I’m in love with the wilderness of Assassin’s Creed Valhalla

If you had asked me between 2015-2020 why I liked The Witcher 3, I probably made a very long list things. In 2021, however, after the release of the two Cyberpunk 2077 and Assassin’s Creed Valhalla, this list is much shorter. It is essentially now “wind” and “sun”.

Earlier, more carefree times, I thought The Witcher 3 was exceptional for a number of reasons, most of them probably the same ones you would have listed. Things like his clever writing, memorable quests, consistent choices, and lovable main character. So when the same team responsible for doing The Witcher 3 set out last year to release a new game, that’s the kind of thing I got excited about. No more sad barons, no more baked babies.

Cyberpunk 2077, as you probably know, broke its promises on these fronts, or many others, to the point where playing it was like playing something from a completely different studio. I had launched the game expecting to feel the same Temerian magic, and had uninstalled it without finding a single drop.

Passing by disappointed with Cyberpunk, so, literally, the next game I played was Assassin’s Creed Valhalla, and whaddya knows it. Turns out I was going to feel this Witcher 3 magic after all, just in someone else’s game. And that my Witcher 3 worship (or at least the heart of it) hadn’t had so much to do with aftermath and intrigue; I was just in love with a beautiful forest and a quick sunrise.

I’m not going to sit here and pretend I’m an open world game designer. This shit must be tough. But I’m a seasoned fan of them, and if I’ve learned anything from my entire life playing them it’s that my appreciation of their worlds – not the games themselves, but the places they take place – often has little to do with how “busy” they are.

If big single-player games are anything, they’re a form of escape, and so my favorites are usually the ones that really let me escape. Using Cyberpunk just as an example, if only because it’s so new, it takes place in a huge, bustling city full of cars and pedestrians, advertisements and shops. It is not an escape! This is, uh, the life most of us already lead every day!

No, if most of us live urban lives, then it’s a natural setting that is a real escape. And The Witcher 3’s was such a beautiful world, where you could almost smell the wet grass and feel the wind on your face, and this is one of the few open world games where I ever wanted to reach every corner of its map, not to meet any goals, but just to see what he looked like and to soak up everything.

A living and vibrant world like this is so much more attractive than a concrete jungle. Maybe it’s just me, maybe it’s something more primitive in all of us, a call to nature that only grows stronger as many of us move away. move away. I have already written about virtual tourism in Yakuza, but it is a specific place. It’s more of a state of mind, a love of nature wherever it is, whether it’s a fantasy world or a historical caricature.

Other games that I liked for this reason are Oversight and the Far cry series, while Assassin’s Creed Odyssey got very close a few years ago, even though its Mediterranean coasts and crystal clear blue waters came close to my love of Wind waker than The witcher.

Valhalla, however, oh boy. His exactly what I’m looking for. Its idyllic caricature of 9th-century England is like a weekend getaway to a nature reserve, but with plenty of murder and escalation in between. It’s not my ideal vacation, but it’s part of the package.

While Valhalla Norway’s opening streak is breathtaking in its alpine way, once in England it took around three seconds for that feeling to start to tingle. This old Witcher 3 hum. the Oversight fever. Long grass. Big trees. Falling leaves. Chirping birds. Running water. A gentle breeze. Sunlight shines through the branches, bathing a campsite in an amber morning glow.

Ah, that’s crap. It is evasion. Not in the acts, but in the framework.

Valhalla shows that some of the most memorable open worlds are not defined by density, and that activity does not equate to credibility. His England has certain points on the map where things happen, of course, but for vast areas there is nothing to do, and so like all the best road trips, there is nothing to do. to do but soak up breathtaking landscapes, which is a pleasure that resonates with me much more than tedious work in the open world.

While it can be tempting to pack a video game world with as much sound, fury, and other stuff as possible, Cyberpunk seemed so determined, sometimes it’s best to let an open world open up and enjoy the views. In these cases, as with Valhalla, nothingness is not a problem. It’s the best thing about the game.