Historical Realism Review: Assassin's Creed Valhalla
How Historical is Assassin's Creed Valhalla? In some ways, Very! In other ways, Barely! It's a mixed bag, but that's why we're going through it to see where it succeeds and fails in depicting the history of Viking-Age England.
SOURCES & Further Reading: "The Vikings" by Walaker Nordeide and Edwards, "Vikings: A Very Short Introduction" by Richards, "Age of the Vikings" and "The Conversion of Scandinavia" by Winroth, "The Vikings" By Harl via The Great Courses, "The Viking World" by Graham-Campbell, "The Viking Way" by Price, and the generous help of our friend and medieval expert Yellow!
You can find Yellow's historical gaming livestreams over at / ludohistory
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The Vikings: Building a church. Rome: Build a church. A Christian Church. A Jesus Church. The Vikings: Who is Jesus? We just like church
*I think it's neat marge meme*
Until they became Christianised
Polytheistic cultures are pretty open to new gods. Odin, Thor, Jesus, Babayaga. No big deal, just add then to the list of notables.
Well they had faith in their economic salvation...
They eventually went Christian
So I take it that the developers read the Roman's account of how foreign and scary druidism was and were like "Well that must be 100% accurate."
Yup, and of course nothing changed in the almost a thousand years between this and that
lmao
I think they just watched Vikings the tv show and called it a day
@@MLF4468 I mean to be honest though assassin's creed well in my eyes atleast has never been about historical accuracy....you know with the golden apples and all the magic and shit they have in em 😅
What even are Celtic communities doing in a game set in 9th-Century England? Does the player go to Cornwall or Wales at some point and see them there? Any Briton communities in England would've long been absorbed into the Saxon communities by that time.
That reference at the end, “Miklagard,” is the Scandinavian name of Istanbul/Constantinople. It’s Byzantine time, baby!
was looking for this comment
Thanks! Now I don't have to go looking it up once I get up from the computer!
Good lord, how many names did this one city/region HAVE?!
Nooooooooo
@@Tustin2121 How many peoples ended up there?
At least they didn’t where helmets with horns.
Instead they didn't wear helmets.
@@TheSniperBoy not a single one, even though i never noticed it
@@Spot_Faceless-Soldier I'm able to kinda forgive it since it's literally like just your crew, but come on.
The statues of Thor all have horned helmets.... you thought you could escape, but you'd be wrong. I think there are also a few godly helms with wings, which is both better (in that it references Wagner in a more thoughtful way than horns) and worse (in that Wagner stole them from stereotypes of Roman gods).
Adding to the pop culture crimes against historical combat: No helmets. Fire arrows. Artillery shell trebuchets. Tin foil armour. Not enough spears. No formation combat. Armies keep fighting after 20% casualties. Supply chains aren't a constant big deal to raid/defend. Telegraphed over strikes. Not just starving out the town. There's more. So much more.
"So the Celts are done really, really, really dirty..." So par for the course...I can hear my brother's thesis twitching
Tbf labelling the native people of iron age Britain as 'celts' is probably doing them dirty enough.
I'm so curious what his thesis was now!
@@TheOldBlackShuckyDog i mean aren't iron age britons just scandinavians but warmer
@@magniwalterbutnotwaltermag1479 No; not at all. Iron Age Britons were a distinct collection of tribes with their own culture and shared language, and they had a lot more in common with the Gauls in France and the Gaels and Picts in Ireland and Scotland respectively, which is the reason all those groups I mentioned fall under the umbrella term "Celts". Scandinavians are a very different group entirely.
@@matthewmuir8884 ye it's mostly a joke on how in most mediums celts are just vikings but less raidy if you understand what i mean, but yes they are mostly celts and also i prefer the celtic versions of king arthur as celts are severely underrated thanks to the viking age and the christianisation, they also has far more stylish clothes and roman history like the fact that the walls were built to both keep the pycts out and the romans in
“Vikings were a multitalented bunch, shipbuilding, trading, higher risk trading.”
Extrajudicial Property Repossession.
Farming and colonizing uncharted territory, imagine vikings(the sea faring people) would have colonized america. With a less destructive belief system.
@@marocat4749 Some of them tried and got kicked out again. In practice it would have been too far away and too densely populated without a massive plague pile-on like the one that happened in the 15th century.
"Bullying, stealing and cheating"
@@Healermain15 The natives in the north were actually found to be more resistant to European diseases than In the south. Remember that by the time europeans encountered them again, it'd only been around 600 years.
If in the Ireland dlc they go there and Catholicism isn’t mentioned ONCE. That will not go over well
Considering how theyve treated Celtic peoples in the games so far that wouldn't surprise me
I mean, at that time Ireland was Celtic Christian, not Roman Catholic
@@Inucroft still far removed from the spooky stereotypical pagan shit.
@@Inucroft And? Insular Christianity wasn't administrated by druids wearing antlers, and thats probably what we're gonna get
But “Catholicism” wasn’t really a thing for another ~200 years.
Sword and Shield? This is the way. JoCrap intensifies.
the one true weapon pairing
No one-handed sword, though. . .
pretty sure spears or axes were the most common weapons because they were easier to make and had uses outside fighting, swords were mainly for the wealthy/nobility in viking culture, at least when they were still raiders. Might have changed once they got settled down in England and started trading more frequently.
@@Jasta85 HERETIC!
There are no one-handed swords in the game (not counting the ones weilded by enemies, which are inexplicably absent from what is available to the player). I almost threw my controller at the wall when I discovered that.
