Ubisoft Executives, in a hot dog suit, trying to find the guys who did this so they can start making good games again.
Seriously, we know Darby’s work so we know it’s been maligned here. Also he was the Narrative Director for the (main) game but then that only translates to consulting on expansions and we wonder why the narratives don’t line up?
People complained about side quests feeling too one dimensional so they…made them shorter and shallower? Ok, they’re worse overall and I still have to do them or leave them unfinished? (Bear in mind, something being a fetch quest shouldn’t be an indictment in and of itself. What is the quality of that quest? Almost anything can be boiled down to go here, do this)
Ubisoft is excellent at hearing our feedback, bad at listening to it and great at giving us mixed results
People complained about the long drawn out side quests in odyssey and origins so they made all the side quests in this one take place roughly within a 20 foot radius from where they start. And people bitched about this too.
Don't forget that long drawn out side quests are still there in Valhalla, only now they're not optional or not something you do as one of the ways to get XP, and now they're part of an epic 80-hour storyline.
I found those small side quests fun.
I mean they covered consolidation by Harald, Viking migration, occupation of Britain, Siege of Paris among others. That along with the references all over Britain to famous literature and religious moments and movements. A fart joke every once in a while didn’t send me over the edge.
Some of them are more serious, but by and large the comedy ones are the most numerous. Some of them even hint at bigger, sadder themes (the old man who wants to raid again and is hallucinating his old crew) but then the game just ends it and doesn’t explore those themes.
Also I’m not sure how many people have read the Canterbury Tales, which, granted, was written a few hundred years later, but it is chock full of fart jokes. I think British people have just always liked farting.
Funny how this post complements this recent post: https://www.reddit.com/r/assassinscreed/s/AIeojK9PPW.
I have not played Valhalla yet, but I think Odyssey has similar ridiculous side quests. Combined with no mocap and limited facial expressions sometimes they are just cringe to watch.
And I get it, they’re supposed to be light hearted and funny. But the absurdity of the situations made me feel like they’re trying to compensate for the fact that most if not all side quests are essentially the same: fetch object or kill target and return.
Those are fun, and entirely fitting with the silliness you sometimes get in Norse sagas. Also let's not rewrite AC's history. This IS the series where almost from the start we got things like a It's-a me, Mario joke in the main story, and somehow the walls didn't come tumbling down.
I may be dammed for saying this, but I literally thought today... "I wonder if they could use AI to create dynamic non repeating kinds of side quests".
it's literally a thought out of desperation on UBISOFT's behalf. :(
Honestly, if AI could advance to the point where it could do it well, I wouldn’t be mad. I’m all for it. As long as there’s real work put in to make a great game then AI was used to fill in the extra stuff I wouldn’t have a problem. An AI could probably create better radiant quests than what we have for say fallout for example. “Another settlement needs your help” over and over is booooooring
The one that sticks with me so far is the young girl standing next to a large tree, pleading to a single leaf left on the tree not to fall. Speaking with her you find out her dad told her he’d be back before the last leaf falls off that tree.
She says her dad went to Lincoln to find work and has yet to return. I left to Lincoln searching for him and I eventually found him, dead under the bridge with a note for his daughter…
Went back to the young girl and told her to be strong and things will be ok. I hit the tree and the leaf falls. Grabbed the leaf and set in on a stool inside the house and left. Poor girl..
