I’ve been playing one heck of a lot of Assasin’s Creed Valhalla, and I can tell you right now that it looks much better on next-gen consoles. I played a little bit of it on Xbox One, because I got my copy digitally for that console as it launched. Then, once my Xbox Series X arrived, I updated to the next-gen version of the game. There is an immediate difference that you see as soon as you boot up the game, but there are also more subtle changes that you may or may not pick up on unless you’re paying attention.
The first thing that you’ll see in Assassin’s Creed Valhalla is a super-fast load time. On Xbox One the game took a few minutes to load up and allow you to play. This includes opening the game, getting through the loading screens, choosing your game save, and then actually being in the game. To move from a few minutes to less than one is a real upgrade in this game. It feels like you can press your Xbox controller, and be playing the game within 60 seconds. It’s phenomenal.
The next thing you’ll notice is the game itself. Assassin’s Creed Valhalla looks amazing, and that’s partly down to the fact that it’s launched so late in the last console generation’s life cycle, but also the upgrading power of the Xbox Series X. This console seems to be able to pick up a game, shine it beyond what you thought it was capable of, and then present you with what looks like an incredible new title. I’m really excited to see how this affects other older games.
The final thing I want to point out is how much better the game plays on Xbox Series X. I know that Ubisoft launches each Assassin’s Creed game with a few bugs, but they seem to have pretty much disappeared in this upgraded version. The game feels very solid, to the point that it’s almost as if Ubisoft worked harder on this version than they did on any other version. I wouldn’t be surprised if that was the case given that it launched alongside the Xbox Series X.
Image source: Xbox
