[News] Assassin's Creed Valhalla DLC Roadmap Announced, Here's What's Coming

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Assassin's Creed Valhalla DLC Roadmap Announced, Here's What's Coming

 

Like the Assassin's Creed games that came before it, Assassin's Creed Valhalla is getting a heap of post-launch DLC, some of which is free, and other parts are included with a $40 season pass.

The season pass includes two major expansions, as well as a special quest themed around Beowulf. The Legend of Beowulf quest focuses on the hero Beowulf, leading up to players uncovering the "monstrous truth" behind the character. This quest will be available on launch day for season pass owners, but Ubisoft did not say when or if the quest will be made available to everyone else.

 

DLC 1: Wrath of the Druids
The first of the expansions is titled Wrath of the Druids, and it's scheduled for release in Spring 2021. "In this new adventure, players will journey to Ireland and unravel the mysteries of an ancient and mysterious druidic cult, tracking and discovering their members," reads a line from the description. "Diving into Gaelic myths and folklores, they’ll need to fight their way through haunted forests and dazzling landscapes while gaining influence among Gaelic kings."

DLC 2: The Siege of Paris
The second expansion is called The Siege of Paris, and it's due out in Summer 2021. This expansion lets players experience the historical viking battle, featuring "key historical figures" from the event. "During this key moment in history, players will infiltrate the fortified city of Paris and the River Seine under a prolonged siege, uncover enemy secrets, and form strategic alliances to safeguard their clan’s future," reads a line from the official description.

 

Seasonal Content
In addition to this paid content, everyone is getting free seasonal DLC that comes in the form of "new narrative content" and in-game events. The seasons will last for three months, and each will include a lot of new content. December 2020's Season 1, for example, includes a new settlement area, the Yule festival event, a new River Raids mode, and new skills and abilities.

Valhalla Season 1 Content:

A new settlement area, allowing players to continue to grow and evolve their settlement.
A traditional Viking Festival: the Yule Festival, for players to experience in their settlement.
A new game mode: the River Raids. Building on Valhalla’s core raiding mechanic the mode will deliver a dynamic, challenging and highly replayable raid experience.
The addition of the Ranks for Jomsviking: in Assassin’s Creed Valhalla players can not only create their lieutenant to be part of their raiding crew, but also recruit some from their friends and the community. In Season 1, players will see an update to the Jomsviking feature which will allow their Jomsviking to earn XP and rank up – the higher will be the rank of the lieutenant, the more silver players will earn when recruited by other players.
Finally, as for each season, Season 1 will also come with new player skills and abilities, weapons and gear, and cosmetic items for the settlement, longship, horse and raven.
Season 2 is slated to begin in March, and it will add a new game mode to be named later, a new Jomsviking refresh, more festivals, and additional gear and cosmetic items to collect. There will be at least two more seasons, Season 3 and 4, though no details about them have been announced yet. You can see a rundown of the Season 1 content below, as written by Ubisoft.

In a press release, Ubisoft said there will be even more content beyond all of this. "There will be more to come as the Assassin's Creed Valhalla development team is committed to support the game and continued improvement of the core experience with additional content, yet to be revealed," the company said.

Assassin's Creed Valhalla releases on November 10 for Xbox Series X/Series S, Xbox One, PS4, and on PC through the Epic Games Store and Ubisoft's own PC store, but not Steam. The game will also be available on PS5 when the console releases starting November 12, as well as Amazon Luna when it's released.

 

Assassin's Creed Valhalla's Eivor shares similarities with Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag's Edward; both are people who are historically known for pillaging and raiding--not something that's typical for a hero. I asked narrative director Darby McDevitt how Ubisoft hopes to handle a story where you play as the conqueror, not the protector.

"People don't have a full picture of the Viking thing," McDevitt said. "That being said, they did aggress. But we tried to pick a point in history where they did have a grander reason for their aggression. And that is to go out and settle, to make a life for themselves."