I’ve played like 25 hours of Assassin’s Creed Valhalla and I looooove it. Instead of tedious side quests, the world is full of little puzzles and mysteries. Reminds me of Breath of the Wild in all the best ways

Of course, it’s also impossible to play Ubisoft games without thinking about the culture of sexism and harassment that was exposed this summer. The creative director of ACV was among those who resigned. But the game is worth discussing on its own merits https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-07-21/ubisoft-sexual-misconduct-scandal-harassment-sexism-and-abuse

Instead of giving you a bunch of side quests in each new region, AC Valhalla covers its maps with gold, white, and blue dots. The gold and white dots are treasure that you might need to solve little environmental puzzles to access, while blue are weird, often hilarious encounters

So instead of exploring the world to check things off a to-do list, you can explore to find these little moments, which I've enjoyed quite a bit. Plus: raiding, settlement-building, Order assassinating, and some trippy stuff I won't spoil. I really like this game

One more thing: AC Valhalla is suuuper janky. I've had to quit/reload a few times because the game wouldn't progress, and your allies/enemies just stand around like morons in a lot of the big battles. Combat is better than Odyssey's, though, which helps make up for that