I think at the start of the trailer it says you play someone from Norway.
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Are we the baddies? Assassin's Creed Valhalla.
- Thread starter jman1954goat
- Start date
I think at the start of the trailer it says you play someone from Norway.
Crazy that a japanese manga is the one piece of media that depicted the vikings as the super efficient death squad they were. One of their most valuable trading goods were people, slaves, mainly women that they caught during the raids.
And they were smart about it as they often attacked villages along rivers that had little to no army to defend themself with. I don't know how you can depict viking as these lovable people that just wanted to find a home, especially those that actually went on raids.
And they were smart about it as they often attacked villages along rivers that had little to no army to defend themself with. I don't know how you can depict viking as these lovable people that just wanted to find a home, especially those that actually went on raids.
The question is how far they'll go to depict these raids. Will people stand by and cry when we put a torch to their houses? Most likely not but it will probably make people feel a bit conflicted.
It's almost as if when you attempt to portray anything as complex as humans in a simplistic goodies/baddies way it will miss lots of things about said people.
I grew up in Essex and learned a LOT about the Vikings who sailed up the river Blackwater and raided the small collection of hovels that would later become my home town - but they can't have been so bad, as the oldest church in the town has the lid of a stone sarcophagus that's been dated to one of the viking invasion periods, and is of one of the vikings who settled nearby.
I grew up in Essex and learned a LOT about the Vikings who sailed up the river Blackwater and raided the small collection of hovels that would later become my home town - but they can't have been so bad, as the oldest church in the town has the lid of a stone sarcophagus that's been dated to one of the viking invasion periods, and is of one of the vikings who settled nearby.
Uh lol it's not just you obviously but AC has always been fantasy/science fiction so I'm not really sure why you'd state this like it's a opinion or something.
This was the impression I got.
It's not that Vikings weren't a generally nasty and problematic group... it's that the entire world was at that point. Every single nation was pretty barbaric, as human civilisation was in its infancy across most of the world.
The whole franchise relies on the idea of doing wrong things for a supposed greater good. I struggle to think of a single main character that has immaculate morality.
Vikings=Bad.
Pirates=Bad.
But Ubisoft gave us a plot that made us empathize with their Pirate cause, and feel like their the good guys. So, this is to be expected.
I thought we all knew the aim of every AC game is to be Anti-Government/Anti-Establishment? It's been in every AC since the start.
(That we shouldn't trust the powers that be, everything they tell us is a lie etc etc etc.)
They could literally make a game about Saddam Hussein, Muamar Gadafi and Idi Amin being good but misunderstood guys, and we would all still eat it up.
Pirates=Bad.
But Ubisoft gave us a plot that made us empathize with their Pirate cause, and feel like their the good guys. So, this is to be expected.
I thought we all knew the aim of every AC game is to be Anti-Government/Anti-Establishment? It's been in every AC since the start.
(That we shouldn't trust the powers that be, everything they tell us is a lie etc etc etc.)
They could literally make a game about Saddam Hussein, Muamar Gadafi and Idi Amin being good but misunderstood guys, and we would all still eat it up.
Were the Vikings really so bloodthirsty?
The Viking story has fascinated people for centuries. But as a major exhibition opens at the British Museum, have we got them wrong?
www.bbc.com
Vikings did gruesome stuff like so many other armies in a time when war crimes = war. But they were also an advanced society with its own community cultrue, trading, and so on
The point is that you are representing the invading force. It is difficult to sympathize with the Vikings even if they were not objectively worse than the Saxons.
Imagine a game in which you are a Mongol devastating China or a Spanish conqueror against the Incas.
Imagine a game in which you are a Mongol devastating China or a Spanish conqueror against the Incas.
Thats the thing thats making it hard for me to relate.. and Im saying this as a dude that's played and finished every AC game (except Origins) and playing an Invading force this time.. not sure I want to sit through a story /cutscenee trying to justify this.
Felt the same when I saw the pillaging gameplay. I mean... Wtf Vikings were indeed fucking assholes and it's kinda tone deaf to sell this as a gameplay point.
Ubisoft seem to struggle with getting their messaging down on what tone their games are going for. Valhalla presentation cutting from talk about farmer vikings to showing bloodshed and putting villages to ruin, and the absolute clusterfuck that is Watch Dogs Legion.
That problem was already in the predecessors.
Why do I have to massacre all those people unprovoked just to get a chest with an obsolete item in it to complete a checklist?
Why do I have to massacre all those people unprovoked just to get a chest with an obsolete item in it to complete a checklist?
