Assassin's Creed: Valhalla
Right around 30 hours in, and all in all, I think this is UBI's best AC game, but it takes quite a while to appreciate, which might be good or bad, depending on who you are. For the first 15 hours or so, it seems aimless and gigantic, with no real "loop" to hook you. I was ten hours in before some very key gameplay elements were introduced. It's probably the longest tutorial I've ever played, and the game still hasn't revealed everything. Once all the pieces start falling into place and you get into a groove, the game just keeps on giving and introduces more and more things to keep it fresh and interesting, as a true RPG should.
Without going into too much detail, I'll just say that it feels like "Odyssey", but has better design for an open-world RPG. Even though "AC:O" was great, it felt streamlined, like you were just checking never-ending boxes to clean up the map. This game has a lot more freedom in how you tackle things. It leaves its main story kind of open, and doesn't funnel you towards it with the traditional "beat some side-missions to grind, and then when they're wiped out in the region, you're good to tackle the next big story piece". This game doesn't guide you down that familiar path and you can pretty much do what you want.
My only complaint would be that it still has certain signature AC restrictions and spells them out, so you're still kind of on a string, albeit less so than previous titles. I don't know if it's a game design problem, as we all learn what areas not to fuck around with by just exploring in most of these types of games, but there is just something about the game letting you know in advance where you can and can't go, what missions are too hard, etc, that feels artificial.
They're so damn close to making something special. There are elements of "Dark Souls", "The Witcher", and "Skyrim" all infused into these games, but they haven't quite stuck the landing. This is the closest they've come so far, though. Loving it.
