Is there an overall story in the new Assassin's Creed games?
While the historical stories of Assassin's Creed are largely unrelated, there is an overarching modern storyline that continues from the very first game in 2007. Basically, the series is about modern people reliving memories of the dead. people from all over history with a device called Animus. The old Assassin's Creed games followed a guy named Desmond Miles, who was a descendant of Altair, Ezio, Connor, and all the other Assassins featured in the early mainline games.
Starting with Assassin's Creed Origins, however, the series has a new modern-day protagonist called Layla Hassan. You don't need to know what happened with Desmond to follow the story of Valhalla, but this game is the conclusion of Layla's story that began in Origins. It might fit into Desmond's original storyline a bit too, but the main narrative you'll want to know is Layla's story. That being said, modern elements of Assassin's Creed games still take precedence over historical settings, so Layla's story will likely last only a fraction of the time of Eivor's. All of this is easily ignored if you are not interested.
What should I know before starting Valhalla?
This is only a brief overview of the current scenario. If you want a full explanation, check out our recap of modern Assassin's Creed history.
All you need to know is that Layla is a former Abstergo employee who is now working with Modern Assassins to prevent an apocalyptic event. She joined the Assassins after reliving Bayek's memories in Assassin's Creed Origins, then she relived Kassandra's memories in Assassin's Creed Odyssey in order to locate the Staff of Hermes Trismegistus, a powerful artifact that renders its owner immortal. Kassandra kept it after the events of Odyssey before passing it on to Layla after thousands and thousands of years. It's also worth mentioning that Kassandra and the staff were all this time in the Lost City of Atlantis, which Layla and her team were able to find using Kassandra's memories.
Once Layla gets the staff, she relives more memories of Kassandra in order to become the official keeper of the staff. In ancient Greece, Kassandra endured trials that sent her through a Greek afterlife simulation to prove that she could become the staff keeper. It basically has the potential to corrupt whoever holds it, so trials are there to strengthen the resolve of the wearer. Kassandra passed the trials and learned to wield the staff until she gave it to Layla. As Layla goes through these ordeals these days reliving Kassandra's memories, she accidentally kills one of her staff friends. Layla also defeats an Abstergo strike team and cripples a high Templar official named Otso Berg before leaving Atlantis. She's understandably rocked by what happened after she got the staff, and that will likely play a big part in the story of Valhalla.
Assassin's Creed Valhalla Releases November 10 For PC, PS4, Xbox One, Xbox Series X | S, Google Stadia and Amazon Luna and November 12 on PS5.
-
