Assassin’s Creed Valhalla is the last game that currently needs extra content, but this week it got a little bit anyway, and since I’m still fresh on the game, I thought I would jump back. in and watch it.
Those things came in the form of ‘River Raids’, a new game mode that adds three new, small parts of the map that you can visit, all on the western side of Britain that the base game never ventured. Actually, ‘exploring’ is the wrong word here, because you do almost nothing about it.
Instead, these new areas were built around thin rivers of the river, with the idea that they were designed to take the raid system of the main game and carry it up and the banks of these rivers with farms, military bases and yes, more monasteries to cut through. There’s a lot of river, a thin strip of land to set up these raids, and that’s about it. There is indeed so little land that you can not even summon your horse.
G / O Media can get a commission
River Raids is not something you can do just in the middle of your existing game. Rather, they exist as their own standalone game mode, accessible by building some unique structures on it in Ravensthorpe, and then choosing the option to tackle one (like going to Vinland).
This is an interesting concept. River Raids is supposed to be an endless game mode, where you can just jump in your boat and steal some stuff whenever you want, because even if you burn a terrain on the ground, it will soon be rebuilt and you can loot it from scratch.
However, my problems with this come because I force almost nothing to do it. The only notable items available here are a complete set of armor and weapons that go to St. George is modeled, with the armor randomly distributed in coffins found in military camps, and a sword that is your prize for beating a ‘champion’ in an overwhelming battle that ends at the end of the Third River.
Once it was all found, and I only had 3-4 cruises to do it, I had no interest in returning to mode. I do not need the resources you can farm by repeatedly poaching in the same places, and it is very difficult for many of the raids to focus on a certain type of resource – ‘foreign supplies’ – which can only be used for cosmetics and upgrades for sale in River. Raid mode (although you can buy it here later, you can at least apply the cosmetic products to your regular ship later).
There is no story that can be expanded outside a few short chats with River Raids’ mascot and instigator Vagnor, and as I said with the three new cards so small and without anything but looting targets, there was also little investigation.
Plus raiding was never that fun in the first place? The real strengths of Valhalla s’n game were the rogue encounters, the environmental mysteries and the larger siege battles. Attacks feel like a mix of all three that fall short on all three accounts, and it’s even here, as many of these attacks are smaller and less interesting.
Indeed, it sometimes feels that the only reason for this is to give the sailing more time in the spotlight, because it was little in the main game (outside surprise, raids).
Look, River raids is a free update, it’s no harm to try it out and see if you think about it more than I do. But more often for the sake of times is the last thing this game needs.