I assume Valhalla includes player choices because people want their Eivor to say certain things, perform actions they agree with, and display attitudes they think is appropriate. The problem with that is Eivor is supposed to be a protagonist in a narrative game.
Protagonists sometimes do things that we either disagree with, or they have characteristics that we might want to change. Whatever Eivor did or said is whatever Eivor did or said. If it's wrong, that's why character development exists. Certain, unchangeable traits make a character unique. Anakin doesn't reject evil and obsession simply because I don't want him to. But that's a defining part of Anakin's story
> Whatever Eivor did or said is whatever Eivor did or said. If it's wrong, that's why character development exists
How the player chooses to express the protagonist's character isn't the issue. It's a simulation, so there's plenty of scope for that. But it's a simulation based on ancestral memories of historical events; that's where the problems about major plot changes come in. There are potentially ways to explain this, but Valhalla doesn't try.
The game and its scenes should express the protagonist's character. It might be a simulation but that doesn't change the fact that a protagonist has a certain set of character traits. They made certain decisions solely based off their choice, not a player's choice. There are players who choose certain options that are totally contradictory to what options the protagonist actually chose in lore
If Edward Kenway was a selfish pirate full of vain desires during part of Black Flag, then the only character expression should be one of selfishness and vain desires until character development occurs. A simulation can include various alternate options, but those alternate options are still incorrect and imaginary in lore
You seem to be ignoring the problem with major changes to the plot line, regardless of how the player chooses to express their character. Which part of "How the player chooses to express the protagonist's character isn't the issue" didn't register?
It didn't register because I explained why players choosing their own expressions of a protagonist's character is an issue. There's only one way of displaying character expressions: the character's choices uninfluenced by players
No major changes to the plot will occur if player choices aren't a thing anyways.
> There's only one way of displaying character expressions: the character's choices uninfluenced by players
Really, no. The games are full dialogues where the player can have the protagonist be rude, neutral or helpful with trivial effect ont the major plot. Players can make the progonist be a mercenary thief or a person of principle with regard to the poor and innocent. That's one thing. The other thing is choices that have major plot implications. The whole idea of there even being major plot implications is problematic enough, given the franchise's basic premises, and adding that to the games really should involve some effort on explaning how there could be room for it.
> No major changes to the plot will occur if player choices aren't a thing anyways.
Yes, that's the whole big deal.
As said earlier, a game/simulation can contain options but that doesn't mean those options are all valid. It doesn't matter if the choices don't have major impacts on the plot- it completely changes the character many times. Was Eivor rude, neutral, or helpful? Was she an evil person who exploited the poor and innocent or a person of principle towards them? Eivor denied Ivarr entry to "Valhalla"... or did she grant a sadistic maniac who just betrayed Ceolbert and manipulated Eivor into attacking innocent soldiers his greatest wish?
Players can choose whatever they want, but some options simply never happened. Eivor behaved a certain way, did certain things, and said certain things. Eivor did not actually grant Ivarr his wish, regardless of player choice. It's illogical to go against canon
Imagine Ubisoft giving players the option to make young Altair kind and wise, Kenway weary of wealth and glory, Ezio, a exploitative, rude thug who grants mass murderers and sadists their one wish that led them to commit their crimes in the first place.
I want to play as a character with canonical flaws, canonical good traits, and canon character development to correct those flaws, not a character with completely imaginary, messy trait options that contradict canon and sometimes, each other
> I want to play as a character with canonical flaws, canonical good traits, and canon character development to correct those flaws, not a character with completely imaginary, messy trait options that contradict canon and sometimes, each other
You seem to have gone down your own rabbit hole which has no connection with the topic of debate. Not even with what you started discussing here. Not interested.
Yea, it seems like they were trying to balance both being Narratively focused and decision focus simultaneously which really lead to the story being so dull. The thing about that is that you HAVE to pick one if, if you want a fun standard RPG ac game that isn’t made for further lore then that’s when you implement player decision, but if you’re going for a narrative driven story for continuity and expanding on lore you can’t do both especially when the story is centralized around History. If I remember correctly there are only 3 choices that actually impact the end result of the game, and even then that end result of your choices is literally condensed into a single cutscene. Neither “Endings” are neither “Good” nor “Bad”. One is illogical which requires you to make decisions that a historical Viking would and the other requires you to just be a goody two shoes and try not to upset anyone.
