Assassin's Creed Valhalla might be taking us to fiery Muspelheim

The spiciest Norse realm

News by Imogen Beckhelling Former News Reporter

Published on May 7, 2021

Norse mythology is great. Really, what's not to like about nine magical realms all connected by a giant space tree? The open-world Viking stabbing sim Assassin's Creed Valhalla might be exploring these mythological Norse roots a bit more in the future, as a dataminer has discovered files in the game that reference the toasty realm of Muspelheim - that's the one with fire giants and lava rivers.

As reported by Eurogamer, Assassin's Creed leaker "j0nathan" found mentions of a potential Muspelheim DLC in the game's files. This info should be taken with a pinch of salt, however, as j0nathan adds that it could just be remnants of something that might never make it to the game.

Concept art for some mythical doorways, the middle one is a design for the flaming entry to Muspelheim. From this big AC Valhalla concept art gallery.

Having said that, Valhalla already lets players explore a couple other mythical realms, Jotunheim and Asgard. Early concept art for the game showed the fiery worlds of Muspelheim too. Fun fact: despite all that hot stuff, Muspelheim isn't actually the Norse depiction of hell (that's Niflheim, which is sometimes called Hel, and it's actually very cold).

As for the actual DLCs we know are on the way, the upcoming Wrath Of The Druids expansion will take Eivor to Ireland. That was supposed to come out last month, but was recently delayed to May 13th. Then later this year, Eivor will get to go on a lovely holiday to Paris too.

In her Assassin's Creed Valhalla review, Alice Bee enjoyed roaming around as Eivor, but reckons it's not the best AC game for new assassins: "It's not an easy entry point if you're new to the series, but Valhalla is a lively grab bag of all the best bits from Assassin's Creed games past. Even if that does get a bit much at times."

I enjoyed what I played of Valhalla, despite being a complete AC noob, but I did drop off of it about halfway through. That's not so much a comment on the game itself as it is my boredom with open world things, I think. But I do love a bit of Norse mythology, and all this Muspelheim talk is making me wanna take another stab at it.