"the aim is to make you feel like what it's like to be a Viking" goes on to show you literally what it'S NOT like to be a Viking
That's the thing about stereotypes and cultural generalizations... often the ideas we have in our heads about something aren't accurate at all. But because it would "feel" wrong to show something more accurate, media gives us more of that stereotype.
Well there is a keyword there, 'Feel'
@@Benjinator12 it's the unfortunate popculture idea of "do what sells", and the more you do it, the more people think it must be the only true and genuine way of doing it.
It's actually pretty on point on what it's like to be a Viking. Considering the word Viking was a word specifically used for the raiders; not for just any Scandinavian.
seems like a lot of the problems with the "Vikings" TV show were just copy pasted
True
Yeah, pretty much...
Isn't it weird that both AC and the History Channel can produce somewhat authentic content for most periods and cultures, but as soon as it's vikings they just go full blown fantasy? "No one would like to see REAL vikings..."
In Vikings' defense it was explicitly based on the Sagas instead of history. In the offense against it it's not very accurate to the Sagas either.
@@98olober I think a large part of that is the huge gaps in knowledge we have for Vikings. We don't know actual rituals or beliefs for the most part, many figures have dubious historiosity, most records of the era are family sagas written down centuries later by Christians, and other records from outside sources are probably exaggerated to stoke fear of Viking raiders in people. It doesn't help that Scandinavia, after Christianization, still developed a bunch of really cool cultural things that later became associated with Vikings because of a revival in interest in them in the 1800s (which, by the way, didn't help with the whole "knowing what happened" thing because a lot of sources just went ignored for like hundreds of years). Combine all that will a desire to make the Vikings as cool as possible (see also pirates and cowboys) whenever there is a gap or based on solitary incidents, and boom. You get the modern conception of Vikings.
Wait, they were attacking monasteries? I thought they just showed up at burning monasteries just in time to rescue all the art and valuables
Yes, your honour - you are right. My clients got attracted by the smoke and decided to have a look - someone might be in need of help. And, as you say, my clients partook in securing art and valuables from the fire. And, we regret to say, some of the panicked citizens must have impaled themselved on some of my client's weapons while trying to escape the fire, Sir. How often did my clients find themselves in that situation? Oh, about 30 times, I think. I cannot understand why you find that hard to believe, your honour ...
“Rescue”
@@haraldschuster3067 Saul Goodman has done it again
I figured this game would be playing historically fast and loose for the aesthetic when you go north of Fornburg to Valka's hut and her "hut" is a full-blown magnificent pre-Christian stave church, somehow all by itself way up in the mountains in the 9th century! Wrong place, wrong time, wrong religion! Beautiful and ridiculous, and above all not! a! HUT! And just moments earlier I'd recognized a raven design on a shield in Fornburg as being from an actual coin from Óláfr Sigtryggsson's reign in Jórvík... what historical accuracy whiplash...
That's the general rule with big money corporate "art", isn't it? There's always at least a few people on the team who do the research and want to stay true to the source... and then on the other hand you've got the marketing department and the executives. The latter group has all the authority, so the former only get to show off their historical accuracy in the small details. I'm 90% certain that the reason the Celts look like spooky druids, is that some guy from marketing had a chart showing how much money Witcher 3 made.
@@Tleilaxu0 "Guys, spooky pagan shit SELLS!! Make it spooky and pagan! With animal skulls! And blood shroom magic juice!" Tom from Marketing, probably.
@@Tleilaxu0 The irony there would be that Witcher 3, despite being completely fantasy, actually handled the Celts better than Ubisoft did, as Skellige is loosely based on the Norse-Gaels (Gaelic clans in Ireland and Scotland that had mixed with Norse settlers and incorporated aspects of their culture).
@@matthewmuir8884 You wrote this comment before the DLC even fucking came out. The Irish DLC depicted Norse-Gaels and most Irish are Catholic
So Ireland, at this point (iirc) already well into its reputation as the Isle of Saints and Scholars, with beautiful manuscripts such as the Book of Kells, a rich fusion of the Christian with the pre-Christian, is set to be depicted as a dark, mysterious, 'savage' land... Brigid help us.
That DLC will be a shitshow. Can't wait!
@@budakbaongsiah And it wasn't. It was super restrained. Most Irish were Catholic, and they included Norse-Gaels, a very overlooked ethnic group
it was actually very decent
Blue: Who build a church in Asgard??? Odin: You know that I know a lot.... what you don''t know is, that I'm a *huge* nerd for architecture!
that sounds like the odin i know and love lol
Thor: "So Odin, I was stealing from this church and it felt incomplete. So anyways, I stole the whole church." Odin: "👉👉Atta boy!"
@@anoninunen Heimdol: Thor come back here i told yo- Odin: no i found this a worthy use of the Bifrost Heimdol: as you say lord odin
Odin: "I do have an eye for style."
Ok I really like the choice of London being a bunch of abandoned Roman ruins, thats pretty neat
Yea that’s really cool
And pretty accurate, too! WHY couldn't they have been that accurate in the rest of the game??
Quick question tho. Was the rest of England like that as well? I've covered two pledge missions so far and literally every building i see besides some of the monasteries are in total ruin. Was that what the landscape of Britain was like at the time? Sorry its hard for me to wrap my head around if it is accurate😂 When learning about Northumbria, Mercia, Wessex and East Anglia this j isnt what i had pictured
@@AD-mp6wl Pretty much. Not a whole lot of grand architecture in this period, most Saxon structures were thatched roof houses and a few big churches.
@@domusavires19 aite thx
Blue : mentions "Stave church" Me who spends way to much time in Civ 6 : I KNOW THAT! I KNOW WHAT THAT IS!
Finally, someone else sees Norway as a viable civ
@@pyroshrimp4073 Norway's not just viable, it's almost broken. Just remember: ABP. Always Be Pillaging.
