CHENNAI: The Far Cry 6 cinematic trailer that released a few days ago might have made its way to your social media timeline — it was dramatic. For the newbies out there, the game is about fighting and befriending a big impressive list of animals. The games otherwise do not have any other unifying narrative or common feature.
For seasoned gamers, I would describe it as a game from which Red Dead Redemption 2 took the most boring elements (one of it being realism) and made it 10x slower, but also about 2x graphically advanced. Ubisoft has been busy last week, with both of its main games fighting for public attention. The second one was more important — Assassin’s Creed Valhalla. Its predecessor, AC Odyssey, diverged from the series in a rather startling manner.
This was the absence of a hidden blade. This caused quite a stir among us one-hit kill stealth lovers. It was definite foreshadowing for Valhalla in a way — it was clear that the game wanted to uncloak the weird mystery cult narrative that it had established. But nothing could have prepared us for this drastic shift in genre. Assassin’s Creed Valhalla looks like Age of Empires: Ground edition. Or God of War – The RPG. They should seriously consider renaming it.
The focus is on combat now. We now need to strategise the weapons we use on different enemies. I protest this feature. AC was enjoyable only as long as it was mindlessly repetitive. Dual-wielding two shields, I ask you. And all I wanted was the hidden blade back.There is a new raid format in Valhalla — another surprising introduction. Basically, a group of stealthy underground Assassins moonlighting as a mercenary army. Settlement-building is added to the responsibilities of my new Viking character, and we can now go fishing.
There are too many changes — reel in the fish, not my head, Ubisoft! In truth, Ubisoft has taken a necessary leap of faith. The AC series was ahead of its time when it began, and it propelled them along with successes for long enough. While Valhalla has introduced merous new challenges (though personally contentious, is fun) — the underlying theme of the cult, stealth, and historical monument climbing will probably not change. For now.
ARE YOU GAME?
Anusha Ganapathi
@quaffle_waffle
(This economics graduate spends her leisure time preparing for the zombie apocalypse)