Assassin's Creed: Valhalla - Initial thoughts. Hint: Not a fan.

After 8 hours of game play I have left Norway and landed on England's shores where I'm going to live now, because I'm pissy with Daddy for making a deal so somebody else gets to be king. I wish I were joking.

Yeah, that's the motivation for an entire game. Pissed off kid, stomps off, leaves home because he didn't get what he wanted so he takes his toys and goes somewhere else. Oh joy.

Am I avenging my son's death by hunting down his murderers and stumbling across a huge conspiracy across time itself like in Origins? Nope. Pissy kid doesn't get his way so he leaves.

Am I trying to reunite my family and redeem my brother and save them from a secretive cult, while battling mythological creatures, that's bent on destroying our civilization like in Odyssey? Nope. Spoiled child scoops up his toys and runs away from home in a temper tantrum accompanied by pillage, murder, and mayhem.

Want to be mayor of a town and play a city building sim? You're gonna LOVE AC:V. See, in spite of England already having a blacksmith, stable, and general store in every village and hamlet and crossroads you can find, for some reason you want to build your very own that does the exact same thing theirs does. I MEAN EXACT. And the only way to do that is to raid, destroy, and pillage, wait for it... wait for it... monasteries. Yup. Churches are the only source of the supplies I need to build a stable. Why? There's no actual logic to it. Just shut up and go burn down monasteries and build a building to fill with horse shit.

I just lost 3 hours game play where it apparently never autosaved like it claims it does. That's half my game play for the entire day. I even think I saved once but it didn't recognize it when I reset the frozen game. What was I doing that was so game-breakingly bad? I tried to stand up from a crouch.

If I were loving the game it wouldn't be that big a deal but I'm only kinda liking it.

If you're considering Assassin's Creed Valhalla wait for a sale. 

Odin Vision is useless. Your eagle is a crow, or raven, and is useless. If you shoot something in the tall grass you're not gonna find it so don't bother looking. Everything is behind a barred door which in spite of having giant axes you have to do a puzzle to get through. Sometimes I can chain assassinate and sometimes I can't with no clue why not. You'll find a cursed area with no clue or hint or indication how to fix it. Your allies are sadists and torturous assholes. England is apparently the land of 20,000 rivers. You can get tattoos but you can't actually see them because every outfit completely covers you wrist to neck to ankles. Nothing on the map shows up on the HUD until you're on top of it. Comparing equipment is meaningless because you can't see the stats if upgraded on the compare screen and there's no DPS value anywhere to be found so which axe is better? No way to know. 

Overall I completely regret the money spent on the expensive edition I got based on their last two games which I loved and have played for hundreds of hours. That money would've been better spent paying somebody to just slap me randomly throughout the day for the next week or so. I'd regret that too but at least I wouldn't be allied with people who torture folks as a hobby like I am in Assassin's Creed: Valhalla.

I'm not asking the Vikings to be nice. I'm asking the game designers to give us the option to not be torturous ass hats as a play style. 

I'm not providing an affiliate link to it because honestly. I don't want you to buy this game. I wouldn't enjoy the money I made off your bad decision. I'd feel guilty.