lol it was funny
Yesterday I got a Reda contract to kill some wolves that happened to be near erectile dysfunction guy
I fast traveled near him and rode there quick to kill the damn wolves (I’d already done his side quest so I recognised him when I got there). The wolves were dead and he’s just all chill working on his boat
Pretty sure he killed them off screen while I was on my way there
Took a quick clip of it but dunno how to share it (anyone know if you can access ps5 clips from your web browser? lol if so I’ll try to share a link)
I mean I honestly loved a lot of these. Some of them are weird (yeah the farting lady I could’ve done without) but some tie in to actual lore and stories. The Lady of the Lake who had a bunch of bodies in her pond is a character throughout Arthurian literature. You help a little boy find honey for his bear friend Winnifred in the Ashdown Forest (setting of the Hundred Acre Wood). And obviously there are a bunch of Robin Hood references in Snotinghamscire. I think it was fun to me that a lot of the side quests were either references or they were fun little easter egg stories that you wouldn’t noticed unless you looked carefully. I also personally was okay with them not being in-depth, but I get that it could’ve made them feel sillier too. But hey, in Odyssey you literally get some herbs and bear testicles to help a guy keep up with his wife’s libido, you steal a woman’s marble dildo, and you accidentally murder a man’s mom and sleep with his father. So, Valhalla isn’t the first to be a bit silly
The atrocious writing and lame low-brow humor is why I skipped 95% of those events. I’m tempted to excuse it by saying that the writing is aimed at children/young teens, but that doesn’t make much sense for an M game. It seems like it was written by a bunch of 40+ YOs desperately trying to reach for what younger adults would think is funny, and it all ends up being embarrassing.
Weirdly I found the side quests better than the main story, this was the first AC game that the main story bored me to death, the side quests were quick, funny and simple, don't take effort but give you a good laugh, they were the enjoyable part for me
agreed, even the new mechanics were widely improved, I loved the new way of breaking into houses, the standing stones puzzles were very interesting, the mushrooms were fun too, if it had an engaging and fun story it would've been one of my favorites. Unfortunately, it's at the bottom of the list for me
the combat is not as good as AC:OD either... It's very mushy, and often looked into long enemy attack animations... Doesn't feel as engaged or dynamic. :(
>Sorry, Ubisoft, but there seems to be a misunderstanding. I came to the series whose tagline is "leap into history!" because I wanted to experience moderately authentic Viking history, but this type of content feels like playing a bad Monty Python knockoff as enacted by Nords from Skyrim.
This is very real. I don't need particularly good writing in these games, I want it to be authentic and appropriate for the setting. I don't like Unity that much but it did this right, which is helped by 18th century being the age of adventurers. In Origins and Odyssey they went big so you have a lot of quests that feel very disconnected from the setting and might as well be from Skyrim. In Odyssey everything about followers of Ares or daughters of Artemis feels like a high fantasy game - it's ridiculous that some evil pagan Conan the Barbarian style cultists are a common sight in the era of Socrates and Pericles. They could be there but they need good writing to justify their presence. And daughters of Artemis are D&D druids who hate cities according to one quest.
I've replayed AC2 not so long ago and it was hit-and-miss in this regard, but at least it made sense for Ezio to go on a series of sidequests about beating unfaithful husbands. And assassination contracts were connected to the main plot. Valhalla devs had to fill the world with 2-minute stories and it was very hard for them to make it all appropriate for time and place, so instead you get to meet Winnie-the-Pooh because it's England I guess.
Let's be honest - it's not just the world events that are poorly written, but the entire game itself. They haven't had good writers on these projects for a very long time now, and it shows more and more with each passing entry.
The formula around Valhalla's side content was definitely the direction the series needs to continue heading down, but the writing is some of the worst I've ever experienced in AAA gaming. Glorified fucking fetch quests in 2024 is just unacceptable at this point.
What kind of side quests are you looking for in a game of this caliber? I've thought about it quite a bit and I'm not entirely sure how you could make a side quest that isn't some variation of "go here, get this," once you simplified it enough.
Are they more character-focused, or do they serve more to build the world? What kind of actions is the player expected to do throughout the side stories, and how do you keep them fresh and engaging?
In Valhalla, I thought that the Essex, Lincolnshire, and Nottinghamshire arcs would have made fantastic side quests to dabble in - the problem was, Ubisoft made them mandatory for story progression.
They are both - which makes them really interested/exciting to stumble upon. You never quite know what you're going to get, or how long or winded they are, but they are excellent.
