Assassin’s Creed: Valhalla preview — An England worth exploring

After my first gameplay demo of Assassin’s Creed: Valhalla, I came away nonplussed. I didn’t think that Ubisoft’s upcoming viking-themed game was bad, but it felt too similar to the franchise’s last couple of games. Last week, I got a chance to play the open world game again, this time for about 5 hours. Now I’m more impressed, and I’m noticing the ways that Valhalla stands out from Origins and Odyssey.

Assassin’s Creed: Valhalla comes out November 10 for Xbox Series X/S, Xbox One, PlayStation 4, and PC. It releases for PlayStation 5 on its launch day, November 12. For a lot of new console owners, Valhalla will be their first experience with this next batch of next-gen consoles. I played my demo through Parsec, a streaming service that enables access to remote computers (such as Ubisoft’s) from my home.