CHENNAI : The column this week is not going to start with the mandatory small talk about how the lockdown is treating you, because here we have more important things to discuss. Specifically, the exciting news in videogames last week — the official trailer release of the next Assassins Creed game ft. VALHALLA! While I am still playing Kassandra in Odyssey, struggling to make non-sociopathic choices throughout the game, the notification from Ubisoft teasing a game based in the Viking era made me drop my sword in shock. Norse mythology is to a hit videogame as sugar is to dessert.
A grounded, “historically accurate” tale of battle peppered with elements of mythos is precisely what we need in these troubled times. Not to mention, the longdisillusioned fans of AC who departed from the franchise quoting it to be “too repetitive” have suddenly had their ears perk up when the name ODIN was heard in the trailer. It is also not repetitive this time, since they have replaced the traditional Eagle with a Raven. You might think it is a technical adjustment for historical realism. I would like to believe it is the foreshadowing of a major genre change.
The historical battle undertones and British king calling for war in the trailer is a brilliant segue into my next hot suggestion for quarantine games. Age of Empires: Definitive Edition. It is a great competitive game to play with friends, if they have the patience to learn the game, and the graphic specs on their PCs to handle it. Definitive Edition brings back the 20-year-old game with a marketing strategy that relies on nostalgia. Pathfinding is improved, so now I can see my scouts rushing into the darkness and ending up slaughtered by and enemy in high definition.
Destruction is enhanced, so now we can all watch the castles we built destroyed (not just the dream ones) with a very aesthetic cloud of smoke. The game is an enhanced version of AoE II in every sense of the word, improvements clear as day, not unlike the subtle differences between iPhone 8 and the second gen SE. Leave Animal Crossing and Stardew Valley to the faint-hearted. Instead, be a ruler commanding your villagers to mine rocks, toil on farms and hunt wild boar. Take your monks on a spiritual journey of relic theft. Try to race your war elephants against your battleships. Fool your allies into helping you in an already losing battle — definitively. I rate a whole 4 out of Imperial Age for AOE Definitive Edition.