As we all know by now, the latest title for the Assassins Creed franchise is now set in the incredible Viking Age. With a grand reveal, Assassins Creed Valhalla came out strong with many gamers impressed even though what is known right now is its cinematic trailer. It did reveal a lot of information of what the game will be and most likely Viking history will play a big part.
Creative director Ashraf Ismail talked to Australian gaming publication Press Start about the reason for choosing the Viking era.
Assassins Creed Valhalla Viking Era is an incredible time period
Ismail shared the basis for choosing the Viking Era as the setting for Valhalla. He revealed that since the franchise is all about exploring these important parts of history and how it could convey the war between the Templars and Assassins, the Viking Era was the perfect fit. This was an age where is shaped Europe and gave birth to the England we all know today. This was a time where a lot of important points of history were happening in one place.
It is said that Vikings had one of the most notorious warrior cultures at that time, and the era was a very violent one. This was on 793-1066 AD, an age of the Scandinavians raiding, expanding, and building settlements throughout Europe and even beyond that. Ismail described this time as an amazing period to discover and there were tons of things to uncover in terms of historical wealth.
Ismail states the team’s reasoning for choosing this time period:
Everything that we know about Vikings has been written after the fact, so to be able to go to this time period and using research and historians to bring this culture and this time to life is a really intriguing moment for us.
The creative director said that this era has a lot of opportunity for the franchise to integrate in since there are tons of big events happening in it. He also noted that he loved this time period after he read a Michael Crichton book about Vikings, which I believe was Eaters of the Dead where a Muslim Arab travels with a group of Vikings to their settlement.
Recent inspirations
There are a few historical TV shows recently that focused or at least mentioned about the Viking Era. After the reveal of Valhalla, some thought these shows were the inspirations for creating it. Ismail disproves those speculations.
The creative director clarified that the main reason they got inspired by the Viking Era is because they have done research together with historians. It was also very known to them that they were going for this particular age, the ninth century, Dark Ages of England. They teamed up with Dr. Jackson Crawford, a professor in Norse language for this particular project.
The team even took a trip to Norway and to England in order to gain a ton of information about the culture and its rich history. This is why they paint a different picture of the Vikings in the trailer due to the many details they learned from their trip and research. They want to tell the whole picture and not just what everyone knows about them.
Assassins Creed Valhalla will definitely be a big step up for the series with this amount of information, dedication, and passion for its development. We will be looking forward to its release soon.
The game will launch sometime in holidays 2020. It will be available on Google Stadia, PC via Epic Games Store, PlayStation 5, PlayStation 4, Xbox Series X, and Xbox One.
Interview source: Press Start