
• Girl in the Tower: One sidequest involves Eivor rescuing a lady from a tower guarded by a knight, after beating up the knight it turns out they're a couple engaging in sexual roleplay and the woman is now interested in Eivor, much to their annoyance.
• A Glitch in the Matrix: Anomalies are a callback to the Truth and Rift Puzzles from AC2 and Brotherhood. They appear as "normal" areas in the simulation, but with glitchy effects. When Eivor interacts with them, the simulation will break open, creating a pocket dimension where Layla—not Eivor—must climb electric blue platforms to reach an top-secret Animus data file.
• Glorious Death: A series of side quests centers on the Lost Drengir of Ragnar Loðbrók, a group of Retired Badasses who fought in the Great Heathen Army. They all coped poorly with retirement, however (whether due to Rich Boredom, Guilt Complexes, fear of Badass Decay, or simply because Victory Is Boring), and jump at the opportunity to Duel to the Death so they can rejoin their fallen leader in Valhalla. Fortunately for them, player character Eivor is happy to oblige them.
• A God Am I: Sigurd starts talking like this after hanging out with Basim for a while, which kind of freaks out Eivor. He turns it up to 11 after being rescued from his captivity with Fulke, which puts a serious strain on his relationship with Eivor.
• Good All Along: King Aelfred the Great actually opposes the Order of the Ancients despite his role as a Grand Maegester. He even works with Eivor to drive out the last remnants of the Order in England.
• Gondor Calls for Aid: There are two main occasions when this happens:
  • In the first case, Eivor calls upon whatever alliances they've made up to that point to assault Porcestre Castle in order to rescue Sigurd from Fulke.
  • The second is Eivor calling upon all the alliances they've made during the game in order to defeat Wessex and depose Aelfred.
• Gone Horribly Right:
  • The Hidden Ones in Roman Britain spent their time trying to balance the scales between the Romans and the native tribes by killing those in the way of freedom, only to be forced to evacuate themselves when the Romans abandoned Britannia because the native tribes also viewed them as an enemy for killing some of their leaders. As one Hidden One puts it in a letter, they spent so much time damaging the pillars of Roman imperialism that they weren't prepared to deal with the fallout once they'd succeeded.
  • A note found in a side-area in "Dawn of Ragnarok" has a dwarf engineer experimenting with growing crystals. His notes say he's found a massive breakthrough and plans to start really growing them tomorrow. This is found inside a ruined house covered in ginormous crystals, and no sign of the owner anywhere...
• Gory Discretion Shot:
  • Oddly, in a game where heads, arms, and legs are being visibly cut off and/or crushed by the dozen during active combat (if the setting is turned on for that, at least), during the Wincestre arc, when Eivor observes Reeve Selwyn the Gallows member of the Order of the Ancients conducting a public execution, when the time comes for the man to be killed, it cuts to his wife wincing as she looks away and his body twitching before falling still in the background, and further still the bloody stump is obscured behind the bloodsoaked execution block.
  • The single instance of the "Blood Eagle" ritual is completely off-screen, for understandable reasons; heck, the sounds alone are probably the most violent part of the game.
  • In the Wrath of the Druids DLC, Azar's quest involves bringing in Konstantinos, the man who betrayed her and took her eye. He tells her to Get It Over With, but she tells him she spent all night sharpening several knives for this day and that she's gonna take her time with him. Eivor leaves the house and all you hear is him screaming and what sounds like slicing meat. She then informs Eivor what was left of him was Fed to Pigs.
• Grey-and-Gray Morality: The conflict that takes place in Valhalla follows in the footsteps of Assassin's Creed III, Rogue, and Unity when it comes to who's more in the right and who's more in the wrong. No matter how honorable, reasonable, and inspiring the Vikings can be, the Saxon Kingdoms are still completely in their right to defend their lands and people from foreign invaders. By the same token, while the Danes are seeking to conquer all of England, the various petty kings and rulers of the land are, while not as bad about conquest, still often hated by their own people to various degrees for other horrible actions.
• Greater-Scope Villain:
  • King Aelfred the Great turns out to be this for the entire franchise as he is the founder of the modern Templar Order who is dissatisfied with the largely pagan Order of the Ancients and decides to reform the group into a Christian military religious order. Aelfred's personal reeve Goodwin even calls him "a Poor Fellow-Soldier of Christ" (the historical name of the Templars).
  • The Greek Isu goddess Aletheia from Odyssey is responsible for releasing her husband Basim/Loki into the present day and sets in motion a new modern day story for Assassin's Creed. Not to mention that she is the "unknown female voice" in the Animus anomalies.
  • Odin is this to Eivor and Basim/Loki. Not only does Odin use the Yggdrasil supercomputer to reincarnate himself as a shieldmaiden but he wants Eivor to become a Blood Knight just like him and he's also responsible for killing Loki's son Fenrir which led him to go on a quest for revenge.
• Grim Up North:
  • The further north into England, the colder the weather gets. Yorkshire and beyond are in perpetual winter, and when Eivor gets to Hadrian's Wall, there's a blizzard.
  • Averted with Skye, which is much further north, where aside from the occasional rain, it's perfectly mild.
• "Groundhog Day" Loop: When Eivor and Sigurd visit the Isu Valhalla simulation near the end of the game, the whole "dead people coming back to life the next day" works like this. Wake up, fight/die, wake up again, ad infinitum.
• The Guards Must Be Crazy: While guards are somewhat more perceptive than in most other stealth games, they still aren't exactly smart. They generally ignore disappeared colleagues unless found dead, and their detection is a bit wonky - sometimes it's possible to air assassinate someone without alerting their buddy right next to them, while other times a regular Mook can spot you from half a camp away after you briefly enter within a 180 angle of their face.^note There is a mechanic that causes enemies to stay extra alert after spotting you, but even calm camps seem to have their super-aware enemies. Not to mention that they will always fall for "Feign Death" even if Eivor keeps pulling the trick over and over again, and that just like the first game, you can blend in with monks to slip by guards even while armed to the teeth.
  • You can occasionally find captured Norse soldiers in bases you're raiding. They're either tied up or stuck in cages, but in either case, the guards apparently let these prisoners keep their weapons in their captivity. You can find soldiers in flimsy wooden cages literally holding massive battle axes, which speaks poorly of both their guards and themselves.
• Guide Dang It!:
  • Some of the requirements for the best ending aren't quite so clear cut, particularly for whether Sigurd returns to Ravensthorpe with Eivor or not. There are five critical choices throughout the game, of which you need to choose correctly for at least three of those decisions. However, there's nothing to set these important decisions apart from others, and it can be very easy for somebody to pick all the "wrong" choices in a blind playthrough without even realizing it.
    • Of particular note is the scene late in the game where Sigurd sentences a wrongdoer to pay 30 times the normal restitution. By this point in the game, it's become increasingly obvious that Sigurd is undergoing severe Sanity Slippage as the power of the Sage of Tyr is going to his head, and even the offended party in the trial is horrified by the sentence. You would think that the right option would be to try to reason with Sigurd, but if you want to maximize your chances of getting the good ending, you have to side with Sigurd despite how insane the judgement is.
  • Collecting the game's ultimate armor set is fairly straightforward, assuming you complete all Mysteries on the map. Acquiring the four legendary weapons, however, is the complete opposite. There are no hints that they even exist (aside from Thor and Odin wielding theirs in the Asgard arcs), let alone what you need to do to get your hands on them. Even if you do know that they're tied to certain collectibles, figuring out what to do with them once you've found them all is another matter entirely.
    • Nodens' Arc takes this up to eleven - to figure out how to obtain it without glitches, players had to decode the fictional Isu language and figure out the exact meaning of certain symbols found on the physical collectors edition of the game.
  • The lack of side quest tracking means that numerous world events and mysteries can be tough to complete without a guide (or if you've not been paying attention). Many don't even tell you clearly what you're supposed to do, let alone how and where. Others require the application of some serious Insane Troll Logic to proceed.
  • The battle against Odin is Unwinnable by Design as far as standard combat is concerned since he's invincible. The only way to win is by running away from him, which is impossible because he just pulls Eivor back by their axe when they get too far away. Manually unequipping the axe in the inventory menu is required to facilitate the escape, something so meta many players never thought of it. However, even if you figured that out somehow, the exit portal from the Helheim realm only appears after Eivor's health has been fully depleted at least once. If you're good enough at parrying and dodging to avoid taking damage from Odin's clumsy attacks, you might never reach this point and end up running around in the darkness with nowhere to run to.
• Hailfire Peaks: Svartalfheim in the Dawn Of Ragnarok DLC, due to the Jotunn - Muspel joint invasion has areas that are frozen over, flooded with lava, or both side by side.
• A Handful for an Eye: Some enemies have a nasty habit of chucking an entire man-sized cloud of dirt at Eivor to blind them. Even if they're standing on ice.
• Handwave: No matter how unusual the sights seen in the Tombs of the Fallen, Eivor scarcely comments on it, and never brings it up to anyone. The final tomb has the AI guarding it mention that a security feature gives Eivor a mild case of Laser-Guided Amnesia every time.
• Halloween Episode: The Glowecestreshire Arc takes place during Samhain. It begins as harmless spooky fun as Eivor goes trick-or-treating as Mari Lwyd, but becomes more sinister as the religious rituals tied to the holiday draw near.
