As November draws nearer, fans of Ubisoft’s Assassin’s Creed series are looking forward to the release of Assassin’s Creed Valhalla, the next entry in the long-running video game franchise.
More casual players and those yet to try the series will likely also be curious about Valhalla, the story of which pits the Vikings vs the Saxons in 9th century England and other places.
The company behind the game, Ubisoft, has seen some tumult as of late though: Assassin’s Creed Valhalla’s creative director Ashraf Ismail was kicked out of the company due to inappropriate behavior. This was not just an isolated incident but part of a toxic work culture at Ubisoft, as was later found out.
Assassin’s Creed Valhalla, though, remains on track for a November 10 release (making it a launch game for Microsoft’s Xbox Series X console), and looks like it could be one of the top games of the year, while also making some interesting additions and improvements to the series’ gameplay.
One thing is the fact that players will be able to switch between the male and female versions of the game’s protagonist (Eivor) during the game, as Ubisoft explained earlier this year.
But now it appears that we’ll be playing as both the male and female version of Eivor during the game by default, as was recently reported on IGN.
Upon starting a new game of Assassin’s Creed Valhalla, the default choice for new players will be “Let the Animus decide”. According to the in-game description this means that “the Animus will represent the stronger female or male memory-stream, depending on its current strength”.
So by default you’ll control the male version of Eivor during certain parts of the game, while you’ll be playing as female Eivor in other sections of Assassin’s Creed Valhalla. The “Let the Animus decide” option being the default means both characters will be canon as Ubisoft’s Derby McDevitt explained in a tweet.
It means “Let the Animus decide” is canon. And both characters will appear at various points when you choose this option. So both are canon.
— Darby McDevitt (@DarbyMcDevitt) October 13, 2020
This seems to be a way of settling the controversy that emerged with Ubisoft’s earlier game Assassin’s Creed Odyssey – most players picked the male character in the game (Alexios) instead of the female (Kassandra) when according to many Kassandra was a far better character than her sibling.
Of course, and if you’re creeped out by the automatic sex change in the game, you can still pick male or female at the start, and stick to that throughout your entire playthrough of Assassin’s Creed Valhalla.
Either way, Ubisoft’s next Assassin’s Creed game is surely one of the most eagerly anticipated video games of 2020, although it remains to be seen how well it will do this year with the likes of Cyberpunk 2077 and Ubisoft’s own Watch Dogs Legion also coming out this fall. Here’s hoping, nonetheless, that this is another great Assassin’s Creed that both fans and newcomers to the series will enjoy.
Read more: Ubisoft dispels rumor claiming Assassin’s Creed Valhalla was meant to have a female protagonist only