Assassin's Creed Valhalla
I find this game incredibly soothing for a blood-soaked decapitation festival.
It's like my version of animal crossing, but instead of tilling the cartoon soil and flirting with my cartoon neighbors, I find escapism in unrelenting Pagan violence.
The combat isn't the most complex, but there's enough variety to keep it interesting for the approx. 16 million hours of gameplay. An astounding creative choice to allow you to wield incredibly realistic hand axes and splintered wooden shields or double-fist Excalibur and Mjolnir. You can dutifully level-up your textured clan armor into regal vestments, or you can buy glowing shoes made from a god's skeleton. Phenomenal.
One thing, thing, though. I don't wanna play checkers. Or Gwent-lite, or whatever. In anything. Minigames are always obnoxious, and I am disproportionately mad at them every time. What's that? I don't *have* to do the stuff that doesn't interest me, you say? Excuse you, I'll have you know that I am neurotic and have ADHD, so don't tell me how my brain will or will not torture me during my little hobbies, thank you.
Doing all the side stuff used to be so satisfying - like scratching an itch. Uncovering all the deep lore. But now it's like game devs thought, "oh, you like scratching an itch? How about we wrap you in poison ivy and kick you down a mountain of sandpaper, you red-welted idiot."
Story-wise, this one's pretty simple. I know some folks are annoyed that it's not a more traditional AC story, but if I'm being honest, those get confusing anyway. When you spend a game tracking ancient conspiracy theories across three different civilizations in order to hunt down fascists through space-time but then stop to do some murder stuff for a few days, it's easy to lose the thread. This one has a more loosey-goosey vibe. It may not please AC purists, but it's working for me.
I do miss some of the traditional AC stuff, though, particularly tied to history. I loved getting to learn about ancient buildings and landmarks while crawling around in the older games. But Dark Ages people didn't know how to build anything, so it wouldn't make sense to get Animus updates on a field of cow shit or whatever. It must have been crazy to live in that time and still see ancient ruins, though, right? "We just figured out bridges a couple years ago, but over there are the collapsed remains of a temple that's older than our whole religion."
I'm also a big fan of the Kingsbridge novels by Ken Follet and am reading the latest one set during the Viking era, which is a big value add to the experience. That's right, you hear Vikings and think "The Northman," I hear Vikings and think, "ah, historical fiction about architecture." We're not the same.
