High One; Raven God; Father of the Slain. Norse mythology’s illustrious Allfather bears more titles than a silver-spoon aristocrat, although he’s perhaps most commonly referred to as Odin. In Assassin’s Creed Valhalla, however, the son of Bor goes by a lesser-known name: Havi. This is a subtle but important point to consider when discussing Dawn of Ragnarok.
Norse mythology buffs with a penchant for video games have been spoiled over the last few years. From Valhalla itself to God of War, to indies like Hellblade and Valheim, it’s clear that game developers have a bit of a thing for Viking games. What makes Dawn of Ragnarok special in spite of this rapid approach towards saturation is how inherently different it is to similar endeavors. It’s definitely a story rooted in the Poetic Edda and Prose Edda, but it’s also one with its own clear ambition to subvert what that origin can mean in 2022. For the most part, it succeeds.
It’s not too difficult to guess what Dawn of Ragnarok is about. After the fated fallout between the Aesir and the jotunn, the military might of Muspelheim has reared its sweltering maw. By breathing wicked fire on Svartalfheim, the Muspels have slowly but surely set in motion a series of events prophesied to precede the end of the world. But the plight of the local dwarves has nothing to do with your presence here — what has the Allfather’s Norse knickers in a twist is the fact that Baldr, his most beloved son, has been taken prisoner by the cruel and colossal Surtr. Beyond being the beat that kicks off the story, this is integral to understanding the entire structure of the expansion in a similar way to Valhalla opting for Havi over Odin — this is not a straight rewrite of Icelandic poet Snorri Sturloson.
Dawn of Ragnarok gets a lot of things right. It starts with the kind of bang you might expect from a lightning bolt hailed by Mjolnir, and chucks a real bonebreaker of a boss fight at you within the opening hour. Unfortunately, it soon temporarily loses its way.
This is more of a Valhalla problem than it is an issue rooted in the new material. Svartalfheim isn’t overly bloated in terms of its broadness, although it’s worth mentioning how often it burrows too deep or soars too high. When you kick off an expansion by pitting players against the fire giant destined to become the Herald of Ragnarok, asking those same players to climb impossibly tall mountains by holding the left analog stick forward for five consecutive minutes comes off as a bit of a misread. Combined with some weird, almost arbitrary conditions for instigating certain parts of the first third of the story, Dawn of Ragnarok’s sun comes dangerously close to setting before it is given a fair chance to shine.
But shine it does, once the main arcs of the expansion are well and truly underway. Svartalfheim is a sprawling, expertly designed world that is arguably Valhalla’s most pretty region to date, although it also doubles as the perfect setting for examining what gives Odin and his kin the self-ordained right to bear the title of ‘god’. They are powerful but petty; charismatic but cruel; and smart but selfish in a way that could see the entire universe leveled for the sake of protecting meaningless pride and prejudices. One of Dawn of Ragnarok’s most inconspicuous but enduring effects is a slowly realized distrust of Havi, who walks like Eivor and talks like Eivor yet entertains few to zero of their most admirable traits. He gets better over time — I say ‘he’ because even if you choose to play as Cecilie Stenspil’s Eivor, all characters refer to Havi with masculine pronouns — but almost every instance of compassion is balanced with a near-equal bout of cruelty.
These feelings soon become inextricable from the world that encourages them. Svartalfheim is very obviously related to the Asgard and Jotunheim arcs from the main game, but it also isn’t too detached from England, Norway, or anywhere else. The expansion is very clear in its assertion that betrayal, deception, subterfuge, and treachery are all forces that plague gods and men indiscriminately — if anything, the former are less equipped to handle them.
Dawn of Ragnarok uses this knowledge to its advantage. For those unacquainted with the Norse pantheon, it was not made up of particularly nice people, to the extent it’s reasonable to assume the flaws of Valhalla’s Vikings are at least partially attributable to unfortunate, likely involuntarily received imprints from a higher order — but the gods themselves do not care. What has stayed with me in the hours since I rolled credits on Dawn of Ragnarok is how much it feels more like the construction of a story than the telling of one. This is an examination of an epic in the making that clearly highlights the Earth-shattering casualties of its own creation.