There were not particularily bloodthirsty or anything. They were just mostly merchants (yes, "Viking" means merchant) in need of a new home and of riches and decided to obtain them by spilling blood (wich they were very good at). Not unlike almost all other civilisations did over the millenias all over the world. Sure, they were not "good", but they were not "bad" either. They just decided to conquer england, to the detriment of the folks there.
The main reason why history painted their actions are monstrous and whatnot is because the history in question was almost exclusively written by monks. And monks weren't particularily fond, surprisingly, of a bunch of pagans constantly targeting churches and monasteries because those places where full of precious stuff and were barely defended if at all. The Vikings didn't care for another religion's holy places because why would they ?
Vikings at that time where pragmatic thieves, mercenaries and conquerors. No more no less.
And i mean... The people they invaded where the descendants of other invaders. Saxons and Angles, both already coming from the same area than the danes we'll play. Honestly, at that time, england was fair game for everyone to invade, Romans, Saxons, Angles, Normans... The Danes were just the next group going at it.
The main reason why history painted their actions are monstrous and whatnot is because the history in question was almost exclusively written by monks. And monks weren't particularily fond, surprisingly, of a bunch of pagans constantly targeting churches and monasteries because those places where full of precious stuff and were barely defended if at all. The Vikings didn't care for another religion's holy places because why would they ?
Vikings at that time where pragmatic thieves, mercenaries and conquerors. No more no less.
And i mean... The people they invaded where the descendants of other invaders. Saxons and Angles, both already coming from the same area than the danes we'll play. Honestly, at that time, england was fair game for everyone to invade, Romans, Saxons, Angles, Normans... The Danes were just the next group going at it.
That trailer made me feel weird as well.
I mean okay, raid that vilalge, but do you HAVE to burn it to the ground?
The player character is just running, unchallenged, not even that much going on - shooting FIRE ARROWS at random rooftops!
Why?
Poorly executed, to say the least.
I mean okay, raid that vilalge, but do you HAVE to burn it to the ground?
The player character is just running, unchallenged, not even that much going on - shooting FIRE ARROWS at random rooftops!
Why?
Poorly executed, to say the least.
Just like many things in life, it is not a case of simply good guys and bad guys. Try and move past this short sighted view. I apologise if this comes across as rude but its a little tiring see so much being boiled down to good/bad (most recently in TLOU2's case)
Same as how Japanese fiction depicts the Shisengumi as lovable rouges especially its Commander Kondo Isami in a lot of anime and cinema. They gotta add some nuance to history to make a compelling drama I imagine.
I'm sure these evil kings that you fight all have standing armies in conveniently dehumanizing masks and helmets, rather than tenured vassals and serfs put into uniform for a season.
This problem is baked into the franchise. No matter how heroically they dress it up, you can't really have the genocidal gameplay loop of the Assassin's Creed games and not think about how villainous your badassery really is. The main activity in all these titles is stabbing some random sentry in the neck just because he had the misfortune of standing guard on the wrong roof.
Yes, you are the baddie. But it feels so good doing it.
This problem is baked into the franchise. No matter how heroically they dress it up, you can't really have the genocidal gameplay loop of the Assassin's Creed games and not think about how villainous your badassery really is. The main activity in all these titles is stabbing some random sentry in the neck just because he had the misfortune of standing guard on the wrong roof.
Yes, you are the baddie. But it feels so good doing it.
I enjoyed Odyssey a surprising amount, given my irritation with much of the Ubi/modern AAA open world stuff. I too loved the opening island. I'd suggest not focusing too much on side content, as the game is vast and will begin to overstay its welcome.
dead
It's weird that Ubisoft are saying that they're trying to tell the 'true story' of the Vikings. Yes, they were people looking for fertile land and prosperity for their people, but it doesn't change the fact that they were an invading force that raped and pillaged across Britain. Makes me curious about how they're really going to portray Alfred the Great.
Hmm are you assuming Anglo Saxons are the Native here ? Because they sought greener pastures as the Roman Empire started to crumble, like the Vikings, they were also raiders
Eh, yes and no. A lot of this focuses on the conquest of Britain, where you could say well they were colonizers, and for better or worse they acted like every other colonizing group. They also engaged in wars with other kingdoms, and acted like armies would in that time.
But the vikings were also simply notorious raiders and plunderers, who would venture deep into civilized and peaceful worlds to pillage and loot and make off with bounty, women and slaves. See something like Dorestad, which was a thriving city minding its own business until the Vikings sacked it. If you say the world (or northwestern Europe) at this time period was nasty and problematic, it was mostly because of Vikings, and not despite of it. You could of course argue that the Viking raids led to more fortifications which in turn led to actual city forming, but still.