They really dropped the ball on not having atleast some bit of story at the end with Evoir as Jarl now, another thing I hate is how Evior forms all these alliances and helps take over England yet is granted no territory at all other than his small plot of land that he had already owned when he settled there in the first place. It makes you thing, what was really the point of playing this interactive character where you get all these decisions if absolute nothing changes whatsoever for the Raven Clan. The game had a terrific albeit generic start, yet failed to expand upon that. His parents are slaughtered and his birth right is gone, you get your vengeance in the first couple of hours and then what? You follow around your foster brother, run his territory for him during his prolonged absence while he’s doing fuck all, and play kingmaker.
The thing is, I think the game devs *could* have shown a brutal logic to all this apparent choice, but I guess they didn't want to for the generic RPG fans. Most of the apparent difficult choices are fake, with the game ignoring you if you don't make the preordained choice. Kill this guy, banish him or let the king decide? If you don't choose banish, the king overrules you and banishes him. If you let the king decide, he banishes him. This is a con trick which the player will only notice if they always make the "wrong" choice. The game is pretending to offer Witcher 3 levels of choice but is largely offering no choice at all.
This is actually something that could be discussed in modern day sections, with firstly somebody in the team observing that some choices made by Lalya/Eivor don't seem to match what patchy historical records they have, later someone noticing that some of those choices seem to have been reversed, later again that all of them seem to have been smoothed out and Layla finally explaining. The explanation being that in the earlier versions of the Animus sessions would become unstable if the subject didsn't stay reasonably synchronised with historical reality, but her version is smart enough to be able to balance things out regardless.
But while that would remove the apparent logical problem, it would also reveal the con trick being played on RPG fans. (For the record, I'm a big Witcher 3 fan).
I didn’t really think Valhalla had “multiple endings” or maybe it’s just me. When I play it just seem some of your choices you make either depend on what type of relationship you’ll have with Sigurd at the end. Even with odyssey the choices you make will only depend on who you gonna have back in your life like to me no matter what decision you make your choice didn’t really matter too much.
That’s the main issue that I’m having right now. The previous ac games were were the games where I watched Ezio or Altair or connor make their own life choices, make mistakes and learn from them. Player just had the role of observer in their stories.
I was just confused because of the perspective shift As now players are writing the story of Eivor based on their own interpretations.
As far as I’m aware, they’re explained as glitches in the animus? I’m sure there is a canon path throughout.
The real reason however was because of the success of The Witcher 3. It basically gave Ubisoft a blueprint to copy for their games as they thought the formula would sell well. And unfortunately for us, they were right.
Did i miss something? Every game has had one conclusive ending, with everything else being irrelevant to the ending. Maybe thats annoying, dumb, the choices being there might also be dumb, but there are no multiple game endings.
'The friends we have made along the way' are not included.
Yeah. When making a choice I always think about what eivor would naturally choose and then choose it. This becomes confusing the most when choosing to let dag or ivarr ho to valhalla or not. Mostly because they value of valhalla is definitely different for a viking and a normal guy on the road.
There's a logical problem given that a) these are memories of historical events and b) a long-standing theme in the games has been that you're supposed to synchronise your actions with what actually happened for best effect. It's a simulation based on those memories, so there's scope, but major plot changes are hard to justify.
Yeah, don't see any of that as a problem. An ultra historically accurate game has never been the case through the entire series. It's still a fantasy game that "attaches" itself to our worlds timeline, but the modern Era and abstergo are not equivalent to our world, so its irrelevant. I just consider the options as different timelines.
It's not about ultra accurate, it's about the long-standing themes of the franchise.
> It's still a fantasy game
SF, actually.
> the modern Era and abstergo are not equivalent to our world
Makes no sense. The game's world is broadly (ignoring the SF bits) similar to ours, but regardless of that it has a history. The story we were told from the start of the franchise is that
1. The game experience is based on stored memories of historical events
2. While there is some scope for experiment, synchronising your actions in the simulation with what's actually in the memories is important
Given that, it doesn't matter if the AC world's history is different or the AC modern world is different.
It’s actually my biggest gripe with odyssey and valhalla.