• Hair-Raising Hare: The world event, "Splitting Hares" in Hamtunscire involves rabbits invading a farmer's turnip garden. Eivor deals with it by killing each one.
• He Knows Too Much: Implied to have happened to Alcuin of York when he learned about the Order and tried warning Charlemagne about it, as the letter he was supposed to have sent ended up in the possession of Aethelwulf of Northumbria before passing down to Aelfred. Aelfred himself notes in his writings that his father would never say how exactly he got that letter, implying some sort of involvement in his assassination.
• Heal Thyself: With active healing abilities no longer existing, restoring health in combat is tied to consuming one of your limited amount of rations or performing finishing moves on stunned enemies. A specific skill allows Eivor to regain the red part of their health bar by dealing damage to enemies, and there exists a shield as well as a mythical weapon rune that restores a lot of health by parrying an attack.
• Heinous Hyena: Despite its name, the legendary animal boss known as the Gemad-Wulf is actually a striped hyena, albeit much larger than normal.
• Heroic Sacrifice: Layla manages to slow the machine down, preventing it from spewing a dangerous magnetic field, but thanks to the failsafe implemented in the Isu machine, she is automatically forced to drop the staff and dies from radiation exposure. As a result, she joins or becomes one with The Reader (heavily implied to be Desmond Miles), to try to find a timeline that will prevent any more global catastrophes from occurring.
• Hiding in Plain Sight: Eivor isn't welcome in English towns, and thus needs to blend in crowds and/or pretend they belong there by interacting with their surroundings while wearing a cloak.
• Historical Domain Character:
  • It wouldn't be an Assassin's Creed game without some real life figures from history popping up in the story to interact with. Besides King Aelfred the Great, other historical characters that appear in the game include the Sons of Ragnar, Kjotve the Rich (here known as Kjotve the Cruel), Thor Haklang (as Gorm Kjotvesson), King Burgred, Lady Aethelswith, Jarl Guthrum, Thegn Oswald, Thegn Ceolwulf II, Ealhswith, Æthelflæd, Rollo, Ljufvina Bjarmasdottir, King Rhodri ap Merfyn, and Harald Fairhair. The voice of Brendan of Clonfert is heard when Eivor reads his letters and finds runic carvings that illustrate his interactions with the Isu. Additionally, Ragnar Lothbrok appears in a brief sequence that depicts his execution in the Snake Pit (though his historical existence is debated).
  • In Wrath of the Druids, the Irish High Kings Aed Findliath and Flann Sienna as well as Barid mac Imair are important characters in the story that assist Eivor in taking down the Children of Danu. Barid is also related to Eivor through their mother Rosta.
  • In The Siege of Paris, Charles the Fat is the leader of the Carolingian Empire who opposes Rollo's invasion of Paris in 885-886.
• Historical Fantasy: The Asgard and Great Catastrophe segments heavily lean into fantasy with scientific elements (i.e. the Yggdrasil being a supercomputer). Not to mention that Eivor is the female reincarnation of Odin while her adopted brother Sigurd and Basim are also reincarnations of the Norse gods Tyr and Loki respectively.
• Historical Hero Upgrade: The game tends to present a mostly favorable view of the Vikings, despite the fact that they had been violently raiding and pillaging England for centuries and are forcibly colonizing parts of it and displacing, forcibly ruling over, or outright massacring the Saxons and native Britons in the process. It even keeps the "killing civilians will result in desynchronization" mechanic from previous games even though Eivor technically never becomes an Assassin nor takes the Creed; apparently, they (or at least the Raven Clan) were nice enough to never hurt the defenseless while burning monasteries down. And for the most part, it downplays stuff like the widespread Viking practices of slavery and blood sacrifice in real life.
• Historical In-Joke:
  • King Aelfred the Great's alias is "Poor Fellow-Soldier of Christ" when he spies on the Raven Clan.
  • Brendan of Clonfert discovers the New World during his religious pilgrimage. When Eivor visits the place, the Vikings call it "Vinland" or "Saint Brendan's Island".
  • When Eivor visits Bishop Deorlaf after Ivarr kills Rhodri they ask him if he's afraid of the Britons doing a reprisal against Mercia for his unjust death. Deorlaf responds by saying that Rhodri and Angharad's sons are currently too busy bickering amongst themselves to do so because due to Welsh law, Angharad had the kingdom separated amongst her sons. Eivor asks what'll happen if the eldest, Anarawd, manages to unite the clans, and Deorlaf says he prays that won't happen. Historically, Anarawd does up succeeding his father as king, and three years after the end of the game in 881, he goes to war with Mercia again at the Battle of the Conwy, and successfully avenges Rhodri with a decisive victory.^note The Welsh annals even describe the event as "revenge by God for Rhodri".
  • An apocrhyphal story about Aelfred has him in disguise helping a baker woman until he got distracted, causing her bread to get burnt. At the end of the game, Eivor and Aelfred have a chat, which results in that very thing, much to the woman's upset.
• Historical Villain Upgrade: King Aelfred the Great is one of Britain's most venerated ancient rulers (hence "The Great"), though here the dev team has noted his portrayal as an Anti-Villain and he's seemingly one of the main antagonists. The World Premiere trailer frames him as a xenophobic ruler fighting to protect his kingdom from those he sees as ruthless foreign invaders. The actual game depicts him as even more of an anti-villain who is forced to work with the Order in order to save his lands from the invading Vikings.
• Hoist by Their Own Petard: Almost literally in some cases, many Finishing Moves (particularly Stun Attacks) revolve around Eivor killing the enemy with their own weapon. If an enemy carries more than one weapon, there's at least one finisher for each of them.
• Honorable Warrior's Death:
  • Members of the drengir, companions/bodyguards of Ragnar Lothbrok who outlived their leader, long for the chance to experience this as they languish in retirement. Eivor has the option to take them on and grant them their desire.
  • After uncovering Ivarr's plot and defeating him, Eivor has a choice about whether to let Ivarr hold his axe as he dies, giving him a shot at entering Valhalla, or to deny him the opportunity.
• Horny Vikings: While most of the helmets are historically accurate, a Norwegian shaman is shown wearing a horned headdress in the World Premiere trailer. In general, the Vikings are portrayed more like they are in pop culture rather than how they were in history.
• Hyperactive Metabolism: Eivor can heal back from near death in seconds just by munching on a handful of raspberries, scarfing down a bowl of soup or consuming a ration in combat.
• Identical Stranger: In the vision quests of Asgard, perceptive players will notice that Havi/Odin, Tyr, and Loki look and sound like Male Eivor, Sigurd, and Basim respectively. They are indeed one and the same, in the sense that they're all Sages of the respective Aesir in question.
• Idiot Ball: Eivor during the Sciropescire arc. First, they allow Ivarr to join the negotiations with Rhodri, despite knowing that Ivarr is an impulsive Blood Knight who hates Rhodri. They then allow Ivarr to stay on the mission after ruining the peace-talks by murdering Rhodri's brother, which leads to him murdering Ceolbert and framing Rhodri for it so that he can have an excuse to get even with him, ruining the peace they'd worked so hard to achieve. During their duel Ivarr even lampshades how dumb it was for Eivor to trust him in the first place.
• Insistent Terminology: A dwarf Odin encounters in Svartelheim insists the ring he carries is "curséd" (the emphasis is his), and will remind Odin of this every time he brings up the ring.
• Interface Screw:
  • Some bandit types can throw sand in Eivor's eyes, which obscures most of the on-screen action and prevents the player from blocking or parrying even if they can make out what's happening.
  • Consuming alcohol makes Eivor's view go all wobbly. Finishing a drinking duel makes it so bad that players have reported getting motion sickness from the effect. This isn't much of a handicap for Eivor—after one drink too many, you can no longer lock onto enemies, but they otherwise remain in perfect fighting shape.
  • The battle against Odin is actually unwinnable, and you need to escape him in order to win. However, every time you try to run, he will prevent you by pulling you back via the axe you're holding. The way to thwart Odin is to manually unequip the axe from your inventory.
  • When Odin is under the influence of a truth serum concocted by Angrboda, while he's being interrogated about Asgard's defenses, no matter what choices you make Odin will say the truth, because the serum is preventing him from lying. At the end all the choices are literally the same to reflect that.
  • Try using Odin's sight around Kassandra when you're on the Isle of Skye. Hot damn if that's not different.
  • Just before Eivor approaches any of the caskets in the Tombs of the Fallen for the first time, the screen gets blurry as it does when they're drunk.
• Interface Spoiler:
  • Unrevealed Order members are cast in deep shadows in the menu, but it isn't quite enough to hide what they look like. Another way to spot them in the open world is to aim the bow at civilians; anyone with a health bar is an Order member. Odin's Sight will also help locate them, particularly in areas where there are more civilians than soldiers.
  • Male Eivor noticeably shares their overall appearance, scars, and voice actor with Eivor's "hallucinations" of Odin. While this doesn't completely spoil the big twist about Reincarnation, it does make it much easier to guess.
• Interquel: The Animus portion of the game takes place around 828 years after Origins, and 319 years before the first game.