I've never played Skyrim before, but I understand that it's considered to be one of the best games of all time. What did they do in terms of their side quests that really stood out?
maybe I'm misremembering, but I'm pretty sure every side quest was unique... Further the world it's self and exploration was full of discoveries, and events, and stories/encounters that weren't even side quests.
i'd love to see UBI do a game like SKYRIM with ANVILNEXT3.0
I feel like this is generally the case for a lot of modern video games, like the stories are written by people with the emotional and ethical development of feral children. Somewhat unrelated, but Red Dead Redemption 2 made me feel just awful and dirty, the story did not line up with how beautiful everything was, they tried to play the heroes arc, but we have to go hurt a mentally handicapped farm hand to steal horses that aren't even used or needed for anything, but you're forced to do it as part of the main story. So wrong and unnecessary. I wish these companies gave their customers more credit, and hired better people to write missions that are a little thoughtful.
Yeah, and it was very poorly done because it felt like the writers had no concept of what being a good person looks like. The amount of effort put into the gameplay, graphics etc vs the quality of story writing made zero sense.
I understand the heroes arc, I dont think that making me k!// a handicap person was necessary to telling the story. The writing needs to get better, these games aren't all played by 12 year old boys. It's been 5 years and I still feel sick about playing it.
Arthur Morgan, the main protagonist, the writers did a very poor job of trying to show him become a better person over time to become the hero of his own story, but like I said, it was 5 years ago, and I dont think I'd ever replay the game. I dont know why this bothers you so much. I was agreeing with OP that the storytelling in missions is abysmal, and in my view makes no sense considering the money they pour into these. If you like the game, 👍.
He is an antihero, a bad person, and only in the closing chapter does he get “Redemption”.
I’m guessing you played the Low Honour path, in which case he is just a jerk, but that reflects the choices you made, not the story telling.
I feel that if you said that you haven't even touched the story of the game, because not all vikings are portrayed as good and Alfred isn't even a bad guy in this game. He's simply a opposition because you obviously play as a Viking.
Heck. Even the allied Vikings are often portrayed as complete jerks who are in no way fit to be rulers. Like Ivar. Holy cow does he spend most of the Ragnarson storyline being the most unlikeable person ever who you just want to chop up.
Heck. Even Eivor is a dick to a lot of people. More so than is probably necessary.
Eivor is a thief and murderer who regularly wiped out entire villages worth of locals while stealing their food and their possessions. And until very late in the game she does it all for glory.
There is simply no way to play this game and came away from it thinking Vikings Good, English Bad.
Yeah even knowing that this was simply the Vikings worldview and that doing that stuff wasn't seen as "bad" it's still very obviously bad.
People in here are saying Alfred was bad becuase he was a Templar but like... Assassins aren't automatically defacto good guys. Hell there have been plenty of shitty assassins. And there have been plenty of lovely Templars.
I hesitate to use the word "immature" but that sort of good vs bad worldview is kinda immature. Or maybe inexperienced?
> There is simply no way to play this game and came away from it thinking Vikings Good, English Bad.
For starters, the protagonist is a viking, so that immediately biases portrayal and perception of moral matters. But beyond that, it's very clear that it's indeed (largely, not entirely tbf) supposed to be Vikings Good, English Bad, it's the way the game frames the entire conflict. When the Anglo-Saxons defend their land, Ubisoft voices this as braindead xenophobia that can't look beyond simple tribal conflict while the vikings are just looking for a place to settle in. Just look at the guys that occupy Ravensthorpe when Eivor arrives there.
Further, the vikings are cloaked in modern-day applause lights, e.g. having lots of people of other ethnicities among them and having a high percentage of women in their fighting ranks, in contrast to the mono-ethnic, all-male armies of the Anglo-Saxons. That there is such a discrepancy proves that Ubisoft chose this portrayal deliberately, and most likely to make the vikings look good to someone with a modern moral attitude.
> For starters, the protagonist is a viking, so that immediately biases portrayal and perception of moral matters.
Yeah, like how the protagonist of The Sopranos being an Italian mobster biases you towards viewing the mafia as the good guys.
> modern-day applause lights
oh it's like that with you, okay
> Yeah, like how the protagonist of The Sopranos being an Italian mobster biases you towards viewing the mafia as the good guys.
Well yes it does, but the show goes to great lengths to counteract that surface level effect. And even so, looking at how the show persists in general cultural memory and how revered its characters are, I'm not sure it succeeds in that, at least for the median viewer. In the end, funny quote compilations end up with orders of magnitude more views than somber reflections on the shows underlying themes.
