Assassin's Creed Valhalla Beginner's Guide

With another year comes another trek through the Assassin's Creed franchise. This year’s offering—Assassin’s Creed Valhalla—is large, brutal, and more than a little daunting. If you are looking for some tips or just want to read a little about it before picking it up yourself, here are our best tips to get you started. 

Do Assassin's Creed Valhalla's Mysteries

Valhalla has a nice side-quest system called Mysteries that are very short stories that usually take just a few minutes if you know what you are doing. Not only is it one of the most enjoyable parts of Valhalla, but it rewards you for doing them with needed EXP, gear, and charisma. 

This is the best way to get skill points fast, as killing enemies only gets you tens of EXP where quests might get you 1,000. It’ll take you through the map, explain some mechanics, and get you used to the game whilst also kitting you out in extra skill points and gear. Have a look at our Mystery guides if you need any help.

Gather Rations in Assassin's Creed Valhalla

Rations are incredibly important to the whole “staying alive” part of Assassin’s Creed Valhalla. As well as your base health, there is a number on the left-hand side that indicates the amount of times you can heal. 

If you pick up food whilst your health isn’t full, it will fill it up. If not, it will fill your ration bar. To stay alive longer in battle, you should upgrade your rations and loot all the food you can. This can be done by killing wild animals, checking in chests, or looting food being cooked in pots - a favorite pastime.

Aim for The Weak Spots

The bow in Assassin's Creed Valhalla is a surprisingly great weapon. With high-damage headshots and its long range, it’s good enough as it is. This being said, the weak-spot mechanic makes it even better. 

When you aim your bow, enemies have a glowing part; hitting all those glowing parts will stun them, leaving them vulnerable to a high-damage stun attack. Particularly hard enemies like the alpha animals and boss fights can be made much easier by a tactical use of the bow and upgrading your stun attack.

When You See Ore, Break It

There are a lot of little upgrade systems to Assassin's Creed Valhalla. From your camp to Orlog to your own gear, there’s a lot to keep track of. Ore is an important resource that can give you lots of important stuff. 

The trick is, it can be easy to miss, and it’s not necessarily obvious that you can break it apart. Not to mention the fact you have to climb huge mountains for it. On mountains, there are piles of rocks with a slight shine to them. Give it one solid whack and loot drops out ready for you to use on your gear.

Learn the Upgrade System

The upgrade system is very different this time around. It’s much broader and open to differentiation. If you want an in-depth look, make sure to check out our Skill Trees guide. 

To put it simply here, there are multiple stages of upgrades that get unlocked as you progress through skill trees. The bottom left focuses a bit more on stealth, the right on bow, and top on strength. This is changed around and offers special skills, but this is a good base to understand where you might want to build off. Skill points are plentiful, so don’t be afraid to experiment.

Don’t Worry About Fall Damage

As a hardened Viking, your fall damage is surprisingly low in Assassin's Creed Valhalla. Even jumping from some of the highest heights won’t kill you at full health. You'll survive with even more health more as you upgrade your skills and heighten your max health. With plenty of rations and a hearty sense of adventure, you should be fine taking risks.

While we’re here, it’s worth pointing out some traversal tips this time around. Getting down a hill so much easier as you can simply hold the descend button and will take the path of least resistance. Also, sprinting has made a comeback (since its absence in the last two games) and can be activated with a click of the sprint button.

Interact with Assassin's Creed Valhalla's Wealth Points

Wealth is a little deceptive a name for the shiny gold things that pop up periodically on your map. As far as actual wealth is concerned, there’s little to be found here. It actually offers a different form of riches: gear, abilities, and resources. 

If you don’t quite like the way your weapon operates or want a little more to work with in the equipment sections, go searching. You’ll find something good. If you find wonderers with a question mark over there head, they will reveal the location of one and its section type, like armor or ability. Abilities are an important find here. It gives you new ways of using bows and weapons for special abilities like a stronger shot, slow-motion aiming, and more. 

And with that, you should be well equipped to handle the harsh weather and even harsher enemies in Assassin’s Creed Valhalla. With information from travel to resources to abilities, this should have you covered. Check out all of our other guides for more information on the game and our review.