• Irony: The game portrays the theological conflict of England's Christianity and Norway's Norse paganism. Just like in the real world, Christianity eventually won this battle and spread around the world, while the game reveals that in the AC universe it's the Pagan gods who keep coming back from the dead.
• Ironic Name: Heillboer translates to something along the lines of "whole", "complete", or "undamaged" town, and it gets destroyed by Kjotve and his men and remains an uninhabited ruin decades later.
• It Will Never Catch On: A man making sauces in Ledercestershire declares he's move to Worcestershire, but he won't bother naming a sauce after that awful place.
• I Will Show You X!: During the argument with Holger in the later part of the game, he insists he should be given praise for his art. The woman whose sails he stole to make this art gets halfway through saying she's going to "praise" him upside the head before Eivor interrupts.
• The Juggernaut: In the World Premiere trailer the Vikings are ridiculously strong, chopping off heads and sending people flying with spears. They mow through the Saxons and each Viking shown falling in the actual fighting requires multiple enemy attackers.
• Just Before the End: The "Dawn of Ragnarok", as the name suggests, is just before Ragnarok kicks off. After the storyline is finished, Juno informs Odin his actions have managed to cause it to start early.
• Just Like Robin Hood: Eivor can encounter a man in Sherwood Forest wearing a green hood and wielding a longbow named Ryce Sherwin who steals from nobles to give to the poor and even has his own band of Merry Men, making him basically a 9th Century Expy of Robin Hood.
• Kill It with Fire: Once again an Assassin's Creed protagonist can set their melee weapons and arrows on fire, though unlike in Odyssey, fire kills almost any enemy in seconds, plus it prevents them from fighting back while they're running around screaming in agony. Conversely, the bandit faction has two special enemy types that deploy a variety of powerful fire attacks that can kill Eivor just as quickly... or themselves and their buddies, because their AI has no concept of "blast radius".
• Kindhearted Cat Lover: You, if you want to be one by snuggling the cats.

Tropes L-Z

• Language Barrier:
  • When the Norse and Danes go to Saint Brendan's Island/Vinland, they are unable to speak the language of the natives and vice versa. They make do with bartering via sign language when necessary.
  • Averted with the Saxons as Old English and Old Norse are treated as mutually intelligible.
• Large and in Charge: Many Elite Mooks are significantly taller than their lower peers, with some of the largest (often a Goliath-type enemy) usually serving as the commanders of larger strongholds.
• The Law of Conservation of Detail: Much of the Norway map's northern half is taken up by a huge fjord devoid of any obvious points of interest. It's the location of the Yggdrasil Temple and the place of the Final Battle. Said fjord is also walled in by continuous mountain ranges, except for one small valley that cuts into the western mountains about halfway through the fjord. Thor's hammer Mjölnir can be found at the very end.
• Leaning on the Fourth Wall:
  • When Eivor meets Reda in Ravensthorpe, one of the questions Eivor can ask is if they've met them before because they feel familiar. (The "Dawn of Ragnarok" DLC confirms Odin and Reda did know one another.)
  • When Layla approaches the 7th Animus Anomaly and Rebecca tells her that there're ten in total, Layla jokingly asks if the Animus hands out achievements for completing them all. Rebecca doesn't get it, so Layla just drops the topic.
• Legendary Weapon: Eivor can find (at least) four Isu weapons.
  • Excalibur, probably the most famous sword in Western mythology. It's classified as a longsword, and releases a flash of light during finishers. Found in a cave near stonehenge, but also requires end-game collectibles to obtain.
  • Mjölnir, Thor's hammer, which releases a stun blast on finishers, and also has a 33% percent chance to do so on any melee hit. Found on a small path off the northernmost fjord in Norway, and needs Thor's armor to obtain.
  • Gungnir, Odin's spear, which has slightly extended range. Found stuck in a wall inside the Isu temple that houses the Yggdrasil, but is unobtainable until the endgame.
  • Noden's Arc, an Isu hunter bow, which causes more damage the further you are from the target. Found inside a pile of rocks on a small island in a lake southeast of Brunton's Turret, but the pile refuses to budge to any weapon other than the Excalibur and the hit needs to happen at sunset.
  • Gae Bolg, the spear of Cú Chulainn. In "Wrath of the Druids," Eivor is tested against Balor who serves as an Optional Boss after killing all of the Children of Danu.
• Let's You and Him Fight: When Eivor and Kassandra first meet they have a brief skirmish. While Eivor is able to hold their own, it's clear that Kassandra's centuries of experience makes her the superior of the two in a fight.
• Lotus-Eater Machine: This is ultimately what the Yggdrassil Temple's Valhalla simulation is. McDevitt states in an interview that the Yggdrasil can simulate just about anything, but the desires of Svala and Sigurd made them pick the "Valhalla" option, with Svala as Freyja and Sigurd as Tyr. When Basim is in the machine, being a reincarnated Isu, he is capable of much more than simply conjuring a simulation.
• The Low Middle Ages: The game takes place in 9th century northern and western Europe.
• Mad Oracle: The "Pig of Prophecy" World Event in Cent has Matilda the Seer, who is a literal pig. She's not a talking animal either, but only understood after Eivor drinks from some water next to the sow. The interpretations are easy enough with it being about Eivor and Sigurd's relationship, Odin and Fenrir. The historical references in the prophecies involve The Wars Of The Roses, the spinning jenny. It starts getting weird when a pig in 9th century England brings up 13.0.0.0.0. That would be December 21, 2012.
• Made of Iron: The heavy soldier in the World Premiere trailer withstands the majority of Eivor's attacks and is unfazed by being stabbed through the leg with a sword, with most of Eivor's attacks bouncing off his armor. Just before he slits Eivor's throat, Eivor exploits the soldier's one weak spot by stabbing a hidden blade into his helmet's eye socket.
• Made of Plasticine: Many of Eivor's gruesome melee finishers only work because of the Rule of Cool. Real human bodies would make them impossible to pull off in the way they're shown, like ripping someone's entire head off at the neck by ramming a sword in their back and pulling the full blade upwards. That last part alone would be quite a feat in real life, considering all the bones in the way.
• Map Stabbing: Eivor stabs the map with a dagger every time they pledge to a new territory.
• The Marvelous Deer: Two legendary animals Eivor can face are the Elk of Bloody Peaks in Norway, and O Yan Do' Ne in Vinland, a moose with blood-red antlers named after the moose personification of the east wind in Iroquois mythology.
• Medieval European Fantasy: Besides the obvious connections to Norse Mythology, Valhalla also has a few trappings of Arthurian Legend in the form of Excalibur which is located within Stonehenge and can be used by Eivor as a weapon.
• Merging the Branches: Subverted with regard to Eivor's gender. According to Word of God, the canon data stream choice is "Let the Animus Choose", which entails playing the historical sections of the game as a woman and the mythological sections as a man. However, the character being played as in the latter is not Eivor, but Odin, the Isu that Eivor is a reincarnation of. Furthermore, a letter to King Alfred confirms that the character of Eivor is a woman since her surname is revealed to be Varinsdottir. Overall, while the canon choice involves playing as both male and female, it is as two separate characters.
• Misplaced Wildlife:
  • Grey squirrels are not native to Britain and were introduced only in the late 19th century.
  • Some deer in England are modeled after American white-tailed deer.
  • The Gemad-Wulf is a striped hyena, which only existed in Europe during the Pleistocene.
  • The Elk of Bloody Peaks that Eivor can fight in Norway is an American elk as opposed to a moose, which is what "elk" normally describes in Scandanavia. (Moose comes from Algonquin and is used to differentiate moose from the American elk in the United States and Canada) While in the past the American elk ranged as far west as France during the Pleistocene, the last relict populations in southern Sweden and the Alps died out during the early Holocene.
  • You can encounter lynxes in Britain, even though they went extinct around AD 400, almost 500 years before the game takes place.
  • Snakes can be found absolutely everywhere, even in freezing biomes where cold-blooded reptiles can't survive. Or in pots without any water or food to sustain them in underground ruins that haven't been visited in a long while. Humurously enough, there's only ONE snake in Ireland in "Wrath of the Druids." Killing it gives you the "The Legend of St. Patrick" achievement/trophy.
  • The bullhead in the game are depicted as the small catfish native to North America as opposed to the sculpin of the same name that should be in Europe.
• Mistaken for Dog: One Anglo-Saxon woman begs you to free her "dog", Dandelion Puff, from a house fire. She's quite surprised to learn that Dandy is in fact a fox, but not upset - unfortunately she dies from said fire, so the fox winds up living in Ravensthorpe.
• Mood Whiplash: After completing the second round of Mastery Challenges, Eivor enters Odin's Vault... and the music suddenly stops as they're clobbered over the head with a plank.
• Mugging the Monster: Some World Events involve swindlers, robbers, murderers, and fanatics trying to prey on Eivor. They hand them their asses for their troubles. The "Monster" part is taken a bit more literally in the World Event The Devil Has All The Best Tunes, where Eivor is "merely" left with drunkenness by poisoned ale potent enough to kill the average adult.
• Murder Is the Best Solution: The game reintroduces the "social stealth" aspect of gameplay, coupled with Distrust areas^note basically lighter versions of Restricted Areas where Eivor should go hooded to avoid drawing the guards' attention. However, there's no drawback to just killing all the guards to explore the area undisturbed.