I see you are a fan of Civilization 6
@@sunaseni the higher the difficulty the better the norway
My church burned down in 1992 by arson. Something going on?
“The real heart of Wessex was Winchester” Considering recent events that has its own connotations
HELP!!! Everybody at my school cyberbullies me because they say my videos are extremely BAD!!! Please help me, dear baron
I’m not up to date on British events, mind telling me what you mean?
@@klausoshaunacey8429 Supernatural series finale, nothing to do with British politics Sorry for the confusion!
@@AxxLAfriku Tell them to knock it off
@@macoy3943 ohhhhh okay. I thought there was just more British drama I didn’t notice thanks to the American drama going on
As a Norse historian who's into video games, I've been asked repeatedly by friends why my interest in this game has been so low. Thanks for providing a video I can just point people to instead of going on another hour long rant.
This.
That's because you don't play videogames, this game fares way better than so many historical games out there. Ghost of Tsushima is nonsense for example.
He said he is into video games though. Just because he isn't interested into Valhalla, a game that portrays the history it presents terribly, doesn't mean he isn't into video games. That's absurd.
Me three, except I consulted on the script for this video and will be livestreaming a full playthrough starting next month, so I've committed to another 100 hours of rant...
@@MrHerecomesjohnny I have no idea how you came to that conclusion.
My response to "yes, that is Excalibur" is just a quiet, distraught no.
Did you really think they *weren't* going to make it a PoE?
@@Archgeek0 Wasn't it already the PoE in AC: Unity?
considering its AC it would be stupid to not have excalibur as a PoE it makes in this context. jist as thors hammer and odin's spear are also PoE.
I actually thought it was the only truly cool historical innacuracy. All else is kinda stupid, but this has no chance of people actually thinking the Norse found Excalibur and doesn't harm any group of people, so it's just harmless fun. The thing about the celtic people is really disgusting though...
Yeah, Excalibur's presence didn't bug me since it's a PoE.
Scanendavians: "Ah, a new unclaimed land for us to settle and make a home for ourselves." Anglo-saxons: "um... w-we were here fir-" *throwing axe to the face* Galics: *outside in the rain looking longingly at this scene through the window*
Lol love this
The pre-celts: Rolling in their graves.
So... on a scale of 1 to Carthage, how much salt do we need to take with this game?
About half a carthage
@@pyroshrimp4073 nah m8 we bringin the whole town
Well... if you take about one carthage, and then you add what you'd get if you desalzinated the dead sea.... That would get you about half way.
2 Carthages I'd say.
@Hatwox Rome Salted Carthage to kill the soil as a symbolic 'Fuck You' after the final Punic War
One thing that personally bothered me about the raids - the game "desynchroises" you if you harm any civilians during them. Which is ludicrous, considering vikings' main targets - water-adjacent monasteries and villages - were chock-full of civilians and didn't have a lot of protection. So Valhalla using AC's classic "this is not what this character would have done" immersion breaker mechanic on a VIKING who's pillaging a monastery is tone-deaf at best, and whitewashing at worst.
reminds me of the Neverland Pirates meme: A good pirate never takes another person's property
Whitewashing ? How.
@@arhamshahid5015 In the sense of "making things look nicer than they were," not in the sense of "putting white folks everywhere they shouldn't be."
@@arhamshahid5015 Basically, a big reason for why vikings in particular had a pretty bad reputation was their preference for "soft" targets, i.e. monasteries, churches and villages. Places that didn't have a lot of guards, but a lot of squishy civilians - civilians who either ended up dead or enslaved as a result of those raids. So the game PENALISING you for harming civilians (even by accident), while you're sacking their homes and stealing all their valuables is... kinda ridiculous
Yeah, and I'm pretty sure that in previous AC games, you totally could've just walk around killing civis. At the very least, I remember doing that in the PSP AC. Is there any reason to do that? No. Does it harm you? Probably. But the game never stops you from doing so.
Blue presents: The roasting of Assassins Creed Valhalla
Blue presents: Ranthalla, Blue ed.
My dad wrote some parts for Valhalla, and he's literally seen osps viking video, but I'm not sure what he wrote
@@maddiepaddy2608 hopefully none of the bad shit and it was instead out of his control.
@@bleedingmasque.6193 I asked him about it and he said there wasn't much he could do
@@maddiepaddy2608 ok, bra nok
The forgot one handed swords and just gave us greatswords! Great swords!
That is genuinely one of my biggest grievances, that and giant stone Keeps or Castles.
@@TheSniperBoy At the beginning I thought they may have been Roman fortresses
What's more upsetting is that they aren't even proper greatswords! They're just really long really thicc longswords
@@LoganSearles there's a fucking Norman tower in the video. That is very not Roman.
I love a good greatsword, For Gorum and all, but come on man. This is Vikings. Good luck getting a blade that long outside of Jotunheim I mean goodness me.
Okay but I must ask. Are y'all gonna talk about Hades the game?
That definitely sounds like something in Red's territory for sure!
@@amberdawn868 I agree! It's in line with their current content. I'd even watch them play it if they did
This should've taken place with a Viking joining the Varangian Guard in Byzantine and the surrounding region. They could have easily made a the protagonist an assassin for the Emperor at the time and gone around the region doing his bidding and other missions. Missed opportunity in my opinion. Hopefully it'll become some DLC later or a sequel
You put what made vikings so terrifying quite well: It was not their skill in a fair fight, but their skill at picking unfair fights.
Historians: Please God, I just want a *historically accurate setting in fiction about the Vikings.* Ubisoft: 🎵AC Valhalla🎵 Historians: NOOOO!!!
