How historically accurate is this game?

[Roasted Bunny]

I’m currently learning Norwegian and because of that, I’m interested in how old-Norse has influenced the development of English.

For anyone who knows about history regarding the Vikings, can you learn a thing or two from playing this?

[Psyringe]

It's much harder to answer that question competently than one might think, because we don't actually know all that much about these times. The vikings didn't write books - they had an extensive oral tradition with long and elaborate sagas, but those were a) not written down until several centuries after, in a time where it's impossible to tell how accurate they still were, b) often written in a poetic style that colorfully circumscribed concepts rather than stating them plainly and directly, and c) not particularly reliable, as the job of the skald was not first and foremost to provide an accurate historical account, but rather to tell an interesting and inspiring story and flatter the person that put food on their table.

Reports from the English side were very likely to get destroyed (they were often written by monks, and monasteries were a primary target for the plunderers), and they also had a vested interest to depict vikings as barbaric, bloodthirsty heathens. All that is a much different situation than we have for Assassin's Creed Origins (Ptolemaic Egypt) or Assassin's Creed Odyssey (Classical Greece).

I'm not an expert in viking history, but from what I can tell, AC Valhalla is fairly accurate with regard to buildings, ship design, clothing, or weaponry. The developers definitely did their homework. Basically, many of the things that we can be sure about (due to items preserved in bogs or burial mounds, or in a few legislative texts that described proper shipbuilding and weapon crafting), are depicted with a clear effort to give an accurate representation.

Other aspects have clearly been adapted to serve a modern audience. For example, the game does feature flyting (which was a tradition most likely existed among vikings), but it consistently uses end rhymes instead of the alliterations that vikings would have used. (On the other hand, the game at least acknowledges the existence and importance of kennings in viking poetry). The role of women was, even though they had more freedom in viking society than in most others in Europe, much more constrained than depicted in the game. The fighting doesn't reflect history very well, no one even tries to stick to a formation, everyone just runs randomly across the battlefield.

Then there are also game elements that make no sense whatsoever. You keep finding iron in piles that grow out of the ground, and you harvest it by attacking it with any weapon. You find (and need) resources like titanium, which wasn't even discovered until 1000 years later and which doesn't naturally exist on Earth in non-oxydised form. You fight against werewolves (though the game never makes completely clear if they are real, or just hallucinations).

Some historical figures are spot-on (Aelfred for example), others are ridiculously overdone caricatures (Ivarr for example, who can be entertaining in his crassness and his propensity to violence, but who wouldn't have been able to score his impressive string of victories if his approach had just been "let's run against the walls and make a bloody massacre".

The game does (imho) succeed in depicting a plausible viking honor system - raiding innocent settlements is fine and glorious if it serves the clan, openly disagreeing with your jarl is acceptable as long as you follow his orders, etc. But here it already gets difficult to make a proper assessment, because we don't actually know all that much about the details of viking culture. But there are nice little touches like a French woman in an unhappy marriage envying Eivor for the ease with which viking women could break up with their husbands.

(Here's one example that demonstrates the difficulties I'm talking about: The game does, at one point, depict a so-called "Blood Eagle". That is a particularly cruel way of killing someone by slicing up their back, pulling the lungs outward through the opening and spreading them, and then mounting the body on a pole, possibly while they are alive. The "Blood Eagle" is often seen as a staple of viking culture, TV shows like "Vikings" apparently make use of it, every second documentary about viking culture features it - but if you look at the actual sources we have, you'll find out that we can't even say reliably if the practice actually existed. Only two events are ever mentioned in the entirety of sources we have, and the descriptions are so vague that historians are debating whether they actually describe the practice mentioned above, or rather just a way of laying someone prone on the ground so that eagles could feast on their backside. That obviously makes it nigh impossible to say whether the Blood Eagle featured in AC Valhalla is historically accurate or not.)

In short, I'd say that the game can be quite inspiring to someone wanting to learn more about viking history and culture. It also features a "discovery tour" that basically removes story and combat from the game and replaces them with narrated tours, as in a walk-in museum. It works well as a stepping stone for people interested in these topics and willing to seek out proper sources, it's just important to realize that a) the game also takes many liberties, and b) many things that we believe to "know" about viking culture, are educated guesses at best.

[Roasted Bunny]

Originally posted by Psyringe:

It's much harder to answer that question competently than one might think, because we don't actually know all that much about these times. The vikings didn't write books - they had an extensive oral tradition with long and elaborate sagas, but those were a) not written down until several centuries after, in a time where it's impossible to tell how accurate they still were, b) often written in a poetic style that colorfully circumscribed concepts rather than stating them plainly and directly, and c) not particularly reliable, as the job of the skald was not first and foremost to provide an accurate historical account, but rather to tell an interesting and inspiring story and flatter the person that put food on their table.