• Mushroom Samba:
  • Eivor can indulge in hallucinogenics in order to have bizarre visions ranging from seals popping up in dry land up to portals to other realms.
  • One side mission has Eivor and Petra accidentally inhaling mushroom fumes and running around the woods hallucinating a spirit guide and trying to teleport. Petra tries talking to the animals, while Eivor predictably fights imaginary enemies.
• My Friends... and Zoidberg: Gwenydd is the only non-Anglo Saxon kingdom in Britain visited by Eivor and the Raven Clan. Additionally, they are Welsh instead of English.
• Mythology Gag:
  • Eivor wears their Hidden Blade mounted atop their arm, like Darius in Assassin's Creed: Odyssey. Eivor even makes fun of the Hidden Ones for wearing the blade under their arms, which requires severing one of their own fingers to use that way.
  • Hytham's failed assassination attempt on Kjotve the Cruel is framed exactly like a sequence from the original game's first trailer from 2006.
  • The Lotus-Eater Machine Yggdrasil is this twofold. First of all, it functions very similarly to the Animus from the 2016 film, with the exception that it has a different function and the people "hanging" from it don't move while connected. Secondly, its location (underneath Norway) was one of the Isu sites shown way back in Assassin's Creed II.
  • If Sigurd returns to Ravensthorpe with Eivor, he motions to the jarl's throne and tells them to sit a moment and rest, which was the last game prompt for Altaïr's Memory Disk missions.
  • Siege of Paris allows Eivor to rush their targets blindly, or they can take a page out of future Parisian Hidden One/Assassin Arno Dorian and gather info on their target to sneak in for a cinematic kill.
    • Hell, the first cinematic kill opportunity involves Eivor taking the place of someone else during a religious ritual, exactly like Arno's confessional kill in Unity.
  • Another Unity callback in "Siege of Paris" involves a church in Saint Denis, where the "Dead Kings" DLC takes place. Inside is a tablet that looks like it's in gibberish, but it's in a Caesar cipher where letters are shifted by 18 letters back (for example, A=V), but going by classical Latin. It involves a triangular set of coordinates between Paris, Suessonium and Compendium, and then meeting in the middle. Guide Dang It! doesn't even begin to describe this Mythology Gag! Either way, it leads to a crypt, and the sealed off Isu Vault where the Lantern of Dionysis is kept.
  • In case any player managed to avoid the press announcements or the advertising, Eivor's encounter with Kassandra on Skye has a brief portion of Odyssey's soundtrack play when they first meet.
• Neck Snap: Every time Eivor kills a goliath, they pick them up by their head and break their neck for the coup de grace, which takes visible effort to do.
• Nerf:
  • Equipment perks have been severely nerfed from their Odyssey performance. Most only provide minor stat boosts that become obsolete once you've leveled up Eivor and their gear a bit. By the time you hit the midgame, your choice of armor and weapons mostly boils down to visual preference. Only a small handful of weapons have noticeably powerful perks, like one shield that heals about a third of Eivor's health every time you parry an attack.
  • Abilities were hit just as hard. Between the reduced number of adrenaline points^note a maximum of 4, less than half of what Odyssey provided, being tied to a rare type of collectible to even unlock, many non-Ability actions also consuming adrenaline if the pip isn't completely filled, and Eivor's extreme combat prowess with weapons alone, one can comfortably play through the entire game without ever using a single Ability.
  • The "spy through your bird's eyes" feature has been weakened considerably, with Eivor's raven being unable to spot and mark enemies and treasure. If you want to know what awaits you, you'll have to get close and see for yourself.
• Nipple and Dimed:
  • Played straight for humans in general, averted for female Jötunn whose nipples can be seen through their tops.
  • Zigzagged in one specific instance during the Essex arc: when you go to retrieve Rollo from a bawdy house the prostitute who is whipping him is only wearing a helmet above the waist and her nipples are clear to see. The other prostitutes in the room, on the other hand, are stuck in permanent underwear.
  • Averted for two of the three Daughters of Lerion.
• No-Gear Level: The Vinland arc starts you off with nothing but Eivor's Hidden Blade - no weapons, no armor, no rations, no resources at all. The few equipment pieces you can purchase from local traders require resources you can only find in enemy camps. You do the math. The whole arc provides the game's only area where stealth is actually useful.
• No-Sell:
  • In the World Premiere trailer, Eivor's attacks simply bounce off the heavy soldier's scale armor. Stabbing the soldier through the leg with a sword only serves as an annoyance.
  • Vikings frequently shrug off blows, but Ivarr takes it to an extreme when he shrugs off being set on fire.
• Notice This: If the player is having trouble finding the Tombs of the Fallen, they can be found by using Raven Vision to look about, where they're indicated by a glowing blue pillar of energy and a swarm of crows hovering around them.
• Not So Stoic: In the Glowcestershire arc, the Wicker Man ritual involves burning the town's leader alive inside a giant man made out of wood and straw. He celebrates it as an important tradition, but his final moments consist of terrified screaming.
• Non-Indicative Name:
  • The English call any Scandinavian person "Dane". You end up meeting vikings from all over: the Ragnarssons are actually Danish, but Eivor, for instance, is Norse, while Soma is Finnish. Ceolbert, when meeting Eivor's retinue for the first time, is surprised at the different accents among his "Danish" companions, prompting Eivor to remark that "not all Danes are Danes."
  • One Legendary Animal is named Aelfred's Battle-Sow, but is a bull, not a pig. Another one, named Gemad-"Wulf", looks more like a striped hyena.
  • The ability "Blinding Rush" works by actually slowing time.
• Not Even Bothering with the Accent: Certain NPCs (particularly children) speak with North American accents that are clearly out of place among their British or Scandinavian neighbors. A notable case is Otta Sluggason, played by Dodgers outfielder Cody Bellinger using his normal voice and accent.
• Notice This: The Tombs of the Fallen are noticeable from a distance by a swirling, glowing blue pillar and a column of circling ravens.
• "Not So Different" Remark:
  • Eivor notes to Hytham that as a conquering force the Norsemen aren't really that different from the Order of the Ancients, which Hytham forcefully denies.
  • The Saxons themselves, while victims of Norse predations, are noted in the Database to have themselves originally come from elsewhere and colonized the region like the Norse are doing during the time of the game. Historically, they even ended up getting Christianized like the Norse did afterwards.
• Nun Too Holy: The world event, "Saint Faith" in Hamtunscire has Eivor come upon a priest and a goliath-sized nun try to force them to be converted in the name of the Lord. Since Eivor refuses, the titular Saint Faith comes to blows and ends up another notch on the vikingr's belt.
• Off with His Head!: Decapitation is a frequent result of melee finishers and often even normal deathblows.
• Oh, Crap!: In the World Premiere trailer, King Aelfred's second-in-command has a strong reaction when his armored brute is killed by Eivor mere moments away from executing the latter. While it's clear he's surprised at this turn of events, if his king is associated with the Order of the Ancients then he's realizing the implications of the Hidden Blade's presence.
• Once More, with Clarity: At the end of the Asgard arcs, a vision of Ragnarök is shown, with each of the Norse pantheon's gods and goddesses sitting down at a table and drinking mead that will allow them to "cheat death". If the player completes all of the Animus Anomalies, they will be shown what actually happened, with Eivor's perception of the events removed to show the Isu unfiltered. At the dawn of the Great Catastrophe, the Norse pantheon of Isu sit at a table and allow a machine, Yggdrasil, to upload their genetic material to the human genome, ensuring that they will cheat death through resurrection. However, this unaltered version also shows Loki killing Heimdall and using his glass mask to upload his genetic code as well, ensuring that he will cheat death, too.
• One-Handed Zweihänder: With the right skill, weapons that typically require two hands like spears and greatswords can be wielded in one hand instead, with the potential even for dual-wielding.
• Only the Chosen May Wield: To use Thor's Hammer you have to prove yourself by collecting all the pieces of his armor first, which can't be done until after the main quest is complete. Same goes for Excalibur.
• Optional Boss: The three Daughters of Lerion, the Lost Drengr, the various legendary animals, Steinbjornn... take your pick. Some must be defeated if you're after certain legendary weapons and armor, but none of them figure in the main story in any way.
• Origins Episode: The letters from Goodwin near the end of the game reveal that Valhalla is ultimately about the reformation of the Order of the Ancients into the modern Templar Order by King Aelfred the Great. Aelfred's alias is "Poor Fellow-Soldier Of Christ" which will later become the historical name for the Knights Templar.
• Palette Swap: Bandits and Jötunn field exactly the same troop types that use exactly the same tactics and animations, only with different skins - humans for the former, blue-skinned ice giants for the latter.
• Permanently Missable Content: Downplayed. Layla's banter with Rebecca/Shaun as the former explores the Animus Anomalies can be missed if the anomalies are not completed before Basim comes into the Modern Day picture. Conversely, Basim has his own commentary on the Anomalies (albeit a one-liner, "fragment of an ancient memory"), which you can only hear if you leave them until after the end of the story.
