Assassin's Creed Origins? Although both titles feature the detailed recreations of historical settings that the Assassin's Creed series is known for, Ubisoft's renditions of Egypt and Northern Europe differ in many ways. A comparison of the maps featured in Valhalla and Origins reveals which one takes the crown for size and showcases some features unique to each of the games.
Origins tells the story of Bayek of Siwa, a Medjay of Egypt fighting against encroaching Roman occupation and corruption. The protagonist's journey takes him through many environments in Egypt, from vast deserts to the dense metropolis of Alexandria. Although the ability to traverse the land by camel, horse, or chariot make travel a breeze, the 31 square miles of landmass in the huge Assassin's Creed map still makes an impact. Valhalla finds the player in the Dark Ages of Europe, living out the Viking expansion from Norway to England as Eivor, an identity shared by both male and female protagonist options. Sailing the sea in Viking longships might seem like a core appeal of the game, but the amount of land in Valhalla exceeds even Origins, adding up to a total of 38.5 square miles, according to NexusHub.
There's More To Discover In Origins And Valhalla
One feature of the Assassin's Creed Origins map that actually expands it beyond its 31 square miles is the neighboring land claimed by DLC released for the game. The map page in the game contains a button prompt for an atlas, and opening the atlas showcases two large areas beyond Egypt. Sinai, to the east of northern Egypt, is accessible through The Hidden Ones DLC. To the southeast, the spooky, Halloween-worthy DLC expansion, The Curse of the Pharaohs, brings Bayek to the Valley of the Kings. Assassin's Creed Valhalla, not to be outdone, expands its territory in three DLC releases - Wrath of the Druids, The Siege of Paris, and Dawn of Ragnarok. Although these expansions vary in size, with the mythical land featured in Dawn of Ragnarok dwarfing the city of Paris found in the second DLC, each adds a reasonable chunk to the map of the game.
There's more to a map than size, and the maps for Assassin's Creed Origins and Assassin's Creed Valhalla bring plenty of other features to the table. Origins carried over many staple features of prior Assassin's Creed settings, from the trademark Ubisoft tower synchronization points to the side quests peppering the world. The density of points of interest varies. A desert area tends to have some bandit camps and animal lairs, but Bayek is unlikely to find a surplus of side quests among the dunes. Populous cities, on the other hand, are filled to the brim with treasures to find and tasks to fulfill, as well as great opportunities for climbing and parkour. Completionist players may find that the pacing of both the main story and side narratives comes in bursts, with stretches of travel offering few characters to meet or conversations to have.
Without huge stretches of desert to cross, Assassin's Creed Valhalla centers more of its travel around the sea. Ever since Assassin's Creed 3 introduced sailing to the series, naval exploration and combat has remained a fan favorite feature in the games that feature it. Valhalla sailing does not highlight ship combat like Assassin's Creed 4: Black Flag, instead authentically implementing sailing as a means of transport for Viking raids. Although Origins features boats and even a bit of naval warfare, the waters of Valhalla offer more to the central gameplay experience, making good use of what could otherwise be empty space on a map. England is also networked by rivers that weave through the central landmass of the map, providing a means of traversing the area without running or riding overland.
The Secrets Of The Valhalla Map Have A Twist
The in-game map features for these two Assassin's Creed games also work in different ways. Neither game opts to reveal everything about the surrounding area when a player synchronizes at a viewpoint. Assassin's Creed Origins notes the location and name of side quests, but leaves tasks like military strongholds and hidden scrolls as question marks until Bayek comes within striking distance. Assassin's Creed Valhalla fixes the overcrowded map by using colored dots instead of question marks. Gold represents wealth, blue indicates mysteries, and white stands for artifacts, offering a larger hint at what the player might be headed for before the locations are fully revealed. Completing an area leaves an X mark on the parchment-like map, contributing to a visual system that is simpler and more period-appropriate than in Origins.
Diving into the gameplay of Assassin's Creed Origins and Assassin's Creed Valhalla reveals that the difference in the content that sprinkles the world is far more than aesthetic. Valhalla does away with the classical sense of side quests, instead offering World Events that can be found by searching out the blue dots on the map. The side quests found in Valhalla's World Events, shorter and simpler than many of the side quests found in Origins, play out as encounters that tend to arise naturally when the player happens upon them. Playing Valhalla will never lead to a cluttered quest log, with side stories too involved to appear as World Events being folded into the main quest line. This changes the sense of exploration, sending the player on less crisscrossing pathways for complex side quests and focusing spatial progression around the main quest line. For a player deeply engaged in side quests, this could make some areas of Origins take more time than comparably sized parts of Valhalla.
Assassin's Creed Valhalla might feature a larger map than Assassin's Creed Origins, but both games bring plenty of room for exploration to the table in unique ways. With Ubisoft's next entry in the series, Assassin's Creed Mirage, perfectly setting the series back in one city, fans looking for worlds of immense scope might not enjoy the expected step-down in size from Valhalla. Whatever the future may hold for the series, new players will always have at least a few massive open worlds to jump into, and many longtime fans still have more secrets to mine from Assassin's Creed Origins and Assassin's Creed Valhalla and all that their maps hold.
Source: NexusHub