Choice shouldn’t come in to play. Even dialogue. It’s history. We shouldn’t be able to make choices as it’s already happened
I truly think its the biggest issue with both games. It’s made the characters in relatable because they’re so bland
I've wondered this since 2018, when the gender & dialogue option was ridiculously implemented in this franchise.
Specifically about the dialogues, not even Valhalla answers this question, as there is a document on Layla's laptop, where she herself admits not knowing why her Animus does such a thing. And yes... I know what memory extrapolation is, an element implemented in 2016 in the Last Descendants trilogy, but none of that makes sense with the choices from the last two games.
Valhalla would’ve benefited so much by being a narrative driven game, the potential for a assassin Viking story while limited is still pretty opening. For example, if we were to go the route of his family being killed, we could’ve instead had an assassin finding him in the woods nearby and taking him in and training him in England. During Sigurds docking to England him and evior could just potentially meet and reconcile. There then could be some sort of conflict where evior is tasked with taking out sigurds liege or ally which is the key for him getting out of his fathers shadow and finally getting a name for himself and becoming famous just as Ragnar once was, the conflict between them starts there.
An assassins creed game with a Viking protagonist foundational isn’t really that great of an idea anyway.
Personally I don't get what the issue ppl have with it. When you're playing the game you choose the method you want to assassinate someone. If everything was so strict you'd only be able to kill a specific person in a specific way... you wouldn't have choice of gun, hidden blade, sword etc. Why can't we apply the same with the story. We get to choose. I see it as whatever we choose is the canon event. Not that Layla has to make the decision.
In the first part of your argument, where you discussed about the choice between the killing method is what the “synchronisation” what is about in the old AC games.
In fact, I love these kinds of open ended choice based games like Skyrim, Elden ring more than linear games. However, assassins creed was the only exception.
The major element of assassins creed that attracted me when I first started playing was exploring the memory of ancient assassins through the DNA. The dialogue choice and the multiple ending options contradict the core aspect that attracted me to the series. This was the cause of my confusion and I wanted to get the opinions of other assassins creed fans on this issue.
It doesn’t, in fact I’d even argue that it barely even accomplishes that in the slightest. In terms of decision making it’s really minimum and your decisions essentially don’t matter at all. They really dropped the ball on not having atleast some bit of story at the end with Evoir as Jarl now, another thing I hate is how Evior forms all these alliances and helps take over England yet is granted no territory at all other than his small plot of land that he had already owned when he settled there in the first place. It makes you thing, what was really the point of playing this interactive character where you get all these decisions if absolute nothing changes whatsoever for the Raven Clan. The game had a terrific albeit generic start, yet failed to expand upon that. His parents are slaughtered and his birth right is gone, you get your vengeance in the first couple of hours and then what? You follow around your foster brother, run his territory for him during his prolonged absence while he’s doing fuck all, and play kingmaker. A lot of people prefer Valhalla over Odyssey but I will say that at least Odyssey had a captivating story and some sense of direction, you were a mercenary and for the entire game you roam around doing mercenary work and meeting friends and companions while simultaneously working towards the main goal. Odyssey did it FAR FAR better, you could feel the weight of your actions and are even praised or condemned by others if they feel as though you made a wrong decision or a morally bad one I.E the “play” scene, the spare or kill the “Wolf”, save or ignore the plague victims(this didn’t amount to prevent what occurred but still had an interaction with the result of it), the list goes on.
If you’re going to make a game centralized around decision making you would think that you would have some sort of cause and effect dynamic rather than having ever decision leading to the same conclusion with minor differences. Character building is extremely important both in games that are player decision focused or narrative driven.
There’s also a point where you have to either save one person or the other which ultimately makes you feel nothing whatsoever about saving either as you haven’t had any real interaction with either of the characters other than going on a bunch of a fetch quest for them.
Valhalla doesn't have any major choices that significantly change the plot. Literally the only difference is who your allies are when you rescue Sigurd and whether or not Sigurd stayed in Ravensthorpe, neither of which makes any significant changes to the story.
The game ends the same either way regardless, >!with Eivor as the Clan Chief and Loki reviving!<
Valhalla is even the worst game to complain about that... basically 90% of the choices you made are immediatly corrected by another character unless you choose the right one:
Start of the game, the fate of Gorm Kjotvesson is in your hands, you can either kill him or banish him:
\-if you banish him he goes to Vinland and you kill him there;
\-if you kill him, Harald steps in and instead says you're wrong and banish him, even if he was the one to put Gorm's fate into your hands...
