BENGALURU: Wrath of the Druids’ is the first expansion story to Assassin’s Creed Valhalla, and you will not be surprised to hear that I played it. I had to play it. When the game first came out, I spent a lot of time finishing side missions to acquire two very powerful weapons: Mjolnir (Thor’s hammer) and Excalibur (a powerful greatsword that proved that I am a worthy gamer).
Unfortunately, however, the weapons were obtained only AFTER the main story was complete. I had to rationalise the effort I spent in acquiring these shiny pieces of metallic perfection. I am forced to say that biding my time for the first expansion to release has been worth it. The TL;DR version of my review is as follows: It’s ore of the same, however, I love Assassin’s Creed and its grind. I would manually grind coffee beans for two hours if it meant a leap of faith was waiting for me.
The expansion is set in a new territory — Ireland. This officially brings the number of explorable regions in Valhalla to 6. This includes Norway, North America, England, Asgard and Jotunheim. As I spent even more time animal-back riding, climbing, river boating, and running in Ireland, I wondered if I had endured the pointless travelling for long enough, to finally start enjoying it. Ireland is visibly different from the territories in the other explored regions. I don’t know if I was imagining it, but it looked a lot greener, and it rained more frequently.
The commonly encountered villains in Ireland are Druids. On an annoyance scale of dogs barking in the night to mosquito buzzing in the ears, they would be closest to the mosquito. Why? First, they randomly manifest in enemy locations. Second, poison causes damage and hallucination. Third, there are random puffs of smoke mid-combat. Fourth, I wish I could stealth to avoid all of this, but complete stealth is impossible in Valhalla.
The Ireland storyline brings back the much-missed feature of old AC games pigeon coop. We all know that pigeon coop is but a metaphor for ‘side-mission generator’. But it was comforting to see them spread across the isle. Another addition to the expansion was trade posts business expansion is now a channel of securing power and currying favour with the rulers. The secondary story involves defeating the Children of Danu, aka, the Irish Order of the Ancients. Ok so I did all of this, and I am left with a feeling of emptiness. Maybe the real Pot of Gold was all the traveling we did along the way.
Anusha Ganapathi
(This economics graduate spends her leisure time preparing for the zombie apocalypse)