Assassin's Creed Valhalla next expansion is about Norse gods (confirmed)
But will it have a giant Freya to sate Alice Bee?
Update: Yup, it's official.
Original story:Later today, Ubisoft will announce something new for Assassin's Creed Valhalla. They're not yet saying what it is but because Ubisoft either can't or won't keep a secret, leaks have sprung up. According to supposed screenshots and store info, it's an expansion named Dawn Of Ragnarok with a lot of fantasy fanciness, journeying into Norse legend with Odin and dwarves and giants and that.
According to a Reddit post, a store listing for Dawn Of Ragnarok leaked early in Chinese stores. That name has been expected after fans found achievements for it in data files. Along with screenshots (which I'll not include here, to ward off Ubisoft's lawyers), the page had a description someone ran through Google Translate:
The story takes place in the magnificent Nine Realms in the mythology of North, and here has been threatened by the invasion of the kingdom of frost and flames. The kingdom of dwarves in Wat Alheim is now falling apart; during the war, Odin's beloved son Badr was also unfortunately taken away by the immortal fire giant-Surut.
"Assassin's Creed: Valhalla"-Dawn of Ragnarok" is the most ambitious expansion pack in the history of this series: this time, Aivor must personally experience the fate of Odin, the war of the North and the destiny of the god of wisdom. The world of mythology, shouldering the urgent task of saving children, unleashing the brand-new supernatural power of the thunderbolt. After this shocking Viking legend, save your own flesh and blood before the gods are swallowed by the catastrophe.
Few wonky names and weird phrasings from the machine translation but yeah, I wouldn't be surprised if this is real. AC Odyssey took Kassandra to the Elysian Fields to meet alluringly tall goddesses like Persephone and Hekate, after all.
Supposedly the expansion is due to launch on the 10th of March, 2022. Ubisoft's official announcement will come today at 5pm (9am Pacific) so we should soon found out whether it's true or not. Given how much Ubisoft leak, yep, I expect it to be.
Talking about their plans to continue supporting Valhalla, Ubisoft recently announced that this week they're releasing a big patch—a huge patch. It's 78GB because you'll need to download the entire game again following a data restructuring, though that will bring the benefits of improved performance and taking up less drive space.
I do dread the possibility that Ubisoft might be planning NFTs, as they were with Ghost Recon Breakpoint. They quickly hid that trailer after everyone pointed out that it sucks, though I wouldn't take that to mean they changed their mind. Tech can't resist lousy NFTs.
A group of current and former Ubisoft employees, under the name ABetterUbisoft, are still calling for the company to meet their demands in the wake of allegations of widepsread sexual harrassment and discrimination. They have a public petition which has been supported by over 15,000 people. ABetterUbisoft have frequently voiced support for Activision Blizzard employees going through a similar situation, and their employee group, ABetterABK.