Story of AC: Valhalla Consists of Several Independent Story Arcs

Director of Assassin's Creed: Valhalla, Darby McDevitt, stated in an interview that the plot of the game consists of a series of smaller, independent stories.

IN A NUTSHELL:

The story of AC: Valhalla will consist of several two or three hour-long quests, each acting as a separate story arc;
There is an overarching theme in the game - it emerges over time when we look at these smaller stories in a broader context.

As you know, the plot of Assassin's Creed: Valhalla is strongly linked to the settlement, which we are gradually developing throughout the game. Gamespot reports that this results, in the story told in the game being divided into arcs, after which we return to our home. Individual sections of the game are to be independent - they will present complete stories (lasting 2-3 hours). Often the only common element of the two missions will be the game's protagonist - Eivor. Interestingly, such a structure of the game is to be inspired by sagas about wikings.

"This inspiration came from the Viking sagas themselves--the sagas of the Icelanders. The sagas are not told like the typical hero's journey that you get in most Western literature--a three-act structure, a rise and fall, the call to action, and then the refusal of the call. The sagas are actually more episodic moments in a character's history. And you follow them through a long period of their life. It typically follows them from birth to death, but it's not about having a single driving plot. They feel more like life. How life really is, which is just a series of character building incidences that orbit some themes, said the developer responsible for the game's plot, Darby McDevitt.

It's worth noting that in a broader context, individual stories will be connected with each other, among other things because they can raise similar issues or evoke similar emotions.

"[Valhalla] has a thin through line--there's definitely an emotional through line. But what we're more interested in is saying, 'Here's a little two-hour experience and here's another little two-hour experience,' and they're all self-contained. And then they're going to stack on top of each other so that the themes that we're slowly building have more resonance, more and more. And I think actually, for a player of video games, having these two- or three-hour bite sized chunks is actually cool because you're not going to be 40 hours into this game thinking, 'Hey, I want the story to wrap up. It's been a long time.'" (...) "Like I said, we're playing a longer game here--there is an undercurrent. But we're hoping that these more bite-sized things carry you forward in a unique way," said the creator.

The solution employed by Ubisoft reminds me a bit of BioWare's idea from Dragon Age 2 and Dragon Age: Inquisition. In the first game the story was stretched over many years - subsequent chapters showed different stages of the main character's life. In the second title, on the other hand, we performed various tasks selected from the map in the fortress of the eponymous organization. In both cases, the storyline consisted of a number of seemingly detached, smaller quests.

Assassin's Creed: Valhalla will debut on November 10, on PC, PlayStation 4, Xbox One and Xbox Series X (it is a launch title of the last of the platforms). A few days later, the latest installment of the AC series will also be available to PlayStation 5 owners.