Wrath of the Druids, the first DLC expansion for Assassin’s Creed Valhalla, is set in Ireland and features a gorgeous recreation of the island country, complete with famous natural landmarks and centuries-old villages. Is all that enough to entice some digital Vikings to leave their homes and travel to real-life Ireland? The folks on the Ireland tourism board seem to think so, and have partnered with Ubisoft to use the game in a new marketing campaign.
“[The] campaign is a fun and innovative way to bring the island of Ireland to the attention of a new audience of gamers,” said Mark Henry, Tourism Ireland’s Central Marketing Director in a press release. “We want to spike players’ curiosity about the featured locations and inspire them to come and explore them in the real world.”
Part of the campaign involves an epic commercial that contains footage of Wrath of the Druids and compares some in-game locations to real-world areas in Ireland. According to Tourism Ireland, this is the first time the board has worked with a video game company to help promote the country. And the campaign will feature a “collaboration with popular influencers” from different countries, including: Great Britain, Germany, France, and Spain.
Released last month, Wrath of the Druids is a fantastic bit of DLC for the already great Assassin’s Creed Valhalla that adds the misty island of Ireland. (Trying saying “island of Ireland” 10 times in a row.) The new DLC was the perfect excuse to come back and put even more hours into the already huge (maybe too big) Valhalla. And I’ll admit, when I was playing it last month, I started thinking about how cool it would be to get on a plane and see the country with my own eyes. So I’m not surprised that Tourism Ireland has decided to use the new DLC as part of a campaign to help showcase Ireland to more folks.
Now, this is all well and good, but I do wonder if Mr. Henry and the rest of the board have actually played the DLC expansion. Because while it features some amazing vistas and historically accurate recreations of Irish villages, it also includes werewolves and strange Isu technology left behind by an extinct race of super beings. I don’t know much about Ireland, but I don’t think any of that stuff is over there waiting for me. So if you were planning to head over there because you wanted to see a werewolf or ride a giant cat, then you might want to rethink your plans. But for everyone else, I’ll see you over there once travel restrictions have been lifted.
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