Assassin's Creed Valhalla trailer shows off franchise's first Viking adventure

Just one day after announcing the game on a livestream, Ubisoft has dropped the first full trailer for the latest in the ongoing battle between Assassins and Templars: Assassin’s Creed Valhalla. While the initial art — depicting land and sea, with crows and combat from artist Boss Logic — and title led fans to believe this entry in the beloved video game franchise would tackle Vikings for the first time, the first footage showed off how it'd still resonate within the franchise.

Valhalla would be the first Assassin's Creed game since 2018’s Assassin’s Creed Odyssey, though the multimedia franchise has certainly swandived into a variety of content haystacks like podcasts and film. Now, however, the world looks to get back into players' hands with a mythological and historical world explored by both large-scale genre storytelling (Vikings) and recent prestige gaming (God of War). The global war is still going, with the Templars still treating everyone that's not a Templar as a savage.

Take a look:

That's a gorgeous trailer. Even if England is bringing war to the Viking people...Odin is with them. Or, at least some sort of power.

That giant fight between the protagonist Eivor and the opposing army not only shows off the incredible lighting effects, but also a glimpse at the combat — which looks to blend the franchise's signature arm blades with the large axes (thrown and melee) of its new heroes. Additionally, sailing has been a part of the Assassin’s Creed games since the well-recieved Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag, so fans should expect seafaring to make up at least part of the game about some of history's most famous mariners.

Assassin’s Creed Valhalla looks to drop on both the Xbox One and the Xbox Series X, according to the trailer itself, though the game's official website also includes PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, PC, and Stadia. Ubisoft also provided an update on its release window — a rare commodity in an industry that's scheduling has been ravaged and delayed just as badly by the coronavirus as the film world. Fans can heed the call of the Valkyries and go full Norse this holiday season.