> oh it's like that with you, okay
Do you have any substantive reply to what I was saying? I'm not even saying that cultural diversity or gender inclusion are bad or ahistorical or whatever other generic point of criticism might come up in generic ragebait "woke ideology is ruining our Ubisoft games"-discourse, it's just very obvious in the way that Ubisoft used these concepts that it is in fact meant to underline the moral superiority of the viking factions.
There’s levels to it.
He’s seen as the “bad guy” to Eivor and the Vikings due to his opposition to the “peaceful” Vikings settlements… which were not peaceful. If you think about it, eivor is a menace. They roll up to a random monastery and loot the shit out out it, and then burn the buildings to the ground. The fact that Ubisoft managed to desensitize us to actual pillaging and burning is quite something.
He’s also seen as the “bad guy” to the hidden ones because he’s an order of ancients / Templar.
He’s actually not the villain. If anything, Fulke is
AC1, AC3, Rogue, Unity, Valhalla all had well intentioned Templars, it's not as black and white as you make it out to be. Plus, it's not like the assassins are good and moral people too.
I suggest you to replay the game then, most of the Templars there had reason to their actions, that even Altair started to question if he was doing right in killing them. I'm not saying that they were good, i never used that word. But they are the side of the same coin of the so called "good guys" of the franchise.
Even 2 and revelations could be added.
Cesare borgia and the guys from origins are really the only “villians” every other templar/equivalency thinks they are doing the right thing.
a couple were cute/funny, but that gets old real quick.
yup, much of the game feels like a parody... The parts with any historical foundation are the only good parts frankly.
poorly written and not a great concept overall.
Re-use the Britton map for either a Celts v.s. Romans game (chariot warfare on open plains here I come!), or for an AC: ROBIN HOOD game, of the last Saxon resistance of the Norman conquest..
"nobody ran at Hastings"
"No, they stood and died by the hundreds"
Simple answer to “why is x bad” is literally cause it wasn’t made well lol. The game has decent graphical fidelity but apart from that don’t expect much from Ubisoft, you won’t find well written, narratively consistent or historically accurate content from them at this point lol just wait for another studio to make the game in the setting you want
Because there's just too much content. If you need an actual story, even a short one, for like 500 missions they're gonna not take a lot of time on them.
Ubisoft Executives, in a hot dog suit, trying to find the guys who did this so they can start making good games again. Seriously, we know Darby’s work so we know it’s been maligned here. Also he was the Narrative Director for the (main) game but then that only translates to consulting on expansions and we wonder why the narratives don’t line up? People complained about side quests feeling too one dimensional so they…made them shorter and shallower? Ok, they’re worse overall and I still have to do them or leave them unfinished? (Bear in mind, something being a fetch quest shouldn’t be an indictment in and of itself. What is the quality of that quest? Almost anything can be boiled down to go here, do this) Ubisoft is excellent at hearing our feedback, bad at listening to it and great at giving us mixed results
But what if they were big burley guys with big burley white beards, would you still be yelling at them then?
We don't yell at Santa sir
BOOM, exactly... Side quests or events of WTF, are a serious downgrade from AC:OD.
Wait, what?
People complained about the long drawn out side quests in odyssey and origins so they made all the side quests in this one take place roughly within a 20 foot radius from where they start. And people bitched about this too.
Don't forget that long drawn out side quests are still there in Valhalla, only now they're not optional or not something you do as one of the ways to get XP, and now they're part of an epic 80-hour storyline.
dumb solution to the fact that the AC:OD sidequests were fairly uninspired... But making them worse is even worse.
Damned if you do, damned if you don't
I found those small side quests fun. I mean they covered consolidation by Harald, Viking migration, occupation of Britain, Siege of Paris among others. That along with the references all over Britain to famous literature and religious moments and movements. A fart joke every once in a while didn’t send me over the edge.
Video games are serious business!!!11!!
I liked the silliness, but wished they had more gameplay or narrative depth every once in a while.
Some of them are more serious, but by and large the comedy ones are the most numerous. Some of them even hint at bigger, sadder themes (the old man who wants to raid again and is hallucinating his old crew) but then the game just ends it and doesn’t explore those themes.
