The Making of AC Valhalla's Best Bonus Region — Vinland

Kotaku's Zack Zwiezen traced how Vinland, AC Valhalla's hidden North America region, came to be. The idea started with CEO Yves Guillemot in early pitch meetings, and since the real Norse landings postdate the game's 870s setting by more than a century, the story runs "through the lens of the Assassins and Templars, the two groups in our game who always seem to be one step ahead of actual history," as narrative director Darby McDevitt put it.

My team built the region. As I told Kotaku: "The team working on the region was from Ubisoft Singapore, who are Assassin's Creed veterans. Most of the people that were working on it have worked on at least two to three titles in the franchise." The brief from level design director Philippe Bergeron was to make the player feel "naked and afraid": Vinland is a self-contained survival loop, so you arrive stripped of your gear and find your own way, with stealth doing the work your equipment normally would. Letting you carry gear in and out would have broken the loop, which is why the structure is what it is.

The piece also covers the care behind the setting. We worked with Akwiratheka Martin, the Kanien'kehá:ka language and culture consultant from Assassin's Creed III, and Eivor was deliberately written as neither antagonist nor savior to the people of Vinland. The region is a one-off hunt for a single enemy, not a settlement story.

The lore payoff: the Isu sphere your target carries is the same crystal ball Connor finds in Assassin's Creed III. The team made that link while researching Viking landing sites near Connor's village. Planned since 2012? McDevitt admits it wasn't.