Update: The livestream has now concluded, revealing the game as Assassin’s Creed Valhalla.
The game’s world premier trailer will debut tomorrow on April 30th at 8 AM PDT/ 5 PM CEST. You can also find the final image below.
Original Story:
Ubisoft have begun teasing the setting for their next Assassin’s Creed game, and earlier rumors about the game being based on vikings may be true.
Back in April 2019, VG247 reported that an unspecified sources who were “familiar with the game” told them of the next Assassin’s Creed title. Codenamed “Kingdom”, and that it would feature vikings.
Earlier that month, players found a possible Easter egg in The Division 2 (also developed by Ubisoft). An in-game poster for a brand called Valhalla depicted a man in white and red robes, holding an “Apple of Eden”- an important object within the Assassin’s Creed universe.
In May 2019, alleged images from the game being in development leaked to 4Chan, though these were later debunked. In November 2019, a user of r/GamingLeaksAndRumours claimed the next game would be set in a Norse setting, and that it was now called Ragnarok.
Other alleged details included a Fall 2020 release date across “old and new gen” consoles, and that it would be revealed during a PlayStation event in February 2020. There were other details, however users took issue with the claim that the game would take place during c. 800 BC and that the “map includes Scandinavia and a big part of England, including London and Plimouth.”
Others were quick to call out the inaccuracy in the game taking place in c. 800 BC, as it would be long before London was founded by the Romans in 47 AD. In addition, the Viking Age is between 793 and 1066 AD.
Nonetheless, around the same time Ubisoft confirmed it would announce three new AAA titles before March 2020. However, the news came from a financial report, and was framed as such that those titles would begin generating profit by March 2020.
In January 2020, multiple outlets [1, 2, 3, 4] cited alleged listings of Assassin’s Creed Ragnarok on Amazon and GameStop. The GameStop image was quickly debunked via r/GamingLeaksAndRumours, as it had the same “presell” number as Watch Dogs: Legion – Resistance Edition (294423). Another user even managed to recreate the fake image via this method.
The Amazon image was a little more dubious. GamesRadar ran the image through Forensically. The website offers (in it’s own words) “a set of free tools for digital image forensics. It includes clone detection, error level analysis, meta data extraction and more.”
On its lowest settings for clone detection, the game’s title was marked- meaning (if accurate) the title was copied from another image. GamesRadar propose a sold-out listing for Jotun: Valhalla Edition (on the German Amazon store) could have been the basis of the falsified image.
These doubts and more were why Niche Gamer did not report them at the time, feeling the rumors were too dubious to be true. However, Daniel Ahmad (Senior Analyst at Niko Partners) tweeted that Ubisoft China teased an announcement for April 29th.
One French Twitter user (j0nathan) claims to have seen a new Assassin’s Creed novel listed on Amazon France and other online book retailers [1, 2, 3, 4]. Two of the keywords on one of the websites (Lehmanns Media, which we have been unable to find ourselves) were Ragnarok and Valhalla.
Now, the Ubisoft North America YouTube account has been live streaming with BossLogic. It depicts artwork being drawn, which will allegedly show the setting of the next Assassin’s Creed game.
You can find the live-steam below.
The image so far depicts both frozen shores, and European castles. It is entirely possible the next game may be themed around vikings or the beginning of the Anglo-Saxon period. What do you think? Sound off in the comments below!
