Assassin's Creed Valhalla Won't Be Getting This Highly-Requested Feature
The final update for "Assassin's Creed Valhalla" is right around the corner, releasing on December 6 and ending the two-year-long story. While the last update is bringing content and an end to Eivor's story, Ubisoft wrote in a blog post that it won't be adding New Game+, which is something the community has wanted for quite a while.
While Ubisoft addressed the fact that the lack of New Game+ would be disappointing, it hoped that there was plenty of enjoyable and replayable content. However, as the publisher explained, "the depth of the game gave [Ubisoft] limited options to make replayability unique and rewarding."
Many were expecting a New Game+ mode, especially since past "Assassin's Creed" titles have included it. For those who may not know, New Game+ mode is a game mode that lets players replay a video game's story while carrying over certain things like skills, abilities, and/or items (via GiantBomb). Despite Ubisoft's intentions of listening to community feedback as much as possible, the developers didn't feel like a New Game+ mode was a possibility.
While this was the first time Ubisoft had come out and announced that the game mode wouldn't be coming, the group had already mentioned that it was struggling to try and implement a New Game+ mode.
New Game+ mode doesn't work all the time
Last year, a JorRaptor interview with Jose Araiza, the Post Launch Producer for "Assassin's Creed Valhalla," gave some insight into Ubisoft's mindset concerning a New Game+ mode. At the time, Ubisoft was looking into the feature, but it had run into several issues already.
According to Araiza, the goal of "Assassin's Creed Valhalla" was to create a new kind of experience content-wise, which clashed with the idea of starting the game over. He also pointed out that it takes away from the sense of immersion that developers wanted players to have, so it was a difficult feature to work with.
At the time, Ubisoft hadn't written a NewGame+ mode off completely. It was looking for new ways to bring the mode to the game that wouldn't lock players out of timed events or cause issues with the unique gear system. However, it doesn't seem like Ubisoft was able to do that successfully and ended up scrapping the idea completely. Apparently, there is a wrong way to play "Assassin's Creed Valhalla," and that's by replaying it at all.
On the bright side, players will get one thing they asked for: the ability to keep the cosmetic hood constantly equipped.