Assassin's Creed Valhalla divides the community like Eivor's sharp ax - and critics also disagree on what to think of Ubisoft's latest open-world stealth game. The ratings for Assassin's Creed Valhalla are drifting accordingly, sometimes so clearly that one can wonder whether everyone has tested one and the same game. However, there are reasons for the different ratings.
Assassin's Creed Valhalla has been available since November 10th. Fans who have neither pre-ordered nor already bought the game are faced with the decision of whether or not Ubisoft's current open-world game with a Viking setting is worth it. Anyone who hoped for the opinion of their favorite magazine to help them make decisions could be disappointed: Critics often rate Assassin's Creed Valhalla very differently. Some magazines praise the new offshoot of the series in the sky, others are disappointed and published reviews of Assassin's Creed Valhalla that are close to being slated.
Assassin's Creed Valhalla Ratings: Who's Right? All!
It happens again and again that video games are rated differently by different testers, but the case is seldom as clear as it is with Assassin's Creed Valhalla. The fact is: Reviews are always subjective, evaluations are significantly influenced by the interests and tastes of the critics. Serious reviewers and game testers nevertheless set objective standards wherever they can be included in a review. Also the Assassin's Creed Valhalla test is no exception.
Game Informer awards a great 9,3 out of 10 possible points, PC Gamer sees it similarly with 92/100 and the German magazine PC Games also gives almost the highest rating. Other critics, such as those from Gamerevolution, rate it with a meager 2,5 out of 5 points, and Destructoid's game doesn't get beyond mediocre either. Overall, however, these are outliers: at Metacritic Assassin's Creed Valhalla has an average of 81 with currently 36 reviews. Also at opencritic the average rating turned out to be high. That Assassin's Creed Valhalla is the unsuccessful successor of the series, indicated by some critics, is therefore rather unlikely - it is much more likely that the quality can be located somewhere in the upper rating quarter.
It is no surprise that Assassin's Creed Valhalla leads to different ratings. Ubisoft's AAA title is under special scrutiny and is accordingly examined in small parts and critically. Because the title also serves many different gameplay levels, the positive and negative factors are sometimes weighted differently. An example: Testers could criticize repetitive mass battles and rate this negative factor so strongly that it is clearly reflected in the final score; other testers, on the other hand, are so impressed with the crisp combat system that precisely these mass battles are rated as positive elements, because one is repeatedly forced into hectic acts of war - this is also reflected in the rating, but this time with a noticeable increase. Or: Where some testers see grind, others see motivation.
In game tests, it makes sense not to rely on a numerical evaluation alone. The actual criticism of a game can never be broken down into numbers or asterisks. The text reveals what is successful and what is less. Every reader can form his / her own opinion from this. Players quickly notice in conversations with other community members that priorities are always set differently in a game. Anyone who is a fan of the Assassin's Creed series is more likely to accept flaws than someone who sees Valhalla as the entry into the series.
Assassin's Creed Valhalla is now a real hodgepodge of ideas, the common thread is difficult to find. The developers at Ubisoft Montreal pursue a basic concept too inconsistently. The players are challenged to a great extent to pick out the elements that are entertaining for them, then you will sometimes be entertained great. Anyone who hopes Assassin's Creed Valhalla would take the player by the hand and hunt from one high-class content to the next could be disappointed. Valhalla needs time to prove his qualities, that doesn't happen in the first few hours of this open-world adventure. Apart from all the gameplay, the same applies: If you like Vikings, you will get Assassin's Creed Valhalla, a game that is currently the atmospheric benchmark. So not everything is bad, sometimes the perspective determines the quality - and thus also the rating.
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Series offshoots also have to withstand the comparison with predecessors in a test - and this is exactly where Assassin's Creed Valhalla has a particularly difficult time. Though criticized for some gameplay elements, Odyssey and Origins - the two direct predecessors of the assassin series - were terrific virtual playgrounds that offered hundreds of hours of fun. Assassin's Creed Valhalla now does a lot differently, throws concepts overboard, relies on fewer side quests and the new world events. One player may like that, but the other doesn't. One of the tasks of a tester is therefore to classify a game in the context of the target group - this does not always work.
Whether the composition of the readership of a magazine can influence a test? Better not, but it happens anyway. If a trade magazine recognizes that there are often particularly positive voices about turn-based strategy games from the community, then the critics could be guided by this for corresponding titles in order not to disappoint the readers. The same also applies the other way round: Negative reviews on AAA titles attract a lot of attention and can be a useful tool to increase click-through rates. Serious magazines will not use such practices, but keep that in mind. Something important can be derived from this: It is always important for readers to classify the final evaluation based on the written criticism - for themselves.
Scoring boxes and numbers still have their raison d'etre. They offer a quick overview of how a game is generally received: If a test on a scale from one to ten is a two, it can therefore be assumed that the text contribution can no longer save that. Incidentally, one should not assume that a negative test rating is automatically a mistake by the tester: the critic may have simply weighted the relevant criteria differently.
So what should you do as an enlightened reader? Read several reviews in any case, but above all pay attention to your own feelings when reading and always ask yourself whether you would classify or rate the criticized and praised factors yourself.
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Assassin's Creed Valhalla - Ultimate Edition (free upgrade...* | 33,18 EUR |
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