Assassin’s Creed – Ragnarök PC Review

Ragnarök

Has descended upon us all as foretold! The third expansion of Assassin’s Creed: Valhalla
takes us to end of times in a fun original story, a classical plot but with twists and
turns in the story, to keep you interested for the whole duration and longer.

A bit on the backstory to this Expansion, if you have played Valhalla the base game you
might be aware that Freyja warns Odin about Ragnarök and the fate that lays ahead,
Odin is betrayed by Loki for the invading frost giants of Jotunheim, and skipping a bit
forward in the events; all this leads up to Surtr leader of The Muspels kidnapping
Odin’s son Baldr.

This is the premise to entering the Dwarfen lands of Svartalfheim, to kill the unkillable
or barter for your son’s life. While Surtr being one of the Main characters in the game,
there are plenty of encounters for you to deal with, some might be familiar and some
might be new faces for you, from Surtr’s henchmen to Dwarfs and beyond.

(and this is as far as I will mention things about the story or characters) so I don’t
accidentally spoil anything.

As we’ve come to know in the Assassin’s Creed games, you can choose your main character
to be either Female or Male (or let the Animus decide for you), and if you are a bit
confused from the Gallery above where I have posted Screenshots from in game, why the
player is called Havi instead of Odin, in Old Norse Odin was called or referred
to as Havi (The High One). Also to mention that the game can be continued from
your original save game on Valhalla if you have upgraded your settlement to Level 3
and built Valkas Hut, though as I chose, starting a completely new game you will not
have access to England playing this way. This is a quicker way for those who just
want to experience Ragnarök, jump straight in (note, that the latest auto save game
will be erased, manual saves not)

The game itself also introduces a new gameplay system that is pretty nifty, suiting
your preferred style of gameplay, Powers.. these can/are be harnessed from
fallen enemies; these include Power of Jotunheim, Raven, Winter, Muspelheim and
Rebirth, these powers are time limited but can also be expanded upon for longer
duration with additional upgrades (tip. Raids will get you the materials to upgrade)

my own preferred power of choice during my playthrough
was definitely the power of the Raven, instead of doing your familiar climbing up
to high peaks to synchronize points, why not fly instead.. it’s easier and more
comfortable.. also gives you one good looking view of the whole map.
While your trusty horse is still faster, flying gives you that better overview
of what is happening around you, perhaps some World Events?

Since this Ragnarök, you will be encountering Lava a lot around the map, the power
of Muspelheim, gives you the ability to walk over Lava unscaled.. without it, you’ll
be more burnt that Garlic Bread left in the oven too long… a lump of coal.

Power of Jotunheim, gives you the ability to teleport to world knots, useful if you
want to infiltrate, or you fast travel around the map..

All these powers work with Hugr, while “flowers” contain Hugr to charge up your
meter, Hugr is also gained by slaying your enemies, and as I said before once you
upgrade, you can gain an additional Hugr meter in your arsenal expanding the time
duration quite nicely.

There is plenty of weapons to be chosen from and armor to be found in the world,
So I’m sure you will find your own personal favorite exploring.

I’ll give you this tip though, exploring the world and finding the location of the
hubs around the world, is needed to continue the story.. with the invasion the
dwarfs went into hiding, but left clues laying around to find the entrances to
the hubs. These can be quite tricky in the beginning, before you get a hang
of it all.

For those wondering, how long is Ragnarök? I clocked in a story playthrough and
synchronizing viewpoints in around 12.5 hours, there’s quite a lot of side things
to do still for me, some armor puzzles to be solved, and Valkyrie stories.
Dwarfs have hidden things with Light Puzzles, aiming beams of light in the right
spot opening doors and passages… I’d estimate around 5-10 hours depending on
how quick you are, or want to take the whole expansion pack in for the side quests
and puzzles. So all in all it’s a 20+ hour experience to soak in.

The game is absolutely gorgeous just like Valhalla was as it released, but it does
require somewhat of a machine to run comfortably, I’ve posted below the requirements
Note that if I did not make it clear, this is not a standalone expansion, it requires
the base game to be played. So back to how it runs, playing on 3440×1440 with an i5-9600
and a 3070 8GB with 16GB of Ram, garnered around 80-85fps on average. With High Detail
and some set to Ultra.. Also I need to point out that having all of Valhalla and previous
Expansion packs with Ragnarök will eat quite a lot of Hard Drive space too, clocking
in at a whopping 135GB of Data.

Final word

Ragnarök is an Expansion that I found extremely enjoyable, comparing to the magnitude
of the original Valhalla game (which can be overwhelming with all the things to do),
This was just about the right length, pacing for me to fully enjoy it,
combine that with a classical story of kidnapping and rescue, in the midst of Ragnarök..
Ubisoft nailed it here. I strongly recommend that you pick it up, and go save Baldr!

Ps. I would not mind if Ubisoft went this way with shorter stories a few times a year
as stand alone releases, set in different eras, or building on, on the stories of Odin.