Ubisoft’s upcoming action-RPG Assassin’s Creed Valhalla is likely to be larger than Assassin’s Creed Odyssey. Assassin’s Creed Valhalla producer Julien Laferrière revealed as much in a recent interview with French YouTuber Julien Chièze.
Chièze questioned what kind of scope players could look forward to when Valhalla releases, and more specifically, what size the map would be compared to previous Assassin’s Creed titles.
Laferrière explained that the map would be a bit larger than Odyssey, although he qualified the statement by saying that he doesn’t have exact figures right now. Laferrière notes that Ubisoft has recreated an entire country in the shape of England, as well as a good part of Norway, alongside a selection of secret locations that the producer couldn’t, understandably, speak about currently.
Laferrière also says that Ubisoft is aiming for an ambitious game that will offer players “many, many hours of gameplay” in keeping with previous Assassin’s Creed titles that easily surpassed the 100-hour mark for those wanting to experience everything the games had to offer players.
The producer’s insight into the scope of the game appears to go against news that emerged last month that Ubisoft was aiming for a tighter game in terms of content as a direct response to criticism that Odyssey was too bloated with padded, repetitive content.
Malek Teffaha, Ubisoft’s communications head in the Middle East, explained as much earlier this month on Twitter. Teffaha said that Assassin’s Creed Valhalla was neither the longest or biggest game in the franchise and that Ubisoft was eager to address criticism about Odyssey. The tweet has since been deleted.
Whether this means Teffaha misjudged the size of the map or that we are indeed set to experience another 100-hour long epic full of bloated content remains to be seen. The deleted tweet does raise questions, but this isn’t necessarily a sign of bad news.
Players will undoubtedly rejoice at a large map. Still, many will wince at the prospect of another trudge across massive distances peppered with filler content to get to the next story mission marker.
The fact Ubisoft has said it will act on criticism does suggest Assassin’s Creed Valhalla should offer more engaging content. As it stands, and short of Ubisoft providing more concrete details, we’ll have to wait until the game launches sometime in late 2020 (around mid-October if multiple rumors have any substance).