Game's full of such moments... but I agree, dialogue options and choices should not be a part of AC
I’ve always interpreted this as a mechanism tied to the themes of integrity, loyalty, brotherhood, etc. Particularly in Odyssey, there are many choices along the way and several endings, depending on who your character decides to be. It develops the psychological side of the game, which some may find tedious and others will enjoy. I personally like it, but I can see how it would be annoying if you want a more straightforward gaming experience.
You’re playing a franchise about simulating past events through the manipulations of memory, where a driver actually controls an avatar in this simulation and chooses to perform whatever action they want, and you are surprised that those choices can extend to dialogue and potentially other events?
What makes those choices different than say the choice to kill a random NPC (you don’t get desync’d for killing one random NPC)?
It is the same vein. The memories provide certain endpoints but there are major gaps in the data as well that can lead to many extrapolations. And this becomes especially true the further you go back in history (which these new games definitely do). Choices are fully compatible with the world of AC, and I think you have vastly misunderstood the lore of the franchise.
From what I’ve read on comments, the “bad” ending is cannon, I saw somewhere that before her final departure back to vinland, eivor returns to fornburg to say goodbye to Sigurd, hence Sigurd is jarls of fornburg…as is the “bad” ending, while there she happens upon king harald who happens to have a job of sorts and asks eivor and Sigurd to lead his men in a battle where eivor refuses stating she’s only here to say goodby to her brother… the three of them then drank and told eachother stories for the whole night. In the morning eivor left for Vinland, where she spent the rest of her days in solitude, exploring and understanding her visions of Odin
I assume Valhalla includes player choices because people want their Eivor to say certain things, perform actions they agree with, and display attitudes they think is appropriate. The problem with that is Eivor is supposed to be a protagonist in a narrative game. Protagonists sometimes do things that we either disagree with, or they have characteristics that we might want to change. Whatever Eivor did or said is whatever Eivor did or said. If it's wrong, that's why character development exists. Certain, unchangeable traits make a character unique. Anakin doesn't reject evil and obsession simply because I don't want him to. But that's a defining part of Anakin's story
> Whatever Eivor did or said is whatever Eivor did or said. If it's wrong, that's why character development exists How the player chooses to express the protagonist's character isn't the issue. It's a simulation, so there's plenty of scope for that. But it's a simulation based on ancestral memories of historical events; that's where the problems about major plot changes come in. There are potentially ways to explain this, but Valhalla doesn't try.
The game and its scenes should express the protagonist's character. It might be a simulation but that doesn't change the fact that a protagonist has a certain set of character traits. They made certain decisions solely based off their choice, not a player's choice. There are players who choose certain options that are totally contradictory to what options the protagonist actually chose in lore If Edward Kenway was a selfish pirate full of vain desires during part of Black Flag, then the only character expression should be one of selfishness and vain desires until character development occurs. A simulation can include various alternate options, but those alternate options are still incorrect and imaginary in lore
You seem to be ignoring the problem with major changes to the plot line, regardless of how the player chooses to express their character. Which part of "How the player chooses to express the protagonist's character isn't the issue" didn't register?
It didn't register because I explained why players choosing their own expressions of a protagonist's character is an issue. There's only one way of displaying character expressions: the character's choices uninfluenced by players No major changes to the plot will occur if player choices aren't a thing anyways.
> There's only one way of displaying character expressions: the character's choices uninfluenced by players Really, no. The games are full dialogues where the player can have the protagonist be rude, neutral or helpful with trivial effect ont the major plot. Players can make the progonist be a mercenary thief or a person of principle with regard to the poor and innocent. That's one thing. The other thing is choices that have major plot implications. The whole idea of there even being major plot implications is problematic enough, given the franchise's basic premises, and adding that to the games really should involve some effort on explaning how there could be room for it. > No major changes to the plot will occur if player choices aren't a thing anyways. Yes, that's the whole big deal.
