Assassin's Creed Valhalla Expands Steamy Romance Mechanics

Assassin's Creed Valhalla will continue the trend of letting you pursue multiple romances throughout your adventure, but this time your options for lasting relationships have been expanded. You won't have to be a terrible person if you want to continue seeing someone for a long stretch of time. Of course, you still could still have several one-night-stands.

In advance of Ubisoft Forward, GameSpot recently sat down with Valhalla narrative director Darby McDevitt, who explained how the Viking-themed sequel will still let you explore as many relationships as you wish. This time, however, you're able to engage with your partner in long-term relationships while also fostering multiple smaller ones on the side if you wish.

"There are definitely a couple of one-night-stands you can get involved in and they're fun in their own ways but there's also going to be some longer-term relationships," McDevitt explained. "A little of both. If you want to be monogamous and have a single, ongoing relationship with somebody, you can do that."

Romances were present in Assassin's Creed Odyssey, but they were criticized as forced and comedic. Rather than building relationships, Alexios or Kassandra would often get a romance dialogue prompt resulting in an almost instantaneous trip to the bedroom, haybale, or what have you. Afterward, it would usually never be addressed again, except in a few rare cases with particular secondary characters.

Valhalla stars a single protagonist named Eivor, and that name applies to either gender selection you make. Odyssey did give both Alexios and Kassandra hetero- and homosexual romance options, so the same will likely apply to Valhalla.

Assassin’s Creed Valhalla will release on November 17 for Xbox One, PS4, and PC. It is also coming to PS5 and Xbox Series X, but release dates for those platforms have not been announced.

Just prior to Ubisoft Forward, Ubisoft announced the event would not address the ongoing abuse allegations at the publisher, which just saw the departure of several senior executives.