Yes, this is a "The Guy Who Didn't Like Musicals" reference.
You should read some of the shit their historical consultant said about Vikings in interviews. Makes you wonder where they found him.
1:10 you can almost hear Blue's disdain for England in his voice
Can you blame him? I mean all of England's neighbouring countries directly or indirectly reference beating England in their anthems they were, to one extant or annother, the colonial big bad for like 500 years on and of
@@994mkt I'm English and I don't blame them and the original version of God save the Queen it has a verse about rebellious Scots to crush
Yeah, Blue has a huge hate boner for England, so you need to take what he says about it with a grain of salt
I think you're hearing something that isn't there.
@Ulises Leon Richard was the crusading king, and all the wars with France where thinly veiled attempts to nick bits of their country I'm not saying it's full blown imperium but it's at least imperumish The earlier stuff that you mentioned was a fascinating cultural mixing pot but wasn't really ENGLAND. Please don't get me wrong I think the whole history of our Isles is fascinating, but you can't deny, from a lot of perspectives the English were the baddies
I'm 40 hours in and I honestly had no idea the "bandit" groups were supposed to be celts. Most of the eye tattoos appear to actually be paint though from what I can tell. I don't have all of them so I can't say there aren't any proper tattoos, but most of the ones I've seen look like mud with a blue-grey dye.
Some of the bandit groups are Early English, but you can go into the Welsh Marches on the edge of the game map and they're Britons over there. And yes, the eyeliner appears to be some kind of toned-down woad paint (which is still not historically attested and is very Braveheart-feeling).
@@Ludohistory It's also the wrong group; woad paint, if it was used, was used by the Picts up in Scotland.
@@matthewmuir8884 that was what I implied with the Braveheart reference, but yes, you are right :)
I'm still trying to find out where this game and the show "Vikings" got this idea that Norse people back then all sported Side-Shave hair cuts. Is there an actual academic basis for this trend? If so, I'd genuinely love to see it. And if there isn't, just why did the creators of these properties decide to do this?
That really puzzles me as well... like, where did that hairstyle come from?
In the Vikings TV series Ragnar Lothbrok's hair was invented on the spot when the actor showed up with shorter hair than expected. However the depiction of vikings with side-shave must be a bit older than that, I have a book from the early 2000s about Viking Age Sweden, 'Folket i Birka', where a background character has such a hairstyle. It could be a historical style (the book was co-written by an archaeologist), or it could be the illustrator Sven Nordqvist making it up/taking inspiration from some other depiction
@@jaojao1768 Thanks for this! I might have to track this book down, or email the creators. Hopefully they won't be too annoyed about an american questioning them on a 20+ year old work of theirs, lol!
@@EsShinkai02 glad I could help, would be interesting to hear of your results!
The Welsh Viking did an excellent video about viking media costuming throughout the years, I don't remember if the hairstyles were dated, but a LOT of stuff was. I recommend it : )
Britons wearing skulls and pelts... The Britons and Gaels were Christian before the Anglo-Saxons. St Piran's Oratory in Cornwall (One of the oldest Christian sites in Britain) was built in the C6th century while the Anglo-Saxons were still converting into the 7th century.
And some Romano-Britons were converting in 3rd century.
Yeah wearing skulls and pelts is ridiculous, but Christian is a pretty loose term when it came to Ireland and the rest of the Irish Sea lands back then
Insular and Celtic Christianity, while different to Catholicism, was not a far cry from other converted peoples interpretation of the scripts even the Roman (East and West) Church had schisms and debates on the true interpretation of the faith. The main concessions made by the Catholic Missionaries to the Irish to convert them was the adopting of some of their Gods as Saints such as Brigid and retaining some Gael and Briton traditions such as certain season-based festivals, Celtic style rites and river sword/tool offerings. These were done in the name of God rather than their Pagan Gods.
Wonder if the vikings will be allowed to be in Scandinavia or heck even Russia, why does England gotta be the focus all the time
The British Empire. That's why everyone has to give a fuck about em
Because that's where Ragnar was so that's where it has to be.
Russia would be awesome
Russia would be so much cooler.
Because the largest markets for these games are the United States, Canada, the UK and Australia. Therefore the main consideration is to make games that are most palatable to those markets. It's that simple. I wonder how accurate the siege of Paris will be, given that Ubisoft is technically a French company based in Paris.
I think my biggest disappointment is hearing how they treat ancient religions in the game. I'm all for having fun with religious mythology! But using old religions as spooky murder cults has long gone out of style.
they're not. The evil seers you meet are daughters of a king that turned mad, other seers are just npc's in huts giving remedies.
@@MrHerecomesjohnny 1) the first DLC is you going to Ireland to fight a spooky murder cult of Druids. 2) Valka is stupidly hypersexualized, which is a can of worms in its own right. 3) The game does a bad job representing belief - "npc in hut giving remedies" has strong flavors of being crude and/or ineffective, especially opposed to our literally-true gives-access-to-the-Isu hallucinogen-inspired visions given by Valka. This isn't a problem unique to AC:V - games struggle to translate religious cultural context in a way that a 21st-century, largely-secular player can buy into, but it is still a problem.
@@Ludohistory the dlc for irelabd isn't out yet, you're saying this from promo pics so ican't even argue anything about it.
@@Ludohistory towards your third point yes, a lot of archaic homeopathy is indeed ineffective.
@@Ludohistory you consulted for this video and your first go to argument was about dlc you never played? what? and making some weird point about valka being problematic because she's not an old lady, even though she does not act in any sallacious manner (meanwhile a seer boss is fighting eivor barechested and without a care in the world but since she's not wearing a skull valka is the problematic one?) I haven't gotten any slutty demeabor from valka, this sounds a little contrived and to be honest... complexed. This ride is getting too weird for me, I'm stepping off.