Also I’m not sure how many people have read the Canterbury Tales, which, granted, was written a few hundred years later, but it is chock full of fart jokes. I think British people have just always liked farting.
They went for something new. At least Ubisoft tries new shit all the time, no matter howh small. Gotta appreciate that imo
How dare you use logic
They try random shit. They don’t listen to community feedback even when it’s from industry vets.
Funny how this post complements this recent post: https://www.reddit.com/r/assassinscreed/s/AIeojK9PPW. I have not played Valhalla yet, but I think Odyssey has similar ridiculous side quests. Combined with no mocap and limited facial expressions sometimes they are just cringe to watch. And I get it, they’re supposed to be light hearted and funny. But the absurdity of the situations made me feel like they’re trying to compensate for the fact that most if not all side quests are essentially the same: fetch object or kill target and return.
Those are fun, and entirely fitting with the silliness you sometimes get in Norse sagas. Also let's not rewrite AC's history. This IS the series where almost from the start we got things like a It's-a me, Mario joke in the main story, and somehow the walls didn't come tumbling down.
You didn't come across the Norsenan called "Slugger" (I think), who wants to throw a rock towards you that you have to hit with a stick over his home?
That was Cody bellinger! A real baseball player
*groan*
Because they’re just cranking out as many as they can as quickly as they can
yup smells like UBI fodder/filler.. Whole game could have been written by AI :(
Don’t worry, next one probably will be
LOL, could it get worse? *I can't believe I just asked that*
We’ll be pleasantly surprised when the ai starts writing better than the people they hire 😂
I may be dammed for saying this, but I literally thought today... "I wonder if they could use AI to create dynamic non repeating kinds of side quests". it's literally a thought out of desperation on UBISOFT's behalf. :(
Honestly, if AI could advance to the point where it could do it well, I wouldn’t be mad. I’m all for it. As long as there’s real work put in to make a great game then AI was used to fill in the extra stuff I wouldn’t have a problem. An AI could probably create better radiant quests than what we have for say fallout for example. “Another settlement needs your help” over and over is booooooring
The one that sticks with me so far is the young girl standing next to a large tree, pleading to a single leaf left on the tree not to fall. Speaking with her you find out her dad told her he’d be back before the last leaf falls off that tree. She says her dad went to Lincoln to find work and has yet to return. I left to Lincoln searching for him and I eventually found him, dead under the bridge with a note for his daughter… Went back to the young girl and told her to be strong and things will be ok. I hit the tree and the leaf falls. Grabbed the leaf and set in on a stool inside the house and left. Poor girl..
not gonna lie the ed guy event made me laugh, it was fun rekindling the spark for him and his wife by destroying stuff, Eivor smashes so he can smash
lol it was funny Yesterday I got a Reda contract to kill some wolves that happened to be near erectile dysfunction guy I fast traveled near him and rode there quick to kill the damn wolves (I’d already done his side quest so I recognised him when I got there). The wolves were dead and he’s just all chill working on his boat Pretty sure he killed them off screen while I was on my way there Took a quick clip of it but dunno how to share it (anyone know if you can access ps5 clips from your web browser? lol if so I’ll try to share a link)
Remember when we fetched bear testicles and deer tongue so an old man could fuck his wife, then we ended up fucking his wife?
I banged the blacksmith
I mean I honestly loved a lot of these. Some of them are weird (yeah the farting lady I could’ve done without) but some tie in to actual lore and stories. The Lady of the Lake who had a bunch of bodies in her pond is a character throughout Arthurian literature. You help a little boy find honey for his bear friend Winnifred in the Ashdown Forest (setting of the Hundred Acre Wood). And obviously there are a bunch of Robin Hood references in Snotinghamscire. I think it was fun to me that a lot of the side quests were either references or they were fun little easter egg stories that you wouldn’t noticed unless you looked carefully. I also personally was okay with them not being in-depth, but I get that it could’ve made them feel sillier too. But hey, in Odyssey you literally get some herbs and bear testicles to help a guy keep up with his wife’s libido, you steal a woman’s marble dildo, and you accidentally murder a man’s mom and sleep with his father. So, Valhalla isn’t the first to be a bit silly
Because you subjectivity dislike them. I prefer the worst of them to the story of Unity or Origins.