• The Place: Valhalla does show up in the game, albeit briefly in the Isu sequences where Svala regains her memories as the Norse goddess Freyja and visits Yggdrasil to simulate her experience in the area.
• Player Headquarters: Eivor's village of Ravensthorpe serves as this. By investing in it, you expand the village over time so that it grows into a proper community where you can upgrade your equipment, take missions, and customize your character.
• Play Every Day: Like Odyssey, the game has a rotating shop that offers items from the Animus Store in exchange for a special currency - this time opals, which can be found in the world in small amounts but mostly come from Reda's quests. There's one daily item and three weekly items available at a time, and Reda gives two temporary quests each day (worth 5 opals each) and one each week (worth 20 opals). The cost of each item ranges from ~50 for cosmetics and ~120 for gear.
• Please Select New City Name:
  • The game primarily alternates between the earlier Byzantium and the Old Norse name Miklagard when referring to Constantinople.
  • As noted in a loading screen tip, the northern coast of France/Francia along the English Channel is referred to as Evresin in-game because vikings have only just settled there. It won't officially be called Normandy until the 10th century.
• Politically Correct History:
  • The game glosses over the more unpalatable aspects of raiding (like killing civilians and taking thralls) and the Pagan Norse religion (blood sacrifices), presumably to avoid having the player character seem like too much of a Villain Protagonist. Discussed in detail by Bret Deveraux here.
  • Like Origins and Odyssey, the huge role slavery plays in the time period is barely ever addressed, as presumably it'd clash with the pro-freedom ideals the Hidden Ones / Assassins are supposed to support if the local economy runs on the back of slaves. As mentioned above, Thralls were not only an aspect of raiding, but a major focus for raiding.
• Poor Communication Kills: During the Oxenfordshire arc, the main villain has a stone Sigurd and Basim want, and offers to give it to them if they kill Geadrich, their local ally. Eivor protests, and then starts a fight because they refuse to commit an act of betrayal. It's only afterward Sigurd tells them he had no intention of actually betraying anyone. But it might've helped if he'd intimated this, rather than not telling Eivor anything.
• Port Town: The settlement of Ravensthorpe was built upon the remains of Ragnar's camp which was adjacent to River Soar of Leicestershire, England.
• Posthumous Character:
  • Eivor's parents Rosta and Varin, the founders of the Raven Clan. They were already killed by Kjotve and the Wolf Clan in the prologue in 85 AD, seventeen years before the events of the game.
  • Ragnar Lothbrok, the legendary leader of the Great Heathen Army who has an entire death sequence when Eivor visits the Snake Pit in Northumbria. His legacy as a famous Viking conqueror lives on through his children, the Sons of Ragnar.
  • Brendan of Clonfert, the Irish monk who discovered the New World while conducting a pilgrimage to document his interactions with the Isu. His voice can be heard when Eivor discovers his carved messages on the Standing Stones.
  • Britain's first king Arthur Pendragon helped unite the Romano-British people against the invading Anglo-Saxons from Denmark. Arthur's sword Excalibur can be obtained by the character when they visit Stonehenge.
  • Ragnar's wife Lagertha is mentioned a few times in the "Lost Glory" mission; not to mention that Eivor can use her axe as one of their weapons.
  • Saint George is the main focus of an entire sidequest where Eivor acquires his armor while raiding several river-bound locations.
  • Charlemagne, the first crowned emperor of the Carolingian Empire. He was a member of the Order of the Ancients and is implied to have ordered the assassination of Alcuin of York in 804 AD when he tried to reveal the Order's existence and its pagan beliefs to him, viewing it as a threat, but not realizing that he was a member.
• Power-Up Letdown: The game in general is fairly stingy with its rewards.
  • Leveling up mostly gives a choice of some minor stat improvements instead of active abilities. However, some of the passive skills unlocked via leveling up could be considered Game Breakers.
  • The nerfed equipment system means that completing a new armor set rarely results in a noticeable increase in Eivor's combat effectiveness, and it never influences the player's play style as heavily as it did in Odyssey, if at all. Weapons are a bit better about this, but only a few provide notably powerful perks.
  • The reward for collecting every single wealth item in Asgard and Jotunheim, respectively, which can take up multiple hours in total, is a measly five skill points each.
  • The reward for beating Steinbjornn, the game's most powerful Superboss, is ... absolutely nothing. Not even an achievement!
  • The game's ultimate armor and weapons are barely any better stat-wise than the non-Isu gear, and their perks are nothing to write home about, either.
• Pragmatic Villainy: When you raid, you're more interested in stuff you can use (to build up your settlement) than pure money or frivolous things like gems. The giant chests you force open are gilded as a gameplay affectation, but inside you can clearly see that they're full of tools and building materials.
• Pre-Rendered Graphics: The "First Look Gameplay Trailer" is, in fact, just a montage of pre-rendered cutscenes that have been misleadingly advertised as gameplay.
• Prequel: Valhalla is set over three centuries before the Third Crusade as seen in the first game. Eivor even works with two Hidden Ones from the Middle East: Basim and Hytham, in addition to Aelfred using the alias of "a Poor Fellow-Solder of Christ" to spy on the Raven Clan and reform the pagan Order of the Ancients into the Christian Knights Templar.
• Prophecy Twist:
  • Averted if Eivor has acted dishonorably towards Sigurd. In this case, Sigurd chooses to stay in Norway after the Yggdrasil trip, his clan becoming Eivor's officially (and hence fulfilling the "betrayal" foretold by Valka). The trope is downplayed if Sigurd returns to England with Eivor; although he still gives up his position as clan chief, he does so gladly in this scenario.
  • As per the DeWitt, Eivor is not actually seeing future events, but Odin's memories - in essence, the so-called prophecy actually depicts events that already happened in the distant past.
• Public Domain Artifact: A sidequest in Hamptunschire has Eivor having to recover the Jewel of Aelfred, or deciding to pocket it for themselves. Seems Aelfred had a bit of bother with the contractors...
• Put on a Bus: Layla's team from Odyssey are gone, apparently because after what went down in the "Trials of Atlantis" DLC, things got strained between her and them.
• Putting the Band Back Together:
  • A world event in Lunden has Eivor helping to put a band of bards back together.
  • In Saint Brendan's Island/Vinland, Eivor also helps to put a band of Norse hunters back together.
• Rain of Arrows:
  • Remember the ability of that very name from Odyssey? Where you shot some arrows skywards that would then blanket a large area with Death from Above? Well, it's back ... but only enemy elite archers can use it. Which they do. With pleasure. And it hurts. A lot.
  • Fortresses under assault occasionally launch massive volleys of Arrows on Fire at the invaders, which invariably includes you.
• Rape, Pillage, and Burn: Well, fortunately not so much raping, but the game makes no bones about you doing a lot of pillaging, since you are settling in England without anyone's permission and need a lot of material goods to build up your settlement. In the first chapter of the game, you've got some settlements in Norway to raid, but Harald Fairhair uniting all the fiefdoms under his rule means raiding each other is a no-no, so off to England you go. And as far as burning goes, during a raid your fellow vikings will usually torch a building after you've gotten all the goods from it (or sometimes before). Thankfully roofs are only flammable and not collapsible.
• Rare Candy:
  • The ingots you need to upgrade your equipment level can be purchased in small amounts from traders, but for the most part, their prohibitive price tags still restrict your supply to the ones you find in treasure chests in heavily guarded areas.
  • The materials required to upgrade Eivor's settlement can only be looted from monasteries, and sometimes gained from completing main quests.
• Reality Has No Subtitles: The Mohawk inhabitants of a village in Saint Brendan's Island/Vinland speak their language but unlike III none of it is translated at all to represent the language difference with the Vikings whose Old Norse dialogue is mostly rendered as English by the Assassin Brotherhood's Animus.
• Reality Is Unrealistic: The game's inclusivity can come off as Politically Correct History, but it actually has basis in reality, and is more reflective of what the reality of the time would be like.
  • The game depicts 9th century England as far more racially diverse than the middle ages are commonly depicted, but it's actually closer to reality than those are for it. Ljufvina Bjarmasdottir, an NPC who is visibly Asian in appearance, was a real person, and is believed to have been a Mongolian princess. Likewise, while Ravensthorpe has a number of residents who are of Asian descent, dialogue confirms they came to England via the Silk Road, which did stretch to England, and as a port town, Ravensthorpe would likely see a notable populace of foreign travellers and traders, so Reda's presence isn't too anachronistic (well, outside of them being an immortal child, anyway). Vagn doesn't detail his origin, but Viking clans were known to allow outsiders to join, and even to promote thralls (IE, slaves) to raiders if they proved themselves, and they did reach as far south as North Africa in their raiding and travels. The game doesn't make this too ridiculous as most of England is still primarily ethnically Anglo-Saxon, Danish/Scandanavian, Britton, and Pictish, and the racial diversity is limited to where it would be historically plausible, but it's far from Politically Correct History.
