What the Siege of Paris Tells Us About the Next Expansions of Assassin’s Creed Valhalla

Assassin’s Creed Valhalla recently received its second major expansion, The Siege of Paris, and after finishing it with about 10 hours of gameplay, I’m concerned for the game’s upcoming expansions. But first, here’s how The Siege of Paris compares against the game’s first expansion, Wrath of the Druids, which was released earlier this year as well as the base game.

The Siege of Paris, as the name suggests, takes Eivor to the 9th century kingdom of West Francia, ruled by King Charles the Fat. The expansion introduces a host of new characters to aid in Eivor’s quest to bring peace among the many factions’ war against each other for control of the territory. Aside from a lush new locale and new characters, the expansion also includes some neat gameplay additions, namely the infiltration missions, inspired by Assassin’s Creed Unity’s black box missions. The new expansion also includes moments of interesting dialogue choices which felt like they would lead to many different outcomes, although judging by the reception the expansion has gotten along with the inability to replay missions, it only seems to be a surface level presentation.

However, despite all of its new additions with an interesting story to back it all up, I can’t help but get underwhelmed when presented with the new additions. Part of it is because after almost a 100 hours in the game, everything from the maps to the mission structure starts to get blurred, and the little differences that are there in the new expansions don’t do enough to set it apart. The new features and additions from Wrath of the Druids are also gone, with the Siege of Paris adding in completely new mission types (on paper) which seemingly invalidate the progress made with the previous expansion.

It also doesn’t help that the Parisian countryside looks almost the same as England from the base game, which also looks similar to Ireland from Wrath of the Druids. Sure, there are some neat architectural changes, especially in Paris, and vegetation seems to be a little more colorful, but any changes to the underlying structure of missions doesn’t seem to justify its price tag. It’s also odd that the gameplay changes that did make their way into the previous expansion are absent here, further splitting the game’s post-launch content apart from each other despite sharing the base assets.

The direction here also feels just as stiff and often lifeless as it did in the base game, and that’s despite the change in creative direction at Ubisoft Montreal following the release of the game back in November. I almost want to blame it all on the engine and animation techniques used here, which often fail the fantastic performances given by Magnus Bruun and Cecilie Stenspil for Eivor among everyone else. However, having seen what the engine, and the developer, is capable of with Assassin’s Creed Unity, I wouldn’t be surprised if the dip in scene direction and compositions comes from the need to make these newer games as expansive as possible.

So What Does The Siege of Paris Tell Us About Valhalla’s Future?

Well, let’s start with Ubisoft’s own announcements. Assassin’s Creed Valhalla was originally supposed to get two expansions, but the game’s success has changed plans. The game will now be the first in the franchise to get extra post-launch content going into its second year, which also conveniently gives Ubisoft more time to work on its next Assassin’s Creed game, which is going to be a live-service platform.

The Siege of Paris and Wrath of the Druids were side stories that had nothing to do with the game’s main narrative, but Ubisoft’s teases about its upcoming expansions seems to be going in the opposite direction. The first of these expansions will seemingly take place in Muspelheim, which is the realm of fire in Norse mythology. Assassin’s Creed Valhalla had a good amount of its narrative set during the time of the Norse Gods, with Eivor taking the form of Odin.

While the base game came to a conclusion which saw Eivor parting ways with Odin in a mind-bending battle inside her own head, there are many ways in which the expansion with Muspelheim can come into play. The easy way for it to be integrated into the lore of the base game, as with other expansions, would be to just set it as a side story, taking place as yet another adventure Eivor experiences as Odin set sometime before the end of the game.

Another way of positioning it would be to set it after the base game, making it the first expansion that continues the story further in answering some questions and bridging the gap between Valhalla and whatever the next game ends up being. With Basim/Loki now in control of Eivor’s memories through the Animus, it will be an interesting juxtaposition with him learning more about Odin through the device.

As for gameplay, if the upcoming expansions do take place within the mythological subtext, then a lot of the additions from the previous two expansions will have to be removed. The infiltration missions could come back, as they would be a welcome return to the franchise’s old style of gameplay in some respect, but I have a hard time believing that Eivor/Odin would be sneaking around in a literal fire dimension with monsters lurking about. The same goes for the rebel missions, rat swarms, pigeon coops and other additions that were local to the types of stories told in the previous expansions.

What I don’t want from whatever comes next would be another kingdom with a corrupt ruler in dire need of Eivor’s help, which has been the basic plot of both Wrath of the Druids and Siege of Paris. A new location is all but confirmed, but I’d happily take the fiery realm of Muspelheim or any of the other exotic locations of the 9th century over another giant map half covered with long stretches of empty grasslands and similar-looking architecture. While we’re at it, I’d also appreciate a more dynamic structure of missions and storytelling that is more reminiscent of what the infiltration missions set out to do.

Assassin’s Creed Valhalla has been continually updated with new mechanics which perhaps gives the game more value than some of its predecessors. To know more about how the game has changed, check out IGN India’s reassessment of the game six months after its launch.

Assassin’s Creed Valhalla is out now for PC, PS4, PS5, Xbox One and Xbox Series X|S, with both of its expansions available as part of its season pass as well as being sold individually.

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