Assassin’s Creed Valhalla Drunk Glitch Gets Stranger and Stranger

Illustration for the article titled iAssassin's Creed Valhalla / i's Glitch Kept Making Eivor Drunk, And Then It Got Weirder

Screenshot: Ubisoft / Kotaku

Kotaku Games DiaryKotaku Games DiaryThe latest thoughts from a Kotaku staff about a game we’re playing.

Every time my viking hero Eivor dies in Assassin’s Creed Valhalla, she comes back to life drunk. This is a known bug that the developers seem to be ready to patch up, but if I tried to tolerate it last night, I’ve made it worse somehow. Although, in this case, “worse” also means “better”. And now I’m in doubt if I want it fixed.

Here’s how the error initially played out Valhalla a few weeks ago. I load the save file on my Xbox and see a loading screen. Then there appears a part of England from the 9th century, along with Eivor, which will falter. The graphics will be blurred and then sharpened. Then Eivor will stagger a little more.

Screenshot: Ubisoft / Kotaku

It was strange but tolerant. The drunken effect fades quickly. Plus, the designers of the game at Ubisoft indicated Valhallaofficial support page that it was an unintended side effect of Valhalla’s new Yuletide celebrationa party that Ubisoft added to the game’s central Viking settlement in mid-December.

‘Drunk status effect applied during and after loading screen?

Solution: Meditating or sleeping in your bed should remove the status effect. (or you can just send it off ..) ”

The celebration adds a big tree, a horde of revelators, an archery challenge and an option for drunken fights. Somehow all this drink-based game code got error, but I thought it would be fixed by the time the celebration ends on January 7th. Or so I had hoped.

This eternal light intoxication seems, if not good, at least an interesting, fleeting inconvenience, something like a passing storm. It’s also an example of the kind of bug that can be more common because more games are increasingly working on a calendar of updates: the seasonal malfunction.

And that was where I was last night, after writing a draft of this post in anticipation of part Kotaku readers an amusing, harmless problem. I planned to publish the article in the morning, and that would be it.

But last night, after I finished work and put the kids to bed, I loaded up Valhalla support. I decided to explore the Hamtunscire region, which is adapted for players at power level 340. My Eivor was only 170, but I thought it would be interesting to explore.

On the outskirts I found a camp of the enemy to attack and tried to take it down for half an hour. The enemies were indeed much sadder than my usual opponents. They killed me a lot. Eivor returned temporarily drunk, but eventually cleared the base. In the process, I shot all my arrows and did not refill. (This will be important).

I ventured deeper into the Hamtunscire and noticed a marker for a side-quest. It involved Eivor drinking a drink, except that the drink was poisoned, and suddenly I got the worst drunkenness I had seen in the game. My screen didn’t just get blurry. It became black and white. When this happens, an enemy attacks. He was too high for me, but I pulled my bow and aimed at a weak point, except … no arrows.

I ran. The black-and-white poison-drinking effect continued. I kept running. The normal drunkenness would have faded by now. It was not. I jumped on my horse, in the direction of the city of Wincestre. The effect finally ends. The fading stopped. The colors returned.

I approached some of Wincestre’s guards. They did not like my face and killed me.

Eivor came to life again, but she was not only drunk. She was – oh no! —Gif drunk. Everything was black and white and shaky.

It was not that funny. And it does not disappear. At least not fast enough.

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Screenshot: Ubisoft / Kotaku

I read that sleep makes the regular drunk status disappear, which is why I send Eivor back to her settlement and let her sleep. She woke up sober, restoring the colors.

I travel quickly back to Wincestre, telling myself to play carefully and climb a tall building to explore the city.

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Screenshot: Ubisoft / Kotaku

Then I jumped off, hoping to end up in a haystack, but misjudged and died.

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Screenshot: Ubisoft / Kotaku

Eivor came back to life on top of the tall building and, you guessed it, she was poisoned again.

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Screenshot: Ubisoft / Kotaku

It was annoying, but I had an idea. Perhaps the game remembered my most recent state of attenuation. Maybe I can at least shakily come back to life when I get drunk (without poison), but without the world being colorful. But it does not work. She continued to relive the subsequent deaths in the poisoned state.

I could travel to the settlement quickly after each death for a bit of shuteye, but that would be too cumbersome. Can I try to die less? I probably should have played in such a treacherous region, but what’s the fun in that? No, I had to find a way to heal myself quickly by being poisoned while stubbornly playing more quests that I was not ready for.

I made Eivor ponder. But it does not work.

Then I agreed to listen to a man talking about Jesus. It worked!

Screenshot: Ubisoft / Kotaku

As I did all this, I noticed something unexpected. Every time I was poisoned, Valhalla achieves a strict beauty. The game generally looks great, but by removing the colors, the light of its protagonist and the scenery around her can become brighter.

I started taking more screenshots.

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Screenshot: Ubisoft / Kotaku

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Screenshot: Ubisoft / Kotaku

I make a lot of screenshots of Valhalla, and usually do so using the game’s photo mode. I use the tool in the game to interrupt the action, set up a scene, maybe zoom in or out, even though I’ve never used one of the filters, which contains a black and white one. Instead, I just ran around with the whole wildlife in this poison-drunk black-and-white state and then stopped to go into photo mode. When I set up one of my shots, I discovered how the wizards who made the game did this black-and-white trick.

The poisoned effect was an illusion. After all, the game world was not black and white. The developers have just placed a filter between my character and the camera. And using the photo mode, I could see exactly how they pulled this rabbit out of the hat.

Screenshot: Ubisoft / Kotaku

Unbelievable!

I can have fun with this. That filter can appear with my screenshots.

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Screenshot: Ubisoft / Kotaku

It can also create some nice / interesting GIFs:

Screenshot: Ubisoft / Kotaku

Suddenly I had too much fun. I realized I would miss it. I will not miss the game shakily, but see it through this filter. I would miss playing it with an unexpected visual trick, and I would miss the feeling that I had violated the game code and found something beautiful in a mistake.

However, I want Eivor to live again, without the whole world being vague. So apply that patch.

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