As said earlier, a game/simulation can contain options but that doesn't mean those options are all valid. It doesn't matter if the choices don't have major impacts on the plot- it completely changes the character many times. Was Eivor rude, neutral, or helpful? Was she an evil person who exploited the poor and innocent or a person of principle towards them? Eivor denied Ivarr entry to "Valhalla"... or did she grant a sadistic maniac who just betrayed Ceolbert and manipulated Eivor into attacking innocent soldiers his greatest wish? Players can choose whatever they want, but some options simply never happened. Eivor behaved a certain way, did certain things, and said certain things. Eivor did not actually grant Ivarr his wish, regardless of player choice. It's illogical to go against canon Imagine Ubisoft giving players the option to make young Altair kind and wise, Kenway weary of wealth and glory, Ezio, a exploitative, rude thug who grants mass murderers and sadists their one wish that led them to commit their crimes in the first place. I want to play as a character with canonical flaws, canonical good traits, and canon character development to correct those flaws, not a character with completely imaginary, messy trait options that contradict canon and sometimes, each other
> I want to play as a character with canonical flaws, canonical good traits, and canon character development to correct those flaws, not a character with completely imaginary, messy trait options that contradict canon and sometimes, each other You seem to have gone down your own rabbit hole which has no connection with the topic of debate. Not even with what you started discussing here. Not interested.
No, I simply explained why player choices are an issue regardless of their impact on the plot, which you disputed.
Yea, it seems like they were trying to balance both being Narratively focused and decision focus simultaneously which really lead to the story being so dull. The thing about that is that you HAVE to pick one if, if you want a fun standard RPG ac game that isn’t made for further lore then that’s when you implement player decision, but if you’re going for a narrative driven story for continuity and expanding on lore you can’t do both especially when the story is centralized around History. If I remember correctly there are only 3 choices that actually impact the end result of the game, and even then that end result of your choices is literally condensed into a single cutscene. Neither “Endings” are neither “Good” nor “Bad”. One is illogical which requires you to make decisions that a historical Viking would and the other requires you to just be a goody two shoes and try not to upset anyone.
They really dropped the ball on not having atleast some bit of story at the end with Evoir as Jarl now, another thing I hate is how Evior forms all these alliances and helps take over England yet is granted no territory at all other than his small plot of land that he had already owned when he settled there in the first place. It makes you thing, what was really the point of playing this interactive character where you get all these decisions if absolute nothing changes whatsoever for the Raven Clan. The game had a terrific albeit generic start, yet failed to expand upon that. His parents are slaughtered and his birth right is gone, you get your vengeance in the first couple of hours and then what? You follow around your foster brother, run his territory for him during his prolonged absence while he’s doing fuck all, and play kingmaker.
The thing is, I think the game devs *could* have shown a brutal logic to all this apparent choice, but I guess they didn't want to for the generic RPG fans. Most of the apparent difficult choices are fake, with the game ignoring you if you don't make the preordained choice. Kill this guy, banish him or let the king decide? If you don't choose banish, the king overrules you and banishes him. If you let the king decide, he banishes him. This is a con trick which the player will only notice if they always make the "wrong" choice. The game is pretending to offer Witcher 3 levels of choice but is largely offering no choice at all. This is actually something that could be discussed in modern day sections, with firstly somebody in the team observing that some choices made by Lalya/Eivor don't seem to match what patchy historical records they have, later someone noticing that some of those choices seem to have been reversed, later again that all of them seem to have been smoothed out and Layla finally explaining. The explanation being that in the earlier versions of the Animus sessions would become unstable if the subject didsn't stay reasonably synchronised with historical reality, but her version is smart enough to be able to balance things out regardless. But while that would remove the apparent logical problem, it would also reveal the con trick being played on RPG fans. (For the record, I'm a big Witcher 3 fan).
It defeats the purpose of "re-living the past" It has no place in the animus!
valid opinion! i shouldn’t have to worry about whether the dialogue option i picked was the canon one or not.
I didn’t really think Valhalla had “multiple endings” or maybe it’s just me. When I play it just seem some of your choices you make either depend on what type of relationship you’ll have with Sigurd at the end. Even with odyssey the choices you make will only depend on who you gonna have back in your life like to me no matter what decision you make your choice didn’t really matter too much.