We can garner all of this from the language alone. Havi is often introduced as a god of many names, and on one occasion receives a retort from a dwarf who calls himself “Arse Scratcher, Snot Snorter, He of the Crusty Toe.” Surtr is jovially referred to as an “oversized stack of hearth sweepings,” while belligerent battles of wit between the finest smiths of Svartalfheim are a real treat to witness for anyone with any stock in the origins and retelling of these stories. On top of drawing a few hearty laughs out of us, it’s a neat homage to Norse myth that more than earns its right to play around with it, eventually comprising a kind of balladic background that makes it exceedingly clear the gods and their would-be equals are incomparable to the lads down below. Sorry, lads.
The reason we’re lingering on this topic for so long is because you likely already know what to expect from the game itself. Combat remains largely unchanged outside of the newly introduced atgeir, a two-handed polearm that feels punchier and crunchier than any axe. I recommend that you try it — and that you experiment with a variety of builds in Kara’s Valkyrie Arena once you unlock it — but it is unlikely that doing so will result in some sort of revelation.
Similarly, the new powers granted to you via the Hugr-Rip are remarkably cool. You can transform into a Muspel, a jotunn, or a raven at a moment’s notice, opening up a variety of new options for how you choose to engage the enemy. It also plays into certain quests: There’s one guy who is too afraid to be seen chatting to an Aesir, but if you cosplay as his Muspel oppressor, he’ll sing like a Svartalf canary. But again, you’ll get the hang of these Powers naturally and before very long. They are a welcome novelty more so than a recalibration of how it feels to bash heads — Valhalla already solved how to make that feel good two and a half years ago.
Ironically, there are certain parts of Valhalla that actually feel somehow worse in Dawn of Ragnarok. If you haven’t played since before The Siege of Paris, the ‘Checking for add-ons’ prompt at launch will do a good job of highlighting the Animus’ age. Some NPCs will jog slower than you can run but faster than you can walk — it’s 2022. Others will bizarrely rattle off the same line up to ten times in quick succession, metamorphosing into the obscene love child of a dwarf and a parrot. Meanwhile, mission design is dated and often repetitive — at one point you have to carry someone over 1,000 yards. These are all strange design concessions for a game with a narrative core as bright as this one.
And it truly is bright. For example, Surtr’s pathological obsession with fate clearly distinguishes him from a typical, twirly-moustache villain, while continuing to have Eivor live vicariously through their dreams is an excellent way to weave dual existences and dual threats into an overarching and cohesive story. There’s one quest I’ve been thinking about a lot, where you’re tasked with generating enough heat to light a forge. Naturally, you use the power of Muspelheim, do a few jumping jacks in some nearby lava, and ignite the coal with your own molten body. There is so much good stuff here — and that’s without mentioning the introduction of a mysterious character who almost instantly becomes one of Valhalla’s strongest personalities yet.
Overall, Dawn of Ragnarok is a promising start to Assassin’s Creed Valhalla’s second year of support. Its mythology is sound, its story is enticing, and its characters come together in a very different way from the base game, which acts as a nice change of pace. There are issues with mission design and repetition in relation to both world traversal and barks, but my grievances never stuck around long enough to tear me away from my PC. This is definitely something that has been very consciously designed for the kind of people who have stuck around since launch, so if you’re anything like me, you’ve got some decent food to feast on here.
At the same time, this is the beginning of the end for Eivor and Havi. Without spoiling anything, there’s a scene in the expansion that focuses on bloodshed, exhaustion, and cyclical, pointless violence that bodes impressively well for the future of this story. While we might bear witness to intense cruelty and hardship now, there may be a chance to unravel the tapestry of fate down the line. Ragnarok may be the end of all things, but by starting in the right direction, maybe the end isn’t so final after all.
Written by Cian Maher on behalf of GLHF.
