Assassin’s Creed Valhalla: Dawn of Ragnarök Review – Did It Need To Be DLC?

Assassin’s Creed Valhalla: Dawn of Ragnarök is just another expansion pack, isn’t it? We’ll come back to that in a moment. At first glance, it seems like just a plain and boring expansion pack, but once you start playing the game – sorry, expansion – you realize you’re actually having fun. Dawn of Ragnarök is Assassin’s Creed Valhalla’s third expansion, and given that I haven’t played the base game, the expansion didn’t strike me as that appealing at first, until it did. do.

Dawn of Ragnarök is basically the story of a father – Havi or Odin – trying to save one of his sons, Baldr, from the clutches of the vile Surtr, the leader of the fire demons. Sounds like a cliché, right? Luckily, only that part of the new DLC’s story seemed uninteresting. The rest of the expansion pack seems like the epitome of Assassin’s Creed Valhalla, but that’s pretty obvious.

I’m not going to talk about the Dawn of Ragnarök storyline since many have already covered it in their reviews. What I’m here to talk about is: can you play the game without any previous Assassin’s Creed Valhalla experience? A short answer would be: Yes, you can. For the longer version, read on. To be honest, there would be no point in introducing DLC ​​if new players can’t enjoy it.

As I mentioned earlier, I’ve never played Assassin’s Creed Valhalla before, so I thought I’d offer the perspective of someone who hasn’t played the base game and decided to dive straight into the DLC. Ubisoft advises that this expansion pack is for players who have somewhat finished the original story, but don’t worry, newbies like me can still enjoy the expansion pack.

Assassin’s Creed Valhalla: Dawn of Ragnarök Review – Story

Dawn of Ragnarök begins with many back and forths between Havi and Frigg as they attempt to locate and rescue their son Baldr. There’s a lot of walking and talking, and I have to admit that the game’s non-player characters (NPCs) need turbo mode because they’re extremely slow. Several times I found myself way ahead of the NPCs and eventually had to turn back because the game couldn’t process me any faster.

Assassin’s Creed Valhalla: Dawn of Ragnarök has dwarves living in caves
Photo credit: Ubisoft

However, things speed up when you are quickly greeted by a boss fight. After killing Muspels, Havi and Frigg reach the palace where Surtr captured Baldr. In order to free his son, Havi must battle Surtr. Note that if you’re not used to playing Assassin’s Creed or aren’t generally good at fighting games, battling Surtr may have you raging more than once.

According to my Xbox app, I played the game for almost 20 hours – I know that’s almost not enough, but be patient – and almost half of that time was trying to kill Surtr. I first thought fighting in the Vikingr (default) setting might give me a good perspective on the game. And I was partially right, as it only gave me an idea of ​​how I should improve my one-on-one combat skills.

Once you get past the first boss fight, you have to fend for yourself and find your son Baldr as Surtr kills Frigg after the fight. Havi wanders around Svarfenheim trying to complete quests and gather riches. Honestly, it seems a little funny that as the greatest god in Norse mythology, Havi has to roam the entire map looting his enemies with random pots and chests.

Assassin’s Creed Valhalla: Dawn of Ragnarök Review – Gameplay, New Powers

Dawn of Ragnarök gives Havi a Hugr-Rip Bracer that allows players to extract power from fallen enemies. Oh, you can also transform into a crow and seamlessly roam the map, which was quite memorable. The only caveat is that you’ll only have 30 seconds before you transform, which also provided a fun challenge trying to see how far you can get as a crow before time runs out.

Alternatively, you can also extract the power from a Muspel and temporarily become a fire demon yourself. It kind of works when you’re too lazy to kill the Muspels and can just walk around incognito to reach your destination. Ubisoft has also hidden important items like keys, chests, and other loot near the lava, so the Muspel power is really useful here.

Assassin’s Creed Valhalla: Dawn of Ragnarök has a variety of enemies
Photo credit: Ubisoft

Another power allows you to temporarily resurrect dead enemies and have them fight alongside you. Honestly, this seems like the worst power to have, since you can’t use it on bosses. I didn’t find it particularly useful because by the time I downed enough enemies to use this power, I had almost killed everyone around me. The time I used it, my team’s Muspel was so confused as to who to fight, it made no sense for power.

Between all of these Hugr-Rip powers, the Muspel fire demon power was constantly in my arsenal because honestly, you can’t play the game without it. Dawn of Ragnarök also gives you enough chances to regain these powers as you eliminate more enemies. The Hugr-Rip is designed in such a way that players can only store two powers at a time. Thus, players will have to kill the respective enemy – the one who carries said power – in order to gain it, but will have to replace the one of the two already stored.

Assassin’s Creed Valhalla: Dawn of Ragnarök Review – Final Verdict

Dawn of Ragnarök is more than just an expansion pack. Many will say, and rightly so, that you should at least play the base game before diving into it, but I disagree. I’ve barely played Assassin’s Creed Valhalla and here I tell you, it’s not mandatory.

The map is relatively huge for an expansion – I haven’t figured it all out yet with my 20 hours of play – and there are so many side quests that it feels like it can be its own game. rarely thought I should have played Assassin’s Creed Valhalla as it kept me engrossed in the story. Yes, I agree that players beginning their journey in Valhalla may need some practice to master the controls, and for that particular reason I think Dawn of Ragnarök deserved its own title.

Benefits

• Extended map
• Use Hugr-Rip’s Powers

The inconvenients

• Boss fights can be tricky
• Hugr-Rip Power Storage
• Exists as an expansion pack and not as a separate title

Score (out of 10): 7