  • Likewise, the game features women as combatants, both allies (never mind Eivor herself) and enemies alike, including one case where a noblewoman (Lady Eadwyn) fights to defend her castle. While women were generally expected to be housewives and carers, noblewomen who inherited armies from their family were sometimes known to lead them during times of war, though they were typically unpopular as leaders outside of those who are loyal to their family line^note the reason behind Lady Eadwyn's 0% Approval Rating isn't explored too heavily beyond her being a Jerkass (albeit, only because her husband was killed by people just like Eivor and Sigurd, who are foreign invaders trying to depose her), however the fact her thegns are happy to betray her to the Norse, which includes appointing a (male) leader, makes a lot of sense in this light. Meanwhile, burial sites of warriors of the time have included skeletal remains identified via DNA as female, though it's unknown if they were welcomed into the army knowingly or if it was merely a Sweet Polly Oliver situation, either of which lines up with how the game portrays it^note among the Saxons and other enemy factions, women are rarer than men, and wear armour that is entirely identical, and thick enough to conceal their body type, so for the most part you can only tell they're women by their voice; given this, it's equally possible they were either welcomed due to their skill matching the men's, or the rest of their comrades couldn't tell their gender either.
  • Finally, the game allows Eivor to have romances with any gender, who respond in-kind regardless of Eivor's apparent gender (which, canonically, is female, but it's up to the player how they present). During the viking age, homosexual behaviour was known, and though there's little record of openly exclusively-gay/lesbian individuals from the time, the Norse (and the Anglo-Saxons of the time) didn't view homosexuality as sinful or against nature in itself; rather, as they valued procreation and family, it was expected that you would marry and have kids eventually, but who you slept with before, or outside, your marriage wasn't anyone's business, regardless of the gender^note men avoiding marriage to women because they solely wished to sleep with men was known of, and was socially discriminated against, and sometimes penalised. Notably, the game doesn't have any openly queer couples outside of anyone Eivor romances, with Stowe and Erke's romance being kept on the DL, which does reflect how homosexuality was treated for most of history, something that existed but was kept quiet about.
• Religious Bruiser: The World Premiere trailer shows Eivor and the Raven Clan conducting rituals to gain Odin's favor before going on raids, and Eivor has a vision of Odin mid-battle that spurs him on in combat.
• Resurrective Immortality: The Isu of Asgard survived the Cataclysm by using a similar method to the one Juno used on Aita, with Eivor's ability to see visions of Valhalla a side effect of the process. Also, Basim's motivation for turning on Eivor turns out to be revenge for Eivor's past self killing the son of Basim's past self.
• Rewatch Bonus: Hints towards Asgardians being sages can be seen very early on.
  • Before you even leave Norway, an optional discussion with Basim reveals he felt meeting Sigurd was like meeting an old friend from way back.
  • Halfdan is frequently depicted with a hammer, something he shares with Thor.
  • If you didn't catch much on the first playthrough, the fact that several people Eivor meets have same facial features and voices as the Aesir in his dreams is much more blatant when you know the twist.
• Ripped from the Headlines: Layla's brother asks in an e-mail if the reason she's disappearing for a while is because she's socially distancing due to the COVID-19 Pandemic, when the reality is that she's looking through Eivor's memories with the help of Shaun and Rebecca.
  Ramy: Is it COVID? Is that why you're being cagey? Something else? Call him, call me, and stop this insane game of hide and seek. I just want to know that you are safe.
  Layla: I don't have Covid, no. And I'm well isolated. It's just three of us, traveling together, staying out of sight.
  Ramy: Thanks for clearing that up in such profound detail. I'm sure I'll sleep soundly now.
• Road Apples: The world event, "Lamb Chops" in Sciopescire, has a man named Merec who lost his niece's brooch after one of the sheep ate it. Rather than killing the sheep, Eivor can throw a hay bale and dig through the...leavings to find the brooch, leaving them to wonder why this keeps happening to them. It takes some digging, but they do find the brooch, but they suggest giving it a thorough washing.

• Romance Sidequest: Eivor can enter into romantic relationships with various citizens of Raventhorpe, usually after completing a quest or two for/with them. All romances are always available regardless of Eivor's gender, but unlike in Odyssey, you can only commit to one at a time.
• Royals Who Actually Do Something: The World Premiere trailer presents King Aelfred the Great as being on a campaign to eliminate the Vikings in order to put a stop to their vicious raids in 9th century England.
• Rule of Symbolism: The last shot of the game shows the Reader and Layla, now a being of light like him, looking for a solution to the cycle of catastrophes in the bundle of all possible timelines. Said bundle looks like a tree of light, under which a man and a woman stand.
• Running Gag: In the crossover event with Odyssey, Kassandra often jabs at Eivor for believing their seer for mistaking her with Randvi (due to their similar hairstyle). After returning from the Isle of Skye, Eivor confronts Valka and brings up Kassandra's complaints to her.
• Same Plot Sequel:
  • Not the whole game, but the sequences in the game's major cities deliberately parallel the cities in the original Assassin's Creed:
    • The port city of Lunden mirrors the port city of Acre. It features a mad doctor (The Leech vs Garnier de Naplouse) who uses the poor and infirm for their twisted experiments, a military commander (The Arrow vs William of Montferrat) who hoards food to supply their own army, and a paranoid ranger (The Compass vs Sibrand) who commands his legions from a boat in the harbor.
    • The Danish capital Jorvik parallels the Saracen capital of Damascus. There's a heretic member of a religion (The Firebrand vs Jubair al Hakim) burning sacred texts because they contain "lies" and the Order wants to control all information, a corrupt merchant (The Needle vs Tamir) who exploits the other merchants, and a fat nobleman (The Vault vs Abu'l Nuqoud) who kills people with poisoned wine at a massive party while calling them corrupt and decadent.
    • The holy city of Wincestre is similar to the holy city of Jerusalem. It has an archer (The Quill vs Talal) who lures the assassin into an ambush and flees when they escape, a judiciary (The Gallows vs Majd Addin) who is assassinated while publicly executing the innocent, and someone (The Seax vs Robert de Sablé) who uses a funeral to ambush the assassin and is revealed to be near to a king by a woman who partook in the deception.
  • The modern day plot on the other hand is similar to Assassin's Creed III, in which the modern day protagonist attempts to find a way to stop the upcoming apocalypse and finds the solution via a Precursor Temple. They are successful in saving the world but at the cost of their life and the release of an Isu from their confinement. It becomes more meaningful when there are several Continuity Nods from III throughout the game.
• Scenery Gorn: Throughout the map, there are ruins of the once-prominent Roman Empire that have been either left to rot, or have been used as foundations for new settlements and cities.
  • Yggdrasil in the modern day is bathed in a ghastly red glow, falling apart after centuries of neglect, and is steadily being taken over by nature.
  • Francia, as seen in The Siege of Paris, is typically a prime example of Real Is Brown. The colors are more dull, the land is bathed in fire and bloody remains, people are starving and dying in the streets of Paris, the place is falling apart, and rats are everywhere.
  • "Dawn of Ragnarok" has Svartelheim, once proud home of the dwarfs. Now, it's been invaded by the forces of Musphelheim and Jotunheim, and so much of it is either frozen over or on fire.
• Scenery Porn: In keeping with series tradition, the locations you visit are filled with gorgeous landscapes ranging from awe-inspiring mountains to gorgeous lakes and oceans, fully explorable and detailed, bringing the beauty of 9th Century England to life.
  • The Asgard and Jotunheim arcs are blatantly more fantastical than the main locations you visit, and as such are also filled with beautiful scenery that one could not see in reality. This includes the colossal tree Yggdrasil in the background of Asgard at all times, stretching across the sky, the Bifrost over the waters, and fantastic views over all of Asgard from atop the highest point, the Asgardian throne. Jotunheim is similarly fantastical, with lots of snow and frozen spectacles to gaze upon.
  • Yggdrasil is a massive departure from what you've seen throughout the whole game and is one of the most beautiful locations the Isu have ever built. It brings to mind a small portion of Odyssey's Atlantis.
  • "Valhalla" is filled with heavenly light and warm colors, fitting the vision of the Norse afterlife.
• Schmuck Bait: There's a sidequest where Eivor can stumble on a bard playing music for a group of Norse soldiers and trying to get them to drink some ale he set out. It is painfully apparent from the bard's dialogue and context clues that the ale is poisoned, but you still have to drink it if you want to advance the sidequest.
• Sequence Breaking:
  • While the various alliance quests have a set level that suggests the intended order, a well-equipped player can take on things earlier than intended. For example, Eivor can start the Winchester arc before dealing with Fulke, yet her death is discussed in the intro to the story arc.
  • Jötenheim is clearly meant to be tackled after the game's main quest ending in Hordalfyke due to the region in question spoiling several major plot points regarding Odin and Basim, but since the region's level is a mere 120, its entirely possible to do it well before Hordalfyke.
  • Once you return the final batch of Order medallions to Hytham, Eivor mentions the one belonging to "The Father" is among them, after which the two openly discuss his identity and motivations. The problem comes due to a bug which replicates medallions, making it possible to collect and hand over the final batch before Eivor or the player learns who "The Father" even is.
  • It is possible to complete all 10 anomalies and view the video of the true final moments of the Norse Isu even before Gunnar's forge in England gets set up.
• Sequel Hook:
  • A note found in a dungeon reveals the existence of other, non-Order zealot groups in Ireland and Francia. These are dealt with in The Wrath of the Druids (The Children of Danu) and The Siege of Paris (Bellatores Dei), respectively.
