Does AC Valhalla Move Assassin’s Creed’s Present-Day Story Forward?

Assassin’s Creed Valhalla has been praised for its engaging world and story. Of course, Eivor’s epic Viking saga is easier for newcomers to wrap their heads around than the franchise’s convoluted and sometimes stagnant mythology of Templars and Assassins. Does the series’ present-day story advance at all this time in Assassin’s Creed Valhalla?

Warning: The following contains spoilers for Assassin’s Creed Valhalla.

In a word, yes. In twelve words: Assassin’s Creed Valhalla moves the present-day story forward quite a lot. There are several major developments in the campaign which will have huge consequences for the series from here on, and they start with one massive spoiler.

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In Assassin’s Creed Valhall’s ending, Layla lays down her life for the cause. At least, she appears to: There’s enough wiggle room for Ubisoft to bring her back next time, but it is heavily implied Layla lets her body die for the greater good, much like Desmond Miles, the late protagonist of Assassin’s Creed’s past. This being the third game in a trilogy featuring Layla, it seems likely that this is setting up the series for a new player character to take over.

How Assassin’s Creed Valhalla Changes The Present-Day Story Forever

But Layla isn’t entirely gone. Her mind goes on as a digital consciousness inside an Isu artifact. There, Layla meets a mysterious being called The Reader, who is almost certainly the ghost of Abstergo’s bane in Assassin’s Creeds past, Desmond (and, possibly, also Adam). The ghostly duo may be trapped in a relic, but they have plenty to do. Eivor knows the artifact as Yggdrasil, the World Tree, but to the Isu, it was a supercomputer with the ability to create life, craft convincing simulations, or reincarnate minds. Yggdrasil’s abilities will doubtless be put to further use in the future.

Furthermore, the next cataclysm is still just around the corner. This has been an ongoing chain of events across the last several games starring Layla, since the solar maelstrom which Desmond stopped (or, rather, postponed) has been revealed to be something of a cyclical apocalypse. The fate of the Isu could be very soon be the fate of humanity if The Reader and Layla cannot find a timeline in which the cataclysm is permanently stopped. More than that, Basim, the traitorous Assassin who trapped Layla in the first place, has wormed his way into her group of Assassin friends and is now “controlling” Eivor. So it is very possible that Basim will be playable in DLC or even future titles.

Assassin’s Creed Valhalla moves the “present day” story forward in exciting, unexpected ways. With Layla almost certainly dead and Basim taking control of Eivor, it’s likely fans will be meeting a new player character very soon.

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