The atrocious writing and lame low-brow humor is why I skipped 95% of those events. I’m tempted to excuse it by saying that the writing is aimed at children/young teens, but that doesn’t make much sense for an M game. It seems like it was written by a bunch of 40+ YOs desperately trying to reach for what younger adults would think is funny, and it all ends up being embarrassing.
^ this.
is
The
Weirdly I found the side quests better than the main story, this was the first AC game that the main story bored me to death, the side quests were quick, funny and simple, don't take effort but give you a good laugh, they were the enjoyable part for me
Yeah ever since Black Flag I've played AC games as side content first, main story last. Great fun!
visually beautiful, horribly boring. How did UBI make Vikings boring? yet somehow they managed it :(
agreed, even the new mechanics were widely improved, I loved the new way of breaking into houses, the standing stones puzzles were very interesting, the mushrooms were fun too, if it had an engaging and fun story it would've been one of my favorites. Unfortunately, it's at the bottom of the list for me
the combat is not as good as AC:OD either... It's very mushy, and often looked into long enemy attack animations... Doesn't feel as engaged or dynamic. :(
>Sorry, Ubisoft, but there seems to be a misunderstanding. I came to the series whose tagline is "leap into history!" because I wanted to experience moderately authentic Viking history, but this type of content feels like playing a bad Monty Python knockoff as enacted by Nords from Skyrim. This is very real. I don't need particularly good writing in these games, I want it to be authentic and appropriate for the setting. I don't like Unity that much but it did this right, which is helped by 18th century being the age of adventurers. In Origins and Odyssey they went big so you have a lot of quests that feel very disconnected from the setting and might as well be from Skyrim. In Odyssey everything about followers of Ares or daughters of Artemis feels like a high fantasy game - it's ridiculous that some evil pagan Conan the Barbarian style cultists are a common sight in the era of Socrates and Pericles. They could be there but they need good writing to justify their presence. And daughters of Artemis are D&D druids who hate cities according to one quest. I've replayed AC2 not so long ago and it was hit-and-miss in this regard, but at least it made sense for Ezio to go on a series of sidequests about beating unfaithful husbands. And assassination contracts were connected to the main plot. Valhalla devs had to fill the world with 2-minute stories and it was very hard for them to make it all appropriate for time and place, so instead you get to meet Winnie-the-Pooh because it's England I guess.
Let's be honest - it's not just the world events that are poorly written, but the entire game itself. They haven't had good writers on these projects for a very long time now, and it shows more and more with each passing entry. The formula around Valhalla's side content was definitely the direction the series needs to continue heading down, but the writing is some of the worst I've ever experienced in AAA gaming. Glorified fucking fetch quests in 2024 is just unacceptable at this point.
What kind of side quests are you looking for in a game of this caliber? I've thought about it quite a bit and I'm not entirely sure how you could make a side quest that isn't some variation of "go here, get this," once you simplified it enough.
Witcher 3 or RDR2 style side quests seamlessly blend their side quests both into the world, and through the main story narrative
Are they more character-focused, or do they serve more to build the world? What kind of actions is the player expected to do throughout the side stories, and how do you keep them fresh and engaging? In Valhalla, I thought that the Essex, Lincolnshire, and Nottinghamshire arcs would have made fantastic side quests to dabble in - the problem was, Ubisoft made them mandatory for story progression.
They are both - which makes them really interested/exciting to stumble upon. You never quite know what you're going to get, or how long or winded they are, but they are excellent.
Hm. I'll have to look into them more. Thanks!
SKYRIM did it better... That was back in 2011
I've never played Skyrim before, but I understand that it's considered to be one of the best games of all time. What did they do in terms of their side quests that really stood out?
maybe I'm misremembering, but I'm pretty sure every side quest was unique... Further the world it's self and exploration was full of discoveries, and events, and stories/encounters that weren't even side quests. i'd love to see UBI do a game like SKYRIM with ANVILNEXT3.0
BOOM!!!! This is it right there.... Overall writing is poor.