Media will do anything to not show accurate Viking costumes huh? “No they didn’t have horned helmets” “Okay, now they wear no helmets” “Wait-“
i remember as a child i did not understand what bce meant and thought that the amount of coverage from viking helmets decreased over time after seeing a visual
Best part of AC Valhalla: It's given historytube an excuse to talk about Danelaw, viking settlements, tactics, etc.
You guys explain history better than my teachers
I'm, shockingly, most disappointed in the stereotypical celtic depiction. I wasnt even expecting anything from them and they still disappointed me
Same. The Celts being done dirty is both completely out-of-left-field and also *entirely unsurprising* so... >:(
I kinda lost it when the Picts were depicted (heh) as very barely clothed IN THE SNOW.
Fr they shouldnt even be in the game
What's worse is the obviously fake "celts" in the comments of the youtibe videos praising it when they should know full well it's HORRIBLY WRONG, a couple irish youtubers with scandinavian blood prefer to talk about the viking part not the celtic one because of hopefully obvious reasons
Seems to me, someone in the devs are fanboying too much with Vikings (History Channel series) aesthetic.
100%
Thats exactly it
YES! Having giggled my way through @TheWelshViking's historical (in)accuracy review of the Vikings TV series, seeing the game character aesthetics portrayed in this video feels like a weird flashback to that 🤭 Especially the bizarre makeup & hair choices!
So in historical accuracy, it is the worst AC...
By a long shot
In more ways than that
That's really depressing to me. This used to be the one series we could rely on to do historical periods right, with AAA presentation. Also, this means that Ubisoft has basically become the parody of themselves that was Abstergo in AC4 and Rogue. :-(
Am I reevaluating ac3? Anyway for me the last "good" ac was brotherhood. From revelation until now I saw the decline, but it was always accurate at least in the setting... But now...
@@jasonblalock4429 The comparison between Ubisoft and Abstergo is brilliant! Nice!
SKÖLL Also, this game makes Skyrim have a slightly more accurate depiction of Viking aesthetics.
Just imagining the Fae coming out in full Daedric gear
No one like this comment anymore
This game IS the Skyrim depiction of Viking aesthetics
Nope, Sykrim was wrong in the opposite direction: Norse men were fond of grooming, they didn't look like gruff filthy dudes that wear rags and don't give a fuck
@@MrHerecomesjohnny nor did they look like Hells Angels bikers.
Red can you do a video on the Slavic gods? They aren't that well known by people. People only know about Baba Yaga. They may no Chernebog from american gods or play Smith. I would love for you to do a video on the god Veles and Perun.
Baba yaga isnt a god, just someone with a jumping house
@@pyroshrimp4073 yeah ik but she is part of the mythology
Still isn't right to call her a god, by that logic Medusa from greek mythology was a god.
Not sure about Slavic beliefs in gods at all, but I know there's a tonne of cool mythology in Slavic and balkan countries, like vampires for example
Well... If anyone is a Fire Emblem fan; Veles is technically known. The dragon Velezark is a dragon connected to dragons of other FE games Medeus (earth), Idunn (darkness), Anankos (water), Grima (magic and underworld) and what is Veles oh yeah a god of magic, earth, underworld, and water!
"We shoved all of the medieval British stereotypes into a base building RPG, enjoy!" -Ubisoft, probably
I asked my dad who works for ubisoft and he said yeah
Given that there wasn't a "British" until the 18th Century...
@@georgeprchal3924 I know, I was just using the term "British" to refer to the groups that lived in the British isles that Blue covered in this video.
@@AR-ql4tj Who are the Britons? Why, we all are, we're all Britons! And I am your king! I didn't vote for you! Silly peasant, you don't vote for kings!
It's not an RPG.
You know what really bugged me? The character exploration scetches, done during early development, are on point. They have a lot of personality and still convey the time period quite nicely. And then they just said f*ck it and went down the Marvel Thor- vikings tv-show - heavy metal route instead. Like you said, literally every culture portrayed is done dirty like that... I mean, Yanli's whole personality is that she likes spicy food. Because she's asian. Like, seriously? There is no nuance to anything.
woah I’m early! R&B YALL ARE SOME OF THE MOST DEDICATED TUBERS AND WHY I STAY MOTIVATED IN ONLINE HISTORY COURSES
So we're getting our Skyrim Reachman DLC? Neat
There's an actual one with ESO: Markarth. Better than this fantasy that pretends to be historically accurate.
@@Nephritesword I know. I love it. I just wish it wasn't so buggy.
@@nobleboivin8282 Buggy? Whatever do you mean? *fails to get achievement or quest completion after killing world boss, then falls through the ground*
@@redwitch12 That and entire skill lines breaking lol *RIP LYCANTHROPY*
@@nobleboivin8282 My werewolf went from a snowy-white murder machine with two dire wolf backup singers to being a very lonely murder machine that desperately needed a trip to the groomers' for a good bath :(
I think the majority of Blue's comments concerning the lack of accuracy and authenticity of the game can be described as "SPARTAN TRIREME".
Being from iceland and seeing all these names like lost drengr or örlög in games gives me this small boost of happiness.
Does the game actually show orlog played accurately?
I’m so very glad I’m not the only one who had a lot of mythological, historical, and regular issues with this game.
then don't play games. I'm really sorry, but the harsh truth is this: don't play games and don't watch movies if you're going to have issues. If Assassin's Creed is bad, you're just going to cringe at the rest.
