Ubisoft has quietly confirmed that Assassin's Creed Valhalla will not receive a New Game+ mode. This news comes after roughly two years of the developer telling fans that the ability to replay the game with all of your character progression intact was under investigation. If you've been keeping up with Valhalla throughout this entire saga, then you'll probably agree that this feels like a bit of a bait and switch.
While New Game+ was never out-and-out promised, the fact that confirmation has finally arrived ahead of the title's final update is undeniably disappointing. The sentiment we're seeing on places like Reddit is that players could have at least been informed of this decision before now.
Of course, not everyone will want to play through such a huge open world RPG again — that's completely understandable. But the sheer size of the game also means that without a New Game+ option, there's no easy way to experience Eivor's story again. What's more, it takes a long time to build a truly unstoppable warrior in Assassin's Creed Valhalla, and there are loads of powerful endgame weapons that serve next to no purpose because by the time you've acquired them, you've already finished the campaign. All in all, it's just a shame that dedicated players won't be able to carry their hard work over to a fresh run.
And it obviously doesn't help that the game's predecessors, Assassin's Creed Origins and Assassin's Creed Odyssey, both had extensive and very well implemented New Game+ options.
The development team writes: "Assassin’s Creed Valhalla has been built as a unique Assassin’s Creed experience, one that is very different from its predecessors in its structure, offering new ways of engaging with the world and its characters. When investigating the implementation of New Game+, we realized that the depth of the game gave us limited options to make replayability unique and rewarding."
"We understand this news will come as a disappointment; however, we hope that the new content released in the past months, including never-before-seen experiences like Forgotten Saga, has provided an exciting and challenging experience for those seeking more replayable content."