Torn between two games the could have been, Assassins Creed Valhalla is by no means a bad game. It's actually quite good, but it comes off ultimately as less than the sum of its parts. The core of the Assassin's Creed gameplay is there, but the environments don't lend themselves to exploit it. The core of an Ubisoft open world Viking game is also there, but story progression keeps pulling you from that space to force the narrative forward. The coolest bits of the combat are locked behind treasure chests scattered across that vast world, and other awkward inconsistencies. Interspersed are low notes dragging you forward to...well, not so much a present-day, but a near-future-day storyline that is even more stale than it was four or five major sequels ago when it well and truly jumped the shark. There are two competing experiences here: that as as Assassin, and that as a Viking, that either on its own feels like it might have been a triumph and better than this good but not great Assass-king hybrid we have.