@@MrHerecomesjohnny see, it’s not that I have this issue with all of them. It’s that this game in particular is a bad offender. I could at least deal with odyssey’s representation of the myths, but this one has too much to simply ignore.
@@grapesofwrath4862 Then good god, i hope you never play AC1
@@MrHerecomesjohnny I honestly don’t think I could even get my hands on a copy
@@MrHerecomesjohnny no piece of media is free of criticism, especially those that claim some form of realism and fail miserably to do, added on the stereotyping of cultures is outdated and dangerous no matter the media outlet.
With about 20 hours into the game I thoroughly agree. It almost has the same problem as The Last Kingdom for me. The events are portrayed fairly accurately and people are usually in the places they’re supposed to be at any given time, but a lot of the actions taken are made to fit with the popular notion of Saxon, Celtic, and Scandinavian cultures at the time as opposed to the historical consensus.
Ugh... this is even worse than I thought. It looks like the Skalige Islands and their inhabitants, loosely inspired by the Norse and Norse-Gaelic culture, are more "historically accurate", despite being from an honest fantasy game. That part about the representation of the Celts was especially sad. BTW I would love to see you doing a similar review of the anime Vinland Saga.
Now i love Vinland to death, but it has people dual wielding dane axes, machine gun crossbows and stuff like that.
I would not be surprised if the skellige islands were actually more accurate than Valhalla...
@@noukan42 Yeah absolutely, there's definitely an exaggeration of the physical abilities of many characters to a super-human level, which also affects tactics and so one but it seems to me to be in a way "in the spirit of the Sagas". I think that the overall historical background and the material culture is pretty well researched and presented. Regarding Hild's crossbow, I recall reading some note from Makoto Yukimura, acknowledging how out-of-place it is. That it's a weird hybrid of the European crossbows from a slightly later period with the Chinese repeating crossbow, that maybe (with a little stretch of the imagination) could be created as a unique weapon by an absolutely genius tinker. Describing how while designing it, he suddenly realized that they didn't have springs in the 11th century Europe and that Hild inventing and somehow managing to make them would be a bit too much (even with ensiling other craftsmen to help her realize her crazy designs, as she does). Something tales me that he put much more thought in it than the creators of AC in most of their wacky stuff. ;) There are two random, very minor, completely unrealistic elements in the 'Baltic Sea War' arc - Vagn's entire getup and that one weird creature that Thorkell fights.
@@noukan42 The only one I remember duel wielding axes is Thorkell, and he’s supposed to be an unstoppable almost mythical giant of a man, so I forgive it. There is no “machine gun crossbow”, what you’re thinking of is a crossbow with some kind of reloading lever that the character who wields it made to make it easier for her to reload.
Skellige had a fucking palace what are you talking about?
I feel like Ubisoft wanted to do more with "For Honor" but the game didn't do as well as they hoped so they just decided to take their ideas & put them into an Assassin's Creed (one of their more profitable properties) game
At least the Vikings didn't have horned helmets, even Dreamworks got that wrong. I also like the hammer amulets. That's a Thor reference that is historically accurate.
I'm actually suprised Blue didn't mention that, that's already a big step in the right direction though I do agree the always tattooed and furred-covered does get old/weird XD.
Blue : mentions "Stave church" Me who spends way to much time in Civ 6 : I KNOW THAT! I KNOW WHAT THAT IS!
Honestly I think giving credit for not having horned helmets is an extremely low bar. Maybe if this was the 90s or 2000s
The historical accuracy was there, just in general it was the bigger more flashy things that got swept up in pop culture that was effected.
They overcompensated though, because It seems NO viking in this game wears a helmet. Even when in an open battle! :D
In the south of England near Portsmouth there’s a big Roman palace called “Roman fishbourne palace” and I tried to find it in the game but it’s not there, proper pissed me off
Hey I’ve been watching for a while now and today as a review before our Inca and mayan test he played one of your videos and under my mask I was smiling so big and I wanted to scream like yes!
I was hoping that this game would star Ahmad ibn-Fadlan as the main character, exploring the Viking World, augmenting it with the story from 1, and even throw a reference to Eaters of the Dead/the 13th Warrior
Assassin's Creed Valhalla looks like the kind of D&D campaign that one friend who's _way_ too into MMA would DM. Goddamn... I swear all the characters in the game look like they would throw a fit if you made fun of their beard.
To be fair, as far as I'm aware that last bit possibly isn't far off. Personal attacks were serious business in the folklore and so was personal grooming in the history (though I'm no expert). Flyting someone's face-fur might well be a recipe for a fight, or at least a poetic put-down. But, otherwise, correct on all counts.
Well, that would at least be historically accurate. The Norse were very proud of their hair and beard styling.
Played AC for years. This one is ok. Not the best, not the worst. I’ve always looked at the series as saying “what if the history isn’t what history says it was” kind of thing so taking liberties with history hasn’t bothered me. Thiiiis one pushes the envelope though. Couriously, playing this has had the side effect of making me actually find and read actual history to see what really happened, which is rather cool. Love your analysis of it!
I have the same mindset of yours. I think this video is just a warning.
My history assigned the miscellaneous myths as additional viewing material for our module this month of ancient religion and mythology. You guys have some great stuff!!
Just a quick point about those stave "Churches", I do believe there is evidence that suggests that they were modeled or possibly converted from norse temples, so I feel that they make sense.
That was a theory that gained popularity in the mid-20th century, but there is no archeological evidence to support this. All stave church remains have date to well into the christian period.
Just a theory, the Christians burned all the Norse temples.
@@NordisktLejon They did not, in fact, do that. We have found plenty of foundations for temple-sites that weren't burned all across Scandinavia.