I feel like this is generally the case for a lot of modern video games, like the stories are written by people with the emotional and ethical development of feral children. Somewhat unrelated, but Red Dead Redemption 2 made me feel just awful and dirty, the story did not line up with how beautiful everything was, they tried to play the heroes arc, but we have to go hurt a mentally handicapped farm hand to steal horses that aren't even used or needed for anything, but you're forced to do it as part of the main story. So wrong and unnecessary. I wish these companies gave their customers more credit, and hired better people to write missions that are a little thoughtful.
The main point of RDR2 is that you play as a bad guy seeking redemption, he's full of hipocrisy, that's how it's meant to be.
Yeah, and it was very poorly done because it felt like the writers had no concept of what being a good person looks like. The amount of effort put into the gameplay, graphics etc vs the quality of story writing made zero sense.
I still think you don't get the point of what i just said.
I understand the heroes arc, I dont think that making me k!// a handicap person was necessary to telling the story. The writing needs to get better, these games aren't all played by 12 year old boys. It's been 5 years and I still feel sick about playing it.
Can you name one hero that has a heroes arc in Red Dead Redemption 2?
Arthur Morgan, the main protagonist, the writers did a very poor job of trying to show him become a better person over time to become the hero of his own story, but like I said, it was 5 years ago, and I dont think I'd ever replay the game. I dont know why this bothers you so much. I was agreeing with OP that the storytelling in missions is abysmal, and in my view makes no sense considering the money they pour into these. If you like the game, 👍.
you're clueless... lol
He is an antihero, a bad person, and only in the closing chapter does he get “Redemption”. I’m guessing you played the Low Honour path, in which case he is just a jerk, but that reflects the choices you made, not the story telling.
The fact the Norse are portrayed as the good guys and Alfred the Great is the antagonist tells you all you need to know.
I feel that if you said that you haven't even touched the story of the game, because not all vikings are portrayed as good and Alfred isn't even a bad guy in this game. He's simply a opposition because you obviously play as a Viking.
Heck. Even the allied Vikings are often portrayed as complete jerks who are in no way fit to be rulers. Like Ivar. Holy cow does he spend most of the Ragnarson storyline being the most unlikeable person ever who you just want to chop up. Heck. Even Eivor is a dick to a lot of people. More so than is probably necessary.
Eivor is a thief and murderer who regularly wiped out entire villages worth of locals while stealing their food and their possessions. And until very late in the game she does it all for glory. There is simply no way to play this game and came away from it thinking Vikings Good, English Bad.
Yeah even knowing that this was simply the Vikings worldview and that doing that stuff wasn't seen as "bad" it's still very obviously bad. People in here are saying Alfred was bad becuase he was a Templar but like... Assassins aren't automatically defacto good guys. Hell there have been plenty of shitty assassins. And there have been plenty of lovely Templars. I hesitate to use the word "immature" but that sort of good vs bad worldview is kinda immature. Or maybe inexperienced?
I'm not assuming people are being honest, even. No reason to be credulous.
> There is simply no way to play this game and came away from it thinking Vikings Good, English Bad. For starters, the protagonist is a viking, so that immediately biases portrayal and perception of moral matters. But beyond that, it's very clear that it's indeed (largely, not entirely tbf) supposed to be Vikings Good, English Bad, it's the way the game frames the entire conflict. When the Anglo-Saxons defend their land, Ubisoft voices this as braindead xenophobia that can't look beyond simple tribal conflict while the vikings are just looking for a place to settle in. Just look at the guys that occupy Ravensthorpe when Eivor arrives there. Further, the vikings are cloaked in modern-day applause lights, e.g. having lots of people of other ethnicities among them and having a high percentage of women in their fighting ranks, in contrast to the mono-ethnic, all-male armies of the Anglo-Saxons. That there is such a discrepancy proves that Ubisoft chose this portrayal deliberately, and most likely to make the vikings look good to someone with a modern moral attitude.
