Ubisoft confirms new narrative elements for Assassin’s Creed Valhalla Animus. According to the developers, these features will bring lore justifications for new gameplay possibilities, such as the ability to switch the gender of the player character. Yes, that means you can choose to play Eivor as a female. And not only that, but the Animus can also bring you the modern-day protagonist Layla into Valhalla’s historical open world.
Gender Switch Feature
As seen in Ubisoft’s Forward Conference, Assassin’s Creed Valhalla demonstrated the ability to swap Eivor’s gender from a menu. The new gameplay feature confirms that both Eivor’s male and female are canon. This feature is backed up by new lore that upgrades the abilities of Animus. This will allows the Assassin’s Creed’s characters to explore the memories of their ancestors.
Darby McDevitt explained that in Valhalla, players can go into the Animus layer of the game. There will also be an option to change the memory stream. Devitt further explained that the whole reason why players can switch Eivor’s gender back and forth is to fully embrace the often-overlooked science fiction nature of the Assassin’s Creed series.
Valhalla’s Animus
McDevitt also introduced genetic memory in the Animus. Certain choices, such as choosing Eivor’s gender or deciding certain things in the game, will seem to also change the genetic memory.
While McDevitt did not explain the story’s reason for the Animus doing this. Fans assume that this is a continuation of the idea explored in Assassin’s Creed Odyssey. You see, when you Odyssey, the Animus scans DNA found in Leonidas’ spear, finds two potential matches in siblings Kassandra and Alexios, hence giving a choice of protagonist. For Valhalla, it could be possible that the players will be dealing with a damaged DNA that cannot determine Eivor’s gender, allowing the simulation to fill in the black based on what the player chooses.
As stated earlier, the Animus also has a new ability which enables the player to bring the modern-day protagonist Laya into the simulation itself. This means that you can control her in the Anglo-Saxon open world. According to the developers, it is a new innovation to solve a problem the previous games have had.
Modern Day Gameplay
As in the previous games, the modern-day story often puts the experience to a halt. It takes the player out of whatever historical period he is and puts him into the present day, where he has different skills, affordances, and abilities. The developers described it as putting the player into a hard stop.
McDevitt further explained the game’s ability to allow Layla to explore the open world of Valhalla without the hard stop. According to him, once Layla finds Eivor, she and her handlers can pause the simulation and set up this big thing for her to deal with. Not to spoil anything, McDevitt said that it’s a big puzzle. It involves intense puzzle-solving and parkour, so Layla can acquire a bit of interesting data to close the rift. Developers said that this gives a better gaming experience.
Assassin’s Valhalla is confirmed to be launched on November 17, 2020. It will be released for Xbox One, PS4, and PC.
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