Assassin’s Creed Valhalla: Dawn of Ragnarok is just another expansion pack, or isn’t it? We’ll get to that in a while. At first glance, it just seems like a plain, boring expansion pack, but once you start playing the game — sorry, the expansion — you realize you’re actually having fun. Dawn of Ragnarok is the third expansion for Assassin’s Creed Valhalla, and given that I haven’t played the original game, the kind of expansion I initially didn’t find enticing, until it did.
morning of ragnarok Essentially a story about a father – Havi, or Odin – trying to rescue one of his sons, Baldar, from the clutches of Vile Surtra, the leader of the fire demons. Sounds like a cliché, doesn’t it? Thankfully, only part of the story of the new DLC felt uninspired. The rest of the expansion pack sounds quintessentially Assassin’s Creed Valhalla But it is somewhat clear.
I am not going to talk about the story of Dawn of Ragnarok as many people have already covered it in their reviews. What am I here to talk about, can you play the game without prior experience with Assassin’s Creed Valhalla? A short answer would be: yes, you can. For the longer version, read on. To be honest, there would be no point in introducing DLC if new players can’t enjoy it.
As I mentioned before, I haven’t played Assassin’s Creed Valhalla before, so I thought about offering the perspective of someone who hasn’t played the original game and decided to dive straight into the DLC. Ubisoft recommends that this expansion pack is for players who have completed somewhat of the original story, but don’t worry, newbies like me can still enjoy the expansion pack.
Assassin’s Creed Valhalla: The Dawn of Ragnarok – Story
The Dawn of Ragnarok begins with a lot of back and forth between Havi and Frigg as they try to find and save their son, Baldar. There’s a lot of walking and talking, and I have to admit that the non-player characters (NPCs) in the game need to get turbo mode because they’re extremely slow. At times I found myself far ahead of the NPCs and eventually had to back off because the game couldn’t speed me up.
Assassin’s Creed Valhalla: Dawn of Ragnarok has cave-dwelling dwarves
photo credit: Ubisoft
However, things escalate once you are greeted with boss battles. After killing some of the mussels, Havi and Frigg reach the palace where Baldra was captured by Surtra. In order to free his son, Hawi had to fight with Surtra. Note that if you’re not used to playing Assassin’s Creed or aren’t good at combat games in general, fighting Surtr can leave you furious more than once.
According to my Xbox app, I’ve played the game for about 20 hours—I know that’s not nearly enough, but bear with me—and about half of it went into trying to kill Surtra. I initially thought that fighting in the Vikinger (default) setting might give me a good perspective of the game. And I was right in part, because it only gave me perspective on what I needed to do to improve my face-to-face combat skills.
Once you pass the first boss fight, you’re left to fend for yourself and find your son Balder as Surtr kills Frigg after the fight. Havi moves around Svarfenheim trying to complete quests and collect money. It honestly seems a bit strange that as the greatest god in Norse mythology, Havi needs to go around the entire map robbing his enemies with random pots and chests.
Assassin’s Creed Valhalla: Dawn of Ragnarok – Gameplay, New Powers
Dawn of Ragnarok gives Havi a hug-rip bracer that allows players to extract power from fallen enemies. Oh, you can even turn into a raven and zip around the map seamlessly, which was quite a memorable one. The only caveat is that you’ll only have 30 seconds before converting back, which also presented a fun challenge trying to see how far you can get as a raven before time runs out.
Alternatively, you can also extract the power of a muspel and temporarily become a fire demon yourself. This works when you are too lazy to kill the mussels and can sneak around to get to your destination. Ubisoft also hides important items like keys, chests, and other loot items near the lava, so the Muspel power really comes in handy here.
Assassin’s Creed Valhalla: Dawn of Ragnarok has a variety of enemies
photo credit: Ubisoft
Another power allows you to temporarily revive dead enemies and make them fight alongside you. Honestly, it seems like the worst power, because you can’t use it on bosses. I didn’t find it particularly useful because by the time I killed enough enemies to use this power, I had almost killed everyone around me. The one time I used it, my team’s muspel was so confused as to who to fight, it made zero sense to power.
Among all these powers of Hugger-Rip, the Muspel fire demon power was constantly in my arsenal, honestly, you can’t play the game without it. Dawn of Ragnarok also gives you ample opportunities to regain these powers as you take out more enemies. The Hugger-Rip is designed in such a way that players can only store two Powers at a time. Therefore, players will need to kill the enemy concerned – who carries said power – to gain it, but will have to replace one of the two already stored.
Assassin’s Creed Valhalla: Dawn of Ragnarok Review – Final Verdict
Dawn of Ragnarok is more than just another expansion pack. Many would argue, and rightly so, that you need to at least play the base game before diving in, but I disagree. I barely played Assassin’s Creed Valhalla and here I am telling you, it is not required.
The map for the expansion is relatively large — I’ve yet to fully explore it with my 20 hours of gameplay — and there are so many sides that it feels like it might be its own game. I rarely felt that I should have played Assassin’s Creed Valhalla because it kept me engrossed in the story. Yes, I agree that players starting their Valhalla journey may need some training to regain control, and for that particular reason I think Dawn of Ragnarok deserved its title.
professionals
- detailed map
- Using Hug-Rip Powers
Shortcoming
- Boss fights can be tricky
- Hugger-Rip Powers Storage
- Exists as an expansion pack and is not a separate title
Rating (out of 10): 7