Reports from the English side were very likely to get destroyed (they were often written by monks, and monasteries were a primary target for the plunderers), and they also had a vested interest to depict vikings as barbaric, bloodthirsty heathens. All that is a much different situation than we have for Assassin's Creed Origins (Ptolemaic Egypt) or Assassin's Creed Odyssey (Classical Greece).

I'm not an expert in viking history, but from what I can tell, AC Valhalla is fairly accurate with regard to buildings, ship design, clothing, or weaponry. The developers definitely did their homework. Basically, many of the things that we can be sure about (due to items preserved in bogs or burial mounds, or in a few legislative texts that described proper shipbuilding and weapon crafting), are depicted with a clear effort to give an accurate representation.

Other aspects have clearly been adapted to serve a modern audience. For example, the game does feature flyting (which was a tradition most likely existed among vikings), but it consistently uses end rhymes instead of the alliterations that vikings would have used. (On the other hand, the game at least acknowledges the existence and importance of kennings in viking poetry). The role of women was, even though they had more freedom in viking society than in most others in Europe, much more constrained than depicted in the game. The fighting doesn't reflect history very well, no one even tries to stick to a formation, everyone just runs randomly across the battlefield.

Then there are also game elements that make no sense whatsoever. You keep finding iron in piles that grow out of the ground, and you harvest it by attacking it with any weapon. You find (and need) resources like titanium, which wasn't even discovered until 1000 years later and which doesn't naturally exist on Earth in non-oxydised form. You fight against werewolves (though the game never makes completely clear if they are real, or just hallucinations).

Some historical figures are spot-on (Aelfred for example), others are ridiculously overdone caricatures (Ivarr for example, who can be entertaining in his crassness and his propensity to violence, but who wouldn't have been able to score his impressive string of victories if his approach had just been "let's run against the walls and make a bloody massacre".

The game does (imho) succeed in depicting a plausible viking honor system - raiding innocent settlements is fine and glorious if it serves the clan, openly disagreeing with your jarl is acceptable as long as you follow his orders, etc. But here it already gets difficult to make a proper assessment, because we don't actually know all that much about the details of viking culture. But there are nice little touches like a French woman in an unhappy marriage envying Eivor for the ease with which viking women could break up with their husbands.

(Here's one example that demonstrates the difficulties I'm talking about: The game does, at one point, depict a so-called "Blood Eagle". That is a particularly cruel way of killing someone by slicing up their back, pulling the lungs outward through the opening and spreading them, and then mounting the body on a pole, possibly while they are alive. The "Blood Eagle" is often seen as a staple of viking culture, TV shows like "Vikings" apparently make use of it, every second documentary about viking culture features it - but if you look at the actual sources we have, you'll find out that we can't even say reliably if the practice actually existed. Only two events are ever mentioned in the entirety of sources we have, and the descriptions are so vague that historians are debating whether they actually describe the practice mentioned above, or rather just a way of laying someone prone on the ground so that eagles could feast on their backside. That obviously makes it nigh impossible to say whether the Blood Eagle featured in AC Valhalla is historically accurate or not.)

In short, I'd say that the game can be quite inspiring to someone wanting to learn more about viking history and culture. It also features a "discovery tour" that basically removes story and combat from the game and replaces them with narrated tours, as in a walk-in museum. It works well as a stepping stone for people interested in these topics and willing to seek out proper sources, it's just important to realize that a) the game also takes many liberties, and b) many things that we believe to "know" about viking culture, are educated guesses at best.

I guess it's possible that both sides had vested interests in presenting certain narratives and erasing evidence that didn't fit with their worldview or goals. The discovery tour does sound really intriguing though and I'm curious about its length. Is it a lengthy or brief experience? Is it worth buying solely for that as it's currently on sale?

[Psyringe]

Originally posted by Roasted Bunny:

I guess it's possible that both sides had vested interests in presenting certain narratives and erasing evidence that didn't fit with their worldview or goals.

Yes, definitely. :) That's actually something that historians need to consider for each culture and period of history. What makes this problem more difficult to solve, though, is that we have so few sources that it's hard to cross-check them against each other.

Originally posted by Roasted Bunny:

The discovery tour does sound really intriguing though and I'm curious about its length. Is it a lengthy or brief experience? Is it worth buying solely for that as it's currently on sale?

I haven't played it myself, but according to others, it consists of 12 interactive "quests" that altogether take 2-5 hours depending on whether you're really interested in the provided information, or just push through to get the rewards and achievements. So for you, the upper end of that range is probably more appropriate.

I wouldn't buy the game just for the discovery tour, but it's a nice bonus. I remember AC discovery tours being sold as separate products, but I don't think that's the case for Valhalla, at least not on PC.

[OptimalButthole]

I dunno, I always heard of viking being this dominating set of individuals who do bad things to people but in this game, you're surrounded by nice people for the most part who just want to live good lives.