Actually they aren't. Vikings raided and pillaged and murdered and raped like any other tribe or country that invaded another since the dawn of mankind. The thing that is maybe misunderstood is that not all Scandinavians were vikings. Lots of them established trade routes and outposts and settled peacefully on foreign lands. They also fought a lot on their own ground for territory and land, again like many other tribes, kingdoms and 'nations' before and after. So, nasty shit happened to vikings as well, like being forced to move because on your parcel not single crop will grow so you either fight for land in your country or set sail and look for another. But I'm not sure what you mean by "real viking" vs "evil guy". Real vikings are the evil guys.
We will see in the final product how they're portrayed but I don't count on much historical accuracy, as always. Which is fine, though.
That tonal disparity was already seen in the first CGI trailer they showed. They were slaughtering all villagers and burning their houses down and then suddenly a woman ran right in front of Eivor and another Viking by his side and the first thing that other Viking tried to do was kill that woman, but Eivor held him back and let her run. What a noble guy. Too bad for the other women and children he was not able to protect from his men at the very same time.
Or, you know, modern day Americans. No joke.
I'd say a lot of people might find it incredibly easy to identify with the protagonists in this game.
And the game would be unsellable.
there is zero reason to make them historically accurate. Did the lost Vikings face this type of criticism.
The thing that made Vikings different from other raider people was the speed. They came from the sea/river in a flash, landed, charged in a rage, destroyed small towns, got all the slaves and loot they could and then ran away before any regular army could come. And all that from one day to the other and they could appear in any water adjacent area. Against a regular army they were nothing special. But they were annoying as fuck with their hit and run and their movement speed was terrifying.
And even after that most of them just got integrated into local societies like most raider people.
The mogols were way better. They charged at you at alarming speed through the plains and they could face any regular army, they could strike from afar or close and they could maintain sieges and the likes. I'd love a game where you control a Mongol raider at their peak. Shit was brutal.
And even after that most of them just got integrated into local societies like most raider people.
The mogols were way better. They charged at you at alarming speed through the plains and they could face any regular army, they could strike from afar or close and they could maintain sieges and the likes. I'd love a game where you control a Mongol raider at their peak. Shit was brutal.
I bet this would be a major controversy if the Vikings were Spaniards and the British were Incas.
Let me play the noble knights who defend England against these barbarians. They have cooler armor anyway. And they were the best faction in For Honor as well :-)
That's why I can't take the narrative seriously, don't try to sugarcoat Vikings and pretend I'm a good intentioned farmer that is trying to do good by burning stuff down, I think that gamers are more than accustomed with playing as a morally grey character, but expecting this from Ubi-no politics-soft is too much.
This "controversy" is super weird. Assassin's Creed games always had your allies being morally gray and your enemies seem totally evil at first only for you to see that it wasn't exactly like that, unless that has changed completely in origins and odyssey. Taking marketing speak as word of god is misleading, if they want to have nuances in their portrayals they probably want those to be part of the narrative experience, so there's no need to give that away in the trailers.
Also even ignoring that, the Vikings were probably not all the same, so depicting your group as maybe not as bad as the usual perception would have you assume is hardly sanitizing. The protagonist is still setting fire to things, but reframing these attacks as a settling effort instead of "they're invading just because" doesn't seem completely unrealistic from a historical perspective.
Also even ignoring that, the Vikings were probably not all the same, so depicting your group as maybe not as bad as the usual perception would have you assume is hardly sanitizing. The protagonist is still setting fire to things, but reframing these attacks as a settling effort instead of "they're invading just because" doesn't seem completely unrealistic from a historical perspective.
Not that misunderstood, you say, immediately before saying they came from Norway. Ubi did exactly the same thing at the start of the segment last night: "We really looked into the history of Viking invaders in England. They left Norway because..."
England's vikings were almost entirely from Denmark. Hence the Danelaw, not the Norselaw. Vikings from Norway mainly raided in Ireland and Scotland. The Vikings TV show made the same error, probably just because most people think Norway is cooler than Denmark. It's one of many reasons why The Last Kingdom is the better show about Vikings, and it's making me sad that AC is deliberately repeating the same shitty historical errors in favour of appealing to common misconceptions.
I enjoy the Assassin's Creed games for the historical tourism rather than historical accuracy......I see these games as fantasy ones set in real historical locations....and that's fine for me.