  • After being manipulated into taking Basim's place in Yggdrasil, Layla meets a being known as The Reader. Heavily implied to be Desmond Miles, they explain to Layla that they have been using Yggdrasil to find a timeline where the solar flares are stopped. Layla resolves to assist their efforts, and suggests that the answer lies in a timeline where Desmond let humanity be destroyed in 2012.
  • Now freed, Basim travels to Eivor's grave to meet the party who received his messages. Shaun & Rebecca are bewildered by Basim's arrival and Layla's disappearance, but nonetheless, agree to his request to meet William Miles. They depart the excavation site as Basim resolves to find Fenrir and the rest of his children in the modern world.
  • After completing The Last Chapter, Basim exits the Animus and uploads a sample of his blood to it. It's deemed viable and a month-long processing begins, leading into Mirage.
• Set Bonus: Every armor set provides two perks: one activates when two or more set pieces are equipped, the second once the whole set is worn.
• "Shaggy Dog" Story:
  • The Cent and Wincestre arcs, where Eivor does not make any new alliances despite their efforts. At least in Wincestre, they dispose of three Order members.
  • "Dawn of Ragnarok" has Odin trying to recover Baldr and prevent Ragnarok. Several of his allies are killed pointlessly, and it ultimately turns out Baldr has been dead a long time by the time he gets to him. And in the process of avenging his son's death, Odin inadvertantly kick-starts Ragnarok itself. Of course, if you know your Norse mythology, this isn't so much of a surprise.
• Sheathe Your Sword: Near the end of the game, Eivor has to battle Odin to escape the Valhalla simulation, Odin is invincible and when an exit from the combat arena appears, he uses his powers to pull Eivor's axe toward himself with Eivor still holding it if Eivor tries to run away. To win, you have to unequip your weapons, then run for the exit.
• Shield Bash: Eivor can equip a shield in the left hand and use it defensively and/or equip one in the right hand to use it offensively. Shields also feature prominently in some finisher animations, with Eivor grabbing the enemy's shield and slamming it over their head.
• Shoot the Medic First: In the "Dawn of Ragnarok" DLC, the Flame-Keepers can revive their fellow Muspels indefinitely, no matter how viciously they were killed. They're also much tougher than the regular Muspels, making it harder to take them out before they've done their work.
• Shown Their Work: In spite of some historical inaccuracies, the developers did stick closely to some details of various cultures in early medieval Europe.
  • The runic inscriptions seen in the game were done with input from Old Norse specialist Dr Jackson Crawford, who also worked on Frozen. Here's his video on the subject.
  • Ljufvina Bjarmarsdotter, the wife of Hjorr Halfsson, is depicted as more Asian-looking in comparison to the white Norse, which is because she's believed to be a Mongolian princess hailing from what is now Siberia, though Bjarmaland itself is believed to primarily describe the area of around what is now the southern shore of the White Sea, home to a people believed to be related to the Saami, and only sometimes the shore of the Barents Sea where the westernmost group of the Samoyedic peoples, the Nenets, have as their traditional home.
  • The Norse had some of the most extensive trade routes of the Middle Ages, stretching from Scandanavia itself to the Caspian Sea, and having connections to the Silk Road, hence the presence of Basim and Hytham from the Abbasid Caliphate through the Hidden One Bureau in Constantinople, and Reda from Egypt.
  • Lynxes could be found in Britain prior to being extirpated, though by Valhalla's time they would've been critically endangered if not outright extinct.
  • The main reason the Norse targeted monasteries is because compared to other areas they made relatively easier targets.
  • It was indeed believed by European royals that narwhal horns could protect against poisoning, as Halfdan tells Eivor when giving them a drinking horn made from a "sea unicorn" when trying to see if Faravid is disloyal.
  • Old Norse and Old English, while distinct languages, are believed to have been mostly mutually intelligible, hence why the Norse and Saxons can speak with each other without use of a translator.
  • It's a blink and you'll miss it moment, but despite the choices made with the Picts' clothing, religiously they are Christian.
  • Some modern studies of Norse mythology suggest that Tyr, not Odin, was the Top God before Odin simply became more popular. Throughout the Asgard arc Tyr often acts as the compassionate voice of reason while Odin just kind of improvises everything without regard towards bloodshed, and Tyr's reincarnation Sigurd ends up being The Chosen One with more character development, while Eivor/Odin just watches from the sidelines.
• Shrouded in Myth: The game reveals the true story behind the legend of Beowulf: Grendel's just a normal human man. A huge, mentally disabled man, strong enough to kill and toss cattle onto roofs, but still just a man. Grendel's mother, meanwhile, is just an old woman trying to defend him from hateful townsfolk. However, circumstances force Eivor to kill both of them. She's, understandably, still pretty ashamed about the whole thing, and instructs the author to make up a wild story of monsters and heroes instead of telling the simple truth. She even seems a mixture of bemused and annoyed that the author adds in a dragon, which is typical of the English in her eyes but irrelevant to the story as it is.
• Sole Survivor: A world event in Oxenefordscire has a vikingr named Sten having a funeral pyre for his raiding crew. He tells Eivor he got news that his family back home in Norway died of plague and he can't cry. They can either fight him, or with level 3 charisma allow him to finally get it all out.
• So Much for Stealth: One ability you can gain is the ability to use a heavy attack as a sneak attack on an enemy instead of the quieter Hidden Blade. This will have Eivor messily dismember the foe in a loud and attention-getting way, with the benefit of filling up all your adrenaline slots so you can then take on the other alerted enemies with ease.
• Spotting the Thread: The biggest failure of Yggdrasil and Sigurd in convincing Eivor that the Valhalla simulation is real is the presence of Eivor's father. Eivor knows for a fact that there's no possible way for Varin to be in Valhalla due to him dying a "coward", which is their first clue that they are trapped in a simulation.
• Storming the Castle: Most story arcs culminate in a large-scale assault on the regional fortress or castle. They're always messy, chaotic affairs where you have to fend off countless enemies while bashing down gates with siege rams, taking out defensive weapon emplacements, lowering drawbridges and, usually, defeat the Arc Villain at the very end.
• Stealth Sequel: To Assassin's Creed III. The modern day plot follows the aftermath of Desmond saving the world from the coronal mass ejection eight years ago. By the end of the game, Layla encounters who appears to be Desmond himself in the Gray, and together, they try to save the world by seeing what would happen if Desmond heeded Minerva's advice and let the Earth burned.
  • One can also make the case that it's one to Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag, due to the heavy focus on Sages, and the fact that this game can be shortened to "ACV".
• Super-Persistent Predator: Once an aggressive animal has aggro'd on you, it will only stop in its pursuit once you've put quite some distance between it and you. If that animal is fast enough to keep up with a horse, prepare to be chased to the end of the world unless you dismount and kill it. Lynxes in particular are virtually impossible to shake once they've singled you out as their next meal.
• Super-Strength: The Grendel, despite being nothing more than an exceptionally large human, has no problem throwing a dead cow on the roof of a shack.
• Take a Third Option: Leveling up Eivor's charisma by winning flyting duels occasionally opens up special dialogue options. They're not always beneficial, but most of the time they result in better outcomes than the regular choices, like avoiding a fight or saving you some bribe money.
• Talking in Your Sleep:
  • The world event "Stray Naps" has Eivor find a man passed out, and a letter on him saying that if he's sleeping, to bring him home to Grimsby, but if he's dead and you killed him, then you can go to hell. Eivor brings him home and while doing so, he lets out some non-sequiturs. His name is Bjarte and this is not the first time he's done so, to his wife's dismay.
  • In "The Twit Saga, Part II" while Eivor is carrying the skinnier brother out on their back, he goes into this dreaming he's got a sword that can kill a man in one nick.
• Talk to the Fist: Twice in the same conversation in the Oxenforshire arc, Eivor can reach their breaking point with Basim and Sigurd and punch them - Basim for being condescending, Sigurd for insulting Eivor's father. And Sigurd being Eivor's blood-brother doesn't mean it's pulled.
• Thematic Sequel Logo Change: The Assassin sigil consists of two axes with intertwined knotted handles to represent the game taking place during The Viking Age and its prominent use of axes.
• They Have the Scent!: A world event in Essexe has a boar named Lady Trotters do this for treasure in Epinga Forest. The first time it's just stinky socks that some bandits left lying around. The rest is all Shop Fodder, though Eivor treats her like she's digging up priceless treasure, and defends her from bandits.
• Through the Eyes of Madness: Eivor's "dreams" of Asgard and Jotunheim appear to be a blend of reality and myth - on one hand there's all kinds of fantastical elements such as dwarves, giant wolves and deer, and talking animals, yet much of what's seen has some basis on the series' lore as ancient technology and the "magic" is clearly technology. Notably, we see some of the same events (be it in previous games as in the case of Juno's message at the Well of Mimir or in the "Hidden Truth" video) without the filter of Eivor's perceptions as well, showing that what is glimpsed is similar to what actually happened, but not exact, and is colored by Eivor's preconceptions about mythological concepts.
• Throwing Your Sword Always Works:
  • Well, Throwing Other People's Swords Always Works, actually, but close enough. With the appropriate skill unlocked, Eivor can pick up any melee weapon dropped by a dead enemy and hurl it at the closest living enemy, which deals heavy damage at the very least but usually results in a One-Hit Kill if not just entirely destroying a shield.