I would believe this if they didn't directly call them churches.
I'm surprised you didn't mention the lack of one handed swords for the player, yet all the guards seem to have one.
Siege of Paris fixes that, and has both Scandinavian and standard European style swords
Let's be honest, the game was only called 'Valhalla' because 'Ragnarok' was already taken.
Assassin’s Creed: Ragnarok just sounds weird.
"Ragnarok" was the prophesied End Times. Why the heck would "End Times" be associated with "settling new territory"?
@@GhostlyShadow45 That was the code name for the game when for when the game was in development.
@@kimarous if they put it in the 10th or 11th century before Hastings, it would make sense, because the last English Viking king died being the reason Edward, son of Æthelred the Unready, was called back from exile in Normandy and Hardrata's death years later was basically the end of the Viking era in England.
Calling it Valhalla is such a cliche name. Could they not have come up with something more creative?
I really love these historical realism reviews, would be great to see some of them for other games!
I'd say this is a good general take on the game and the associated history, and the note about how this makes people believe it because it feels real reminds me of the problems with Braveheart's historical accuracy
This game is really fun and glad to see you guys like the series too. Nice to see more from you guys, osp
Imagine, you and your blood thirsty viking pals land in Ireland expecting mystic druids performing dark rituals, and instead you find The Book of Kells.
I'd be a very happy viking, the Book of Kells has fascinating art
Oh cool, I love that movie!
Always really enjoy these little historical analyses! I definitely see what you mean by them trying to stuff the game with a lot of Viking/Medieval Britain imagery, so it sucks that historical accuracy isn't as great. But, I won't lie that I'm enjoying it so far.
Eh, it's honestly par for the course. Too busy covering up abuse of their staff by their execs to actually consider historical accuracy. The abuse of their staff has pretty much turned me off of ubisoft games or even really consume media about ubisoft products.
Why has it taken me this long to notice that Red and Blue’s avatars have 4 fingers?
Cartoon characters in the West tend to have only 4 fingers only.
They also mention a Norwegian town called Stavanger in the beginning but the city wasn’t founded until 1225
Thanks for this review, I had a feeling this type of thing was going to be the case given how they advertised it and the vikings being the good guys in a situation where they were the raiders.
I have a huge exam assignment where i have to write 20 pages long document, were we had to choose a subject, i choose "is ac valhalla historic correct, and if not, why" this video helped me a lot, thanks for the awesome video like and subcribed
As I'm Irish and have often lived near old monasteries that were built in the time the game is set watching you play the game recently was jarring and kind of sullied my wish to play it. I can understand not wanting to deal with the terrible reality of what happened during viking raids. But if that is the case don't set it during those times. Ireland is dotted with round towers that were specifically built in order to protect the people during a viking raid with elevated entries that couldn't be gotten to without a ladder and that ladder was pulled up when the people were inside. Generally leaving the valuables outside so the vikings could take the gold they wanted and leave the people behind. There wasn't any fighting them, I don't even think it was considered an option in many places. Raids were successful because they were fast, unpredictable and terrifying. But eventually the raiders settled in Ireland and now a lot of our largest cities and towns have at least some roots from viking times and now most people in Ireland have viking heritage. I think I would have preferred to have seen them in a post initial settlement stage and some of the later conflicts, when it was essentially kingdoms vs kingdoms not raiders vs people. It would remove a lot of the icky and yeah cultural insensitivity. Maybe have one of those flashback combats to a raid if you want to include it. But tread lightly. While I'm not the biggest AC fan I've played a good few of them and enjoyed their concepts. But I doubt I'll get this one... my fiancé might though. (Also the power level feels super gamey and weird... don't know how I square with that - I know it's in other games too)
I see hills in east anglia, that is impossible.
Yeh, it be flat asf here lmao
east anglia is super flat in the game
Haha funny man. We have hills. Just, not very big ones. If anything it looks too flat in the game, from what I've seen.
@@PiousMoltar lived here all my life, my Asda is taller.
Now, in the TV show Vikings, when they settle East Anglia... yeah WAY too hilly.
Ubisoft: We want vikings, but we only want to implement the boring realistic part, and completely overhaul actually interesting history for an eye-rollingly annoying and inaccurate one.
The RPG implementation was a blessing and a curse
There were isu aliens in AC1 it's not a documentary series
@@labradude That's a false dichotomy and you know it. It doesn't have to be a documentary to get facts right. And the Isu never appeared in AC1, you only got to see the Apple of Eden used at the very end. The early games knew to keep the scifi nonsense in the background, to actually enhance the otherwise very well done historical settings.
@@felixhaggblom7562 I think it's more the older games used the Sci-fi stuff to further the modern day story. Like everything that happened that was sci-fi was specifically for the Modern day and for Desmond's eyes but since Ubisoft doesn't care for the modern day story anymore all the sci-fi stuff is stuck in the past stories and doesn't even really further the modern day anymore. I think that's one of the issues I have story wise with the newer games. They forget that the past parts are supposed to be Historical somewhat fiction stories but the modern day stuff is supposed to be the Sci-fi stuff.
@@labradude The Isu aren't magical alien creatures they are just a scientifically advanced race that came before the humans. Everything the isu do are grounded in science and isn't just pulled from there asses.
No matter how many years pass, Mount & Blade Viking conquest will be the best Viking experience in gaming until someone cares about combining history and fun again
Can I recommend the manga and anime Vinland Saga in terms of piece of fiction focused on Vikings ? Not only is it a good story with good characters and good themes but, as far as I can tell and know, it manages to be one of the most faithful representations of Vikings in modern media. The author might be Japanese but he's been to Iceland for research and has clearly accomplished a lot of work for his story to be coherent. Now, it does diverge a bit from historical facts concerning certain characters that have actually existed but since we don't have that many details about their lives, it feels more like Vinland Saga is filling the gaps we have.