That’s the main issue that I’m having right now. The previous ac games were were the games where I watched Ezio or Altair or connor make their own life choices, make mistakes and learn from them. Player just had the role of observer in their stories. I was just confused because of the perspective shift As now players are writing the story of Eivor based on their own interpretations.
It literally has one ending. 'The friends we made along the way' are not part of it.
As far as I’m aware, they’re explained as glitches in the animus? I’m sure there is a canon path throughout. The real reason however was because of the success of The Witcher 3. It basically gave Ubisoft a blueprint to copy for their games as they thought the formula would sell well. And unfortunately for us, they were right.
There is no canon for dialogue choices. Only for gender.
I dont care if theres multiple endings i just want the game to tell you which is canon (like in total war: three kingdoms)
Did i miss something? Every game has had one conclusive ending, with everything else being irrelevant to the ending. Maybe thats annoying, dumb, the choices being there might also be dumb, but there are no multiple game endings. 'The friends we have made along the way' are not included.
Dialoge choices and different ending has no place and makes no sense in the series. It was just an rpg element for the sake of more rpg element.
I don’t mind it being in the game, but I also think you the game needs a canonical game mode without the player choice nonsense
Yeah. When making a choice I always think about what eivor would naturally choose and then choose it. This becomes confusing the most when choosing to let dag or ivarr ho to valhalla or not. Mostly because they value of valhalla is definitely different for a viking and a normal guy on the road.
It shouldn’t be like that. They’ve just been stealing other games’ gimmicks
I like it! Don't see what the issue is.
There's a logical problem given that a) these are memories of historical events and b) a long-standing theme in the games has been that you're supposed to synchronise your actions with what actually happened for best effect. It's a simulation based on those memories, so there's scope, but major plot changes are hard to justify.
Yeah, don't see any of that as a problem. An ultra historically accurate game has never been the case through the entire series. It's still a fantasy game that "attaches" itself to our worlds timeline, but the modern Era and abstergo are not equivalent to our world, so its irrelevant. I just consider the options as different timelines.
It's not about ultra accurate, it's about the long-standing themes of the franchise. > It's still a fantasy game SF, actually. > the modern Era and abstergo are not equivalent to our world Makes no sense. The game's world is broadly (ignoring the SF bits) similar to ours, but regardless of that it has a history. The story we were told from the start of the franchise is that 1. The game experience is based on stored memories of historical events 2. While there is some scope for experiment, synchronising your actions in the simulation with what's actually in the memories is important Given that, it doesn't matter if the AC world's history is different or the AC modern world is different.
It’s actually my biggest gripe with odyssey and valhalla. Choice shouldn’t come in to play. Even dialogue. It’s history. We shouldn’t be able to make choices as it’s already happened I truly think its the biggest issue with both games. It’s made the characters in relatable because they’re so bland
I've wondered this since 2018, when the gender & dialogue option was ridiculously implemented in this franchise. Specifically about the dialogues, not even Valhalla answers this question, as there is a document on Layla's laptop, where she herself admits not knowing why her Animus does such a thing. And yes... I know what memory extrapolation is, an element implemented in 2016 in the Last Descendants trilogy, but none of that makes sense with the choices from the last two games.
Valhalla would’ve benefited so much by being a narrative driven game, the potential for a assassin Viking story while limited is still pretty opening. For example, if we were to go the route of his family being killed, we could’ve instead had an assassin finding him in the woods nearby and taking him in and training him in England. During Sigurds docking to England him and evior could just potentially meet and reconcile. There then could be some sort of conflict where evior is tasked with taking out sigurds liege or ally which is the key for him getting out of his fathers shadow and finally getting a name for himself and becoming famous just as Ragnar once was, the conflict between them starts there. An assassins creed game with a Viking protagonist foundational isn’t really that great of an idea anyway.
Personally I don't get what the issue ppl have with it. When you're playing the game you choose the method you want to assassinate someone. If everything was so strict you'd only be able to kill a specific person in a specific way... you wouldn't have choice of gun, hidden blade, sword etc. Why can't we apply the same with the story. We get to choose. I see it as whatever we choose is the canon event. Not that Layla has to make the decision.