  • Another skill allows Eivor to hurl their axe at a nearby enemy after successfully assassinating another, also for an instant kill - two dead guards for the price of one assassination. Since guards are very often encountered in pairs, this is more useful than it sounds at first.
• Thunder Hammer: Mjölnir is an obtainable weapon, complete with a lightning effect.
• Toilet Humor: Lots of it. Just to name a few examples, one world event sees a woman discourage people from entering the sewers with a massive fart; another involves a house filled with so many boxes of excrement it's actually formed a toxic gas, and who coats himself in it for strength. At least it's setting-appropriate, as both the Norse and especially the Anglo-Saxons were very fond of that type of joke.
• Tragic Monster: Grendel and his mother. In the legend, the Grendel is an evil giant and his mother is a witch, here we see the events that inspired the legend, Grendel was an exceptionally large and strong but mentally handicapped man who accidentally slew some livestock and bandits while trying to play with them and didn't even understand why Eivor was trying to kill him, his mother turns out to be an old woman Eivor met earlier trying to protect her son by pinning the blame on the bandits, Eivor ends up accidentally murdering her due to the spores in her lair causing hallucinations of her being an actual Wicked Witch and trying to avenge her son.
• Translation Convention:
  • The Old English and Old Norse spoken by the characters is translated by the Animus as mostly modern English, save for some period-accurate spellings of certain words and places for flavor (e.g. "Lunden" for London).
  • While the Roman-era Magas Codex pages are translated into English for the player/Layla's benefit, when Eivor gives them all to Hytham they mention that they couldn't understand a word of it, presumably because they were originally written in Latin. When Hytham tells Eivor about a letter from around the same time in Reda's possession and they ask him about it, Reda lampshades how the letter is written in Demotic and as a result is unreadable by Eivor, but the player/Layla themselves can read it in English.
  • Averted for the Native Americans in Vinland/Saint Brendan's Island, who speak untranslated Mohawk, which Eivor cannot understand.
• Tron Lines: Excalibur has them. Being an Isu weapon, it's hardly surprising.
• Unintentionally Unwinnable: Until 1.04 fixed it by letting players purchase fabric from Ravensthorpe after fully upgrading it, an offering altar in Eurvicscire that demands five pieces of fabric could be rendered impossible to complete if you had all quiver and ration bag upgrades, since fabric stops spawning in chests once the aforementioned upgrades are crafted.
• Unusable Enemy Equipment: The only thing you can do with enemy weapons is throw discarded ones at other enemies, provided you have the required skill. Outside of that there's no way to make use of enemy equipment at all even when it would be really helpful, like during the Vinland arc.
• Unusually Uninteresting Sight: Eivor never comments on seeing "ghosts" in the Tombs of the Fallen. Toward the end of the quest, she's told the Isu tombs have a defense mechanism that gently erases the memories of anyone who enters.
• Useless Useful Stealth: If you thought Vikings were a weird fit for a series about cloak-and-dagger plots, you might be right! Compared to previous entries, stealth is more of a gimmick than a central gameplay element. Due to the below factors, the No-Gear Level Vinland arc is actually conspicuous for approaching a true stealth level.
  • No mission ever requires you to stay undetected. Eivor also eventually becomes so overpowered that fighting every enemy in sight is almost always the simplest, quickest and most entertaining solution to any problem. Raids in particular tend to involve a huge number of enemies—it takes ages to slowly creep around assassinating guards when you could blow a horn and include your whole crew in the fun.
  • Distrust areas bring back "social stealth" from earlier games, but why bother walking slowly and avoiding patrols? The only penalty for being detected is a battle, after which the guards are too dead to stop you from exploring.
• Video Game Caring Potential: During the finale of the Lunden arc, if you choose to go with Erke's plan to flank Vicelin's forces, then on your way to the target location you'll overhear a civilian trapped in his burning house and pleading for aid. You have the option to detour from your mission and fight through some of Vicelin's soldiers to break down the civilian's barred door and escort him to safety. There's no real reward other than the civilian's thanks, and its not acknowledged afterwards, but it still feels right.
• Vikings In America: One arc involves Eivor traveling to Vinland to assassinate the fledgling Viking colony's leader. In the end Eivor returns to Vinland and lives out the rest of their life there, until Layla's crew finds their remains.
• Villain Protagonist: All over the place.
  • You play as one of the Vikings invading and colonizing England. Even though the Raven Clan are nowhere near as bad as some other clans, they still fully intend to conquer all of England, albeit mostly through alliances as opposed to subjugating people through direct warfare. Eivor even compares their quest to the Order of the Ancients when first learning about them. Furthermore, even the leader of the Order is only keeping them running to protect England and his people from the Dane invaders.
  • The Asgard arc has you play as Odin, whose Social Darwinist worldview and apparent sociopathy start showing more and more as the game goes on.
  • Loki prevails in his revenge quest against Odin. The postgame has you playing as Basim, exploring Eivor's life.
• Volcanic Veins: The Muspels in "Dawn of Ragnarok" have lava flowing through their bodies.
• Voluntary Shapeshifting: Some Jötunn enemy types can shapeshift into animals, either into various predators in the heat of combat or into herbivores for ambush purposes.
• Walking Shirtless Scene: The Pict warriors wear nothing above their waists but fur capes draping their shoulders. You can just as well make Eivor fight this way by making their armor invisible, even in snow-capped Norway.
• Wham Episode: The ending to the game's modern day section. Layla, Shaun and Rebecca discover a way to prevent the apocalypse, but the cave Layla needs to enter is too irradiated for a human to survive... without the staff from Odyssey. Layla makes her way to the machine, but using it causes her to lose consciousness, and to drop the staff. She's then tricked by Basim/Loki to take his place, after which Layla finds her only companion known as "the Reader" in the Gray - though faceless, he is voiced by Nolan North, who also voiced Desmond Miles. He tells her she'll die in under two minutes, which she accepts, and joins him in his calculations. Meanwhile, Basim is dropped from the machine, and holds onto the staff to revitalize his body... before telling the Isu within - his wife - that they succeeded. Basim then heads back to Shaun and Rebecca, manages to convince them to let him use the Animus and to meet with William Miles under the assumption that they take their fight to Abstergo and wipe them out entirely rather than waiting in the shadows; and after they leave, Basim acknowledges that he's now free to learn everything about Eivor's life and skills, and promises his wife that he'll find their children and reunite.
• Wham Line: When Ivarr reveals that he was Ceolbert's true killer, having framed Rhodri to spark war once more for revenge.
  Ivarr: Poor Ceolbert. He barely said a word.
• What the Hell Is That Accent?: Some of the NPCs in England have some bizarre accent that sounds vaguely Irish. This is most noteable with Thegn Aelfgar in the Lincolnscire arc.
• Whole-Plot Reference: The Glowecestrescire Arc to The Wicker Man. Eivor visits a small Celtic pagan enclave in an otherwise Christian Britain as they celebrate the harvest. The community's leaders use Eivor as a pawn in their plot to sacrifice a zealous Christian in the wicker man. The arc's ending is nearly identical to the film's: the victim prays to God as he burns alive in the wicker man—again, nearly identical to the film's. The ealdorman watches in silence, realizing that he's probably next.
• Wide-Open Sandbox: The playable area includes southwestern Norway, England, and part of what is now New York and New England in the form of Vinland/Saint Brendan's Island.
• Wolfpack Boss: A literal example in the case of the three wolves Hwit-Wulf, Eald-Wulf, and Niht-Wulf, legendary animals who Eivor fights at once.
• Worst Aid: When Eivor finds Ceolbert stabbed in the side but still alive in a wolf's den, they pull the dagger out before carrying him out. While Eivor notes that he's pretty close to death anyway, the dagger being removed likely kills him faster.
• You Can't Fight Fate: The Asgard and Jotunheim arcs revolve around Odin's attempts to defy this trope by finding a way to survive the looming end times, where he is prophesied to die alongside all the other Norse gods. He eventually manages to sidestep the prophecy by ensuring that their minds will one day be reborn in humans as Sages, after their original incarnations die in Ragnarök.
  • Eivor spends most of the game mulling this over after seeing a vision that implies they will somehow betray Sigurd in the future.
• You Have Researched Breathing: One of the available abilities, "Feign Death", simply involves Eivor falling over and staying there until the player does something. That said, enemies seem to check their vital signs, suggesting Eivor is doing more than just lying still. The ability's upgrade is also an example, as it gives Eivor the ability to assassinate from a prone position.
• Your Soul Is Mine!: "Dawn of Ragnarok" has Odin having to deal with a magical artifact which can drain the souls out of people it's used on. Like Baldr. The post-game conversation suggests it's the device Juno wound up sealed in.
• Young Future Famous People:
  • Aelfred's daughter Aethelflaed shows up as a child in a World Event where Eivor gets a flower for a boy trying to woo her. Years later, she will be responsible for kicking the Danes out of England.
  • Rollo also shows up in the Essex arc. He won’t become famous for a long while yet, being only 17 in the game, but as an adult he will marry a Frankish princess and settle in the north of what would be France forming the Duchy of Normandy.

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