I'd also go so far as to argue that everywhere shouldn't be in the right place when it comes to the map, to be accurate it should be wildly inaccurate. I think that would have been an interesting thing to play with. Here off the back of your Wales video, which was great by the way, glad to see you cover a majority of my issues with the game in a nice succinct way, you got a subscription, signed a Viking age obsessed Welshman.
There is a totally cool statue of King Alfred in Winchester, as yes, it was the capital of Wessex. Winchester is just north of Southampton, and about a 1hour drive along the M3 motorway from where I live. Definitely worth a visit.
Apparently the protagonist is 200yrs old in this game because he shows up with Thorfinn in a Vinland Saga collab
How?????
I think that’s just more of the smushed timeline
Can you do a video on Vinland Saga please? It would be amazing. Thanks (The anime is excellent but manga is magnificent) Excellent video. Love you guys.
Very informative video as always. I feel like the game is a pretty mixed bag in general. It feels like they couldn't commit to it either being an Assassin's Creed game or a viking game which has left me feeling that the game is quite conflicted in many ways. I think it is good enough to be worth playing through (after all, I have logged 80-ish hours into the game already), but it is unfortunate that it couldn't be as focused as it could have been.
Would love to see you cover the historical realism of the other games in the series!
He has!
Have you seen blood of Zeus on Netflix?
I did! I haven't had anyone to talk about it though. How did you like it? I feel like there wasn't much character development, like I cant even describe some of the characters. The animation was good though. I liked the thing about them being brothers. I feel like because he was a demigod he should've inherited some of Zeus powers? Like we didn't get to see that alot. The whole hera zues dynamic was good, but i don't know how I feel about hades being the villian if it gets another season. I'm also glad they didn't make the lady the love interest, it would have epbeen so rushed. There was some drama about her family that we only saw in the "confront your fears" scene in which I would've like to known more before hand.
i havent been able to stop being mad at the fact that a simple one-handed sword is apparently impossible for Eivor to find. not like the vikings loved swords or anything.
Especially since the enemies have them. I guess when they drop dead their sword just vanishes into thin air.
@@PiousMoltar no they dont, you can pick up a one handed sword if you unlock a thing in the skill tree.... but then eivor yeets it at the enemy as if it offended his mother xD
We had a history lecture on this the other day! This was before it was released though - my lecturer was asked advise them on some elements of Viking history such as the settling! But she said they were under no obligation to listen to historians and apparently it shows!
I'm excited for what the discovery tour is going to say and be about, I hope they acknowledge their historical inaccuracies.
OK. I've had enough of this! Saying "Just read a book about x" without actually recommending one should be punishable by death from now on! ;)
I don't understand why they always feel the need to ruin vikings by making them something they weren't. Real vikings were cool, you don't have to fantasize them.
I remember seeing the ad for this and feeling uneasy. Glad to know those feelings weren't unfounded
I've been waiting for this moment ever since the first Ranthalla and it does not disappoint
Play Mount and Blade: Viking Conquest if you want a more historically accurate game
"So this game is a Hel of a mixed bag" Oh I see what you did there 👁👁 I'm not stupid you know (yes I am, but sush now)
Having been trained as a tour guide in lincoln, it is quite good to visit in the game!
seeing this video and going back and rewatching the others blue's done makes me wonder: any plans to do at the very least the ezio trilogy? [shakes venice enticingly in blue's direction]
ludo(history) is with us!!
Sure am!
@@Ludohistory i knew you'd be here after those ranthallas
@@eh9618 I consulted on the script did you think I'd miss the final product?
Being of Scandinavian descent, the fact that Viking iconography has been yoinked by white supremacists is frustrating and horrifying. I go looking for traditional hairstyles, or symbolism so i can connect to/ learn about my roots and inevitably run into some racist BS.
@Ulises Leon I don't know there were also Cowboys and Knights. Those are pretty cool, but maybe I shouldn't say that because those assholes are going to move over there next.
@@TheSniperBoy They've already been through the Crusades, from what I recall hearing last year.
I'm of Celtic descent and I have never heard about the pagan shenanigans.
@Ulises Leon Rome was not multicultural, it was an empire. Yes, it had many cultures and ethnicities, but there was no pretense of equality among them, the Romans were always assumed to be on top, and everybody was a barbarian.
@@wilhelmseleorningcniht9410 this is exactly what I'm talking about! I got interested in various Icelandic music, but the comment sections were horrific!!! I hate that there are people who think the color of their skin, or where their ancestors are from makes them superior. As if there was some inherent difference in that. I wish there was some way to take the iconography back from these scumbags!
05:32 can someone elaborate which group he means here?? I can't recall a "hate" group that heavily uses braids and Nordic tattoos.
it's neonazi ffs
Doesn't mean everyone wearing them is part of a hate group. The hairstyles, artstyle/tattoos and symbols are also popular among metal fans (especially folk & power metal) and naturally modern pagans, many if not most of whom don't want to have anything to do with racists. But like with every large group, pagans (and metalheads) have members from across the entire political spectrum.
Thank you, I was having doubts, especially after being dissapointed by Odyssee not having a spear and shield weapon combo and being an actual Hoplite, now I'm sure I'm passing up on this
Playing an AC game for the historical accuracy kinda defeats the purpose, it’s a historical fiction/fantasy series and always has been. The historical accuracy is just a bonus
Remember when Assassin's Creed was about being... well... an Assassin?
You mean every game except Black Flag, Rogue, and Odyssey?