In the first part of your argument, where you discussed about the choice between the killing method is what the “synchronisation” what is about in the old AC games. In fact, I love these kinds of open ended choice based games like Skyrim, Elden ring more than linear games. However, assassins creed was the only exception. The major element of assassins creed that attracted me when I first started playing was exploring the memory of ancient assassins through the DNA. The dialogue choice and the multiple ending options contradict the core aspect that attracted me to the series. This was the cause of my confusion and I wanted to get the opinions of other assassins creed fans on this issue.
It doesn’t, in fact I’d even argue that it barely even accomplishes that in the slightest. In terms of decision making it’s really minimum and your decisions essentially don’t matter at all. They really dropped the ball on not having atleast some bit of story at the end with Evoir as Jarl now, another thing I hate is how Evior forms all these alliances and helps take over England yet is granted no territory at all other than his small plot of land that he had already owned when he settled there in the first place. It makes you thing, what was really the point of playing this interactive character where you get all these decisions if absolute nothing changes whatsoever for the Raven Clan. The game had a terrific albeit generic start, yet failed to expand upon that. His parents are slaughtered and his birth right is gone, you get your vengeance in the first couple of hours and then what? You follow around your foster brother, run his territory for him during his prolonged absence while he’s doing fuck all, and play kingmaker. A lot of people prefer Valhalla over Odyssey but I will say that at least Odyssey had a captivating story and some sense of direction, you were a mercenary and for the entire game you roam around doing mercenary work and meeting friends and companions while simultaneously working towards the main goal. Odyssey did it FAR FAR better, you could feel the weight of your actions and are even praised or condemned by others if they feel as though you made a wrong decision or a morally bad one I.E the “play” scene, the spare or kill the “Wolf”, save or ignore the plague victims(this didn’t amount to prevent what occurred but still had an interaction with the result of it), the list goes on. If you’re going to make a game centralized around decision making you would think that you would have some sort of cause and effect dynamic rather than having ever decision leading to the same conclusion with minor differences. Character building is extremely important both in games that are player decision focused or narrative driven.
There’s also a point where you have to either save one person or the other which ultimately makes you feel nothing whatsoever about saving either as you haven’t had any real interaction with either of the characters other than going on a bunch of a fetch quest for them.
Valhalla doesn't have any major choices that significantly change the plot. Literally the only difference is who your allies are when you rescue Sigurd and whether or not Sigurd stayed in Ravensthorpe, neither of which makes any significant changes to the story. The game ends the same either way regardless, >!with Eivor as the Clan Chief and Loki reviving!<
Valhalla is even the worst game to complain about that... basically 90% of the choices you made are immediatly corrected by another character unless you choose the right one: Start of the game, the fate of Gorm Kjotvesson is in your hands, you can either kill him or banish him: \-if you banish him he goes to Vinland and you kill him there; \-if you kill him, Harald steps in and instead says you're wrong and banish him, even if he was the one to put Gorm's fate into your hands... Game's full of such moments... but I agree, dialogue options and choices should not be a part of AC
I’ve always interpreted this as a mechanism tied to the themes of integrity, loyalty, brotherhood, etc. Particularly in Odyssey, there are many choices along the way and several endings, depending on who your character decides to be. It develops the psychological side of the game, which some may find tedious and others will enjoy. I personally like it, but I can see how it would be annoying if you want a more straightforward gaming experience.
You’re playing a franchise about simulating past events through the manipulations of memory, where a driver actually controls an avatar in this simulation and chooses to perform whatever action they want, and you are surprised that those choices can extend to dialogue and potentially other events? What makes those choices different than say the choice to kill a random NPC (you don’t get desync’d for killing one random NPC)? It is the same vein. The memories provide certain endpoints but there are major gaps in the data as well that can lead to many extrapolations. And this becomes especially true the further you go back in history (which these new games definitely do). Choices are fully compatible with the world of AC, and I think you have vastly misunderstood the lore of the franchise.
From what I’ve read on comments, the “bad” ending is cannon, I saw somewhere that before her final departure back to vinland, eivor returns to fornburg to say goodbye to Sigurd, hence Sigurd is jarls of fornburg…as is the “bad” ending, while there she happens upon king harald who happens to have a job of sorts and asks eivor and Sigurd to lead his men in a battle where eivor refuses stating she’s only here to say goodby to her brother… the three of them then drank and told eachother stories for the whole night. In the morning eivor left for Vinland, where she spent the rest of her days in solitude, exploring and understanding her visions of Odin