Assassin’s Creed Valhalla will be bringing the famed hidden blade back for one-hit assassinations but not without a few additional changes.
Speaking with SegmentNext in a recent interview, game director Benoit Richer noted that Eivor will receive the hidden blade early on in the storyline and will be able to assassinate enemies even if they are at a higher level. However, with Eivor being a Viking warrior and not a trained assassin, they will have to learn how to use the hidden blade to assassinate powerful foes in Assassin’s Creed Valhalla.
Eivor receives the Hidden Blade quite early on in the game. Eivor is not a trained Assassin, but a Viking warrior, and decides to wear this amazing weapon on top of the wrist, instead of below as is tradition for the Assassins. With this Hidden Blade, Eivor learns that, with the right timing, virtually any enemy can be killed in one hit.
Richer explained that the hidden blade has been changed into a kind of a “mini game” where Eivor must execute right when the on-screen prompt hits the red threshold zone. The higher the power levels of an enemy, the smaller the red threshold zone will be. Hence, players must rely on the right timing to virtually assassinate any enemy found in Assassin’s Creed Valhalla in a single hit.
Should Eivor fail to assassinate an enemy though, the enemy will still take some damage before recovering to hit back. Eivor will lose the advantage of stealth in return and must decide between either brawling or escaping.
In more detail, players can learn a skill that allows them to play the kind of mini game that allows Eivor assassinate in one blow even enemies that are at a higher power level than them (not just those equal or lower).
However, the bigger the difference between the enemy power level from the player, the smaller the red threshold zone will be which will make it more difficult and challenging, but yet feasible. If you failed to assassinate the enemy, you will still inflict damage, but will lose your shot to maintain stealth.
Assassin’s Creed Valhalla will also feature x-ray assassinations where the camera zooms into the enemy to show their ruptured anatomy in gory detail, something similar to the x-ray attacks from the recent Mortal Kombat installments. Richer has confirmed that Eivor will have to “trigger” x-ray assassinations and Ubisoft will revealing just how in the coming months.
Assassin’s Creed Valhalla will officially release for PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and PC on November 17, 2020. The game will also land on PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X. Ubisoft will confirm the release dates, as well as detail any new improvements, once the next-generation consoles have launched at the end of the year.
