Assassin's Creed: Valhalla Couldn't Have Designed Cats More Perfectly
The code of open world games is like a box of chocolates: You never know what you're gonna get. Pathfinding AI might work as intended, or it might strand a horse up on a roof, with the only question more pressing than how it will get down is how it got up there in the first place. But what happens when a game features an animal known for acting weird in reality? In these cases, is the animal's AI actually malfunctioning, or is it working as intended? Nobody can decide, but almost everyone agrees that it is as hilarious as it is realistic.
Assassin's Creed: Valhalla recently released to critical acclaim. The game brought with it a ton of new features, including the heartwarming ability to pet in-game cats and dogs. However, the game isn't without its glitches. NPC AI has a tendency to engage in the long-forgotten combat tactic of running around in circles like headless chickens, and not even cats are immune to these problems. Some players on Reddit have discovered examples of cats in Valhalla just facing building walls, staring at nothing. At first, this seems like a normal bug that just comes with the open world territory, but some commenters are unconvinced.
The Reddit thread is full of people claiming that the behavior cats exhibit in Valhalla is prevalent in the real world. SarkHD, who started this thread, also included a picture of a cat — possibly theirs — sitting with its face kissing a wall. You can't tell if the cat is in time out, listening out for mice, or engaged in a particularly engrossing staring contest with the wall's paint.
Of course, since Valhalla continues the proud Assassin's Creed tradition of taking place in a virtual reality machine known as the Animus, some commenters questioned whether the cats are actually glitching in the game proper or if they're only malfunctioning in the Animus, which would mean that the game is working just fine. And, one particular commenter jokingly stated that thanks to this "buggy" cat, Valhalla is up there with Bethesda games in terms of "features" — which is sarcasm for "glitches."
While gamers don't know if Assassin's Creed: Valhalla's cat behavior is the result of defective code or intentional, fans wouldn't have it any other way. It is still an accurate depiction of typical cat behavior in the real world. Whether it's a bug or a feature, here's hoping it is never patched out.