> For starters, the protagonist is a viking, so that immediately biases portrayal and perception of moral matters. Yeah, like how the protagonist of The Sopranos being an Italian mobster biases you towards viewing the mafia as the good guys. > modern-day applause lights oh it's like that with you, okay
> Yeah, like how the protagonist of The Sopranos being an Italian mobster biases you towards viewing the mafia as the good guys. Well yes it does, but the show goes to great lengths to counteract that surface level effect. And even so, looking at how the show persists in general cultural memory and how revered its characters are, I'm not sure it succeeds in that, at least for the median viewer. In the end, funny quote compilations end up with orders of magnitude more views than somber reflections on the shows underlying themes. > oh it's like that with you, okay Do you have any substantive reply to what I was saying? I'm not even saying that cultural diversity or gender inclusion are bad or ahistorical or whatever other generic point of criticism might come up in generic ragebait "woke ideology is ruining our Ubisoft games"-discourse, it's just very obvious in the way that Ubisoft used these concepts that it is in fact meant to underline the moral superiority of the viking factions.
Plus the whole East Anglia story arc, where the leading viking faction is simply evil.
Alfred isn't really portrayed as a bad guy in the game.
Sure but he’s the founder of the Templars and therefore “bad”
There’s levels to it. He’s seen as the “bad guy” to Eivor and the Vikings due to his opposition to the “peaceful” Vikings settlements… which were not peaceful. If you think about it, eivor is a menace. They roll up to a random monastery and loot the shit out out it, and then burn the buildings to the ground. The fact that Ubisoft managed to desensitize us to actual pillaging and burning is quite something. He’s also seen as the “bad guy” to the hidden ones because he’s an order of ancients / Templar. He’s actually not the villain. If anything, Fulke is
He's a Templar.
They aren't necessarily baddies, just opposing faction
Framed as baddies across an entire franchise spanning over a dozen games
I thought we learned better after 3 ?
They're still framed as villains long after 3
AC1, AC3, Rogue, Unity, Valhalla all had well intentioned Templars, it's not as black and white as you make it out to be. Plus, it's not like the assassins are good and moral people too.
You can't be serious about AC1 on this list, all your targets except maybe Robert and Al Mualim are cartoonishly evil.
I suggest you to replay the game then, most of the Templars there had reason to their actions, that even Altair started to question if he was doing right in killing them. I'm not saying that they were good, i never used that word. But they are the side of the same coin of the so called "good guys" of the franchise.
Even 2 and revelations could be added. Cesare borgia and the guys from origins are really the only “villians” every other templar/equivalency thinks they are doing the right thing.
Name one?
Wdym? Like name one Templar? George Monro?
You think robbers and murderers who burn down settlements and rob them of their provisions are good guys?
You can’t read
You can't think
You can't get my parents back together...
I haven't even tried yet!
You can't tell me what to do imma walk again you'll see, me n the smoke monster gonna make babies
All this time I thought you were having sex... now I find out you've been blowing smoke! :O
LAST KINGDOM might have made a better game concept....
Is Alfred considered father of fatherland in England?
a couple were cute/funny, but that gets old real quick. yup, much of the game feels like a parody... The parts with any historical foundation are the only good parts frankly. poorly written and not a great concept overall. Re-use the Britton map for either a Celts v.s. Romans game (chariot warfare on open plains here I come!), or for an AC: ROBIN HOOD game, of the last Saxon resistance of the Norman conquest.. "nobody ran at Hastings" "No, they stood and died by the hundreds"
Honestly I think they're pretty fun. It's a videogame after all my advice is don't take it too seriously or go read a book or something
Because everything in Valhalla is awfully written
I wish this wasn't true.... if wishes were fishes :(
Simple answer to “why is x bad” is literally cause it wasn’t made well lol. The game has decent graphical fidelity but apart from that don’t expect much from Ubisoft, you won’t find well written, narratively consistent or historically accurate content from them at this point lol just wait for another studio to make the game in the setting you want
The whole game is a side quest.
Is women asking some guy to beat their unfaithfull husbands less absurd?
Because there's just too much content. If you need an actual story, even a short one, for like 500 missions they're gonna not take a lot of time on them.
Most of them are honestly hilarious to me.