The Twilight of the Norse Gods is finally here and in this AC Valhalla Dawn of Ragnarok DLC Review, we will take a look at how it fares. This is the story of the Isu surviving their annihilation in the Great Catastrophe of 75,000 BCE and it was already told in the base game. But one thing was missing from the base game – the story of Surtr.
Now Allfather Odin will relive his memories and you can witness it playing out in the mythological version of the story through the eyes of Eivor. So today we will tell you how it feels to see the beginning of the ending.
AC Valhalla Dawn of Ragnarok DLC Review
Synopsis & Setting
I hoped to see a brand new story, it is exactly what we get. Dawn of Ragnarok tells a new story of Odin trying to save Baldr from the hands of the Isu warlord Surtur. He is the ruler of Muspelheim, a land he claimed for his subjects called Muspels. They blindly follow and commit atrocities in name of Surtur. Now Surtur has commanded the Muspels to invade Svartalfheim and kidnap Baldr. They intend to find the Salakar.
Salakar is a powerful artifact created by elves. Elves were much more advanced to Isu, on the same scale level Isu ae advanced to humans. Elves were hunted down to extinction by Surtr, who stole their immortal light to become deathless. So now no Elves around, none understands Salakar’s power but Surtr. Now he wishes to steal Baldr’s power and combine it with Salakar. But why does he need this? This is what Dawn of Ragnarok’s story is all about. If I go any deeper, I will spoil the entire plot for you. So that’s the basic plot. As the title gives away, the plot is the beginning of Ragnarok for the Norse Gods.
Map & Setting
So as we said above, Baldr is kidnapped & chained by Surtr in the dwarven realm Svartalfheim. So naturally, you as the player have to visit the said realm. The best part of the game is how good it is to look at the new map. The new area can only be accessed by visiting your local seer Valka.
You will be teleported to land that on the surface look almost similar to the other lands in England. But climb up a viewpoint, and you will see this map is the most different one in the entire game. The land is filled with huge dwarven statues, long bridges, floating mountains, solid gold mountains, and one part of the map covered by a gigantic burning tree root.
All these new additions to the map make it feel have something new when you have already invested hours of gameplay in the prior DLCs of the game. The world itself is a mixture of the base maps with fire and ice. Ragnarok is not limited to keeping the locations realistic as the base game. This is visible throughout the map, and it’s fun to explore new locations. Massive statues, castles, and monoliths are
Gameplay
Surtr is the main antagonist, followed by his wife, kids, and other muspels. Each of these characters has its own unique behaviors and flaws that make them stand out in its own rights. But apart from this, you will be doing the exact same thing in the base game. Explore, solve puzzle pieces, fight enemies, kill bosses, raid, explore, repeat. There are new enemies, and elites to fight, but after 3-4 hours of fighting them, they all start to show similarities to enemies in the base game.
The new addition in Dawn of Ragnarok is the Isu bracer Hugr-Rip. Created by Dwarves, this bracer helps your fight again the Muspels and Jötnar much easier. This Piece of Eden has tons of powers up its sleeves. The main one is Power Absorption from Muspel, Jötunn, and Raven. Hugr-Rip is also capable of giving you Shape-Shifting abilities, Short-Distance Teleportation, echolocation, calling upon draugr, and even bending the elemental forces to your wises.
Hugr-Rip can absorb lifeforce from any lifeform among the 9 realms it touches. So you can use the powers of your enemies again them. Once you drain the powers of the enemy, you can shapeshift in a raven to cover distances before not possible in the base game, shapeshift into enemies and get their powers to survive in soul-crushing heat, and walk among the enemy undetected.
Hugr-Rip can also call upon undead Draugrs to find along your side. You can also control elemental forces like electricity, frost, and fire with some really cool visual effects on your battlefield. And during shapeshifting, you can walk over lava and other frost landscapes, which otherwise destroys your health bar in a few seconds.
But as fun as all of these powers and new abilities sound, they are held back by their own limitations. For starters, you can only have two active powers at any given time. And there is no option to choose which power you like according to the combat you are going into.
The only way to change powers is by exploring Svartalfheim and finding the right enemy who carries that power, to absorb it from them. So if you are planning to experiment, then mix & match these powers, then your journey will quickly turn into an exploration game hunting for enemies carrying those powers.
That doesn’t mean there are unlimited types of enemies in the DLC. You will come across all the enemy types within your first 20 hours of gameplay. From there, it’s just mashing buttons like the 100+ hours you already invested in the base game.
AC Valhalla Dawn of Ragnarok Review Verdict
Dawn of Ragnarok is huge in size, but it’s just another bunch of hours for you to dress up in magic, walk over lava, and kill enemies who are there to replace the old knights and English soldiers. The combat and exploration quickly feel exactly like a rehash of old enemies and environment into fire & ice monster, with floating mountains in the sky. The added new powers are cool, but considering their usage limitations, and the fact you have to hunt for them around the map every time, just makes the gameplay feel repetitive.
Boss fights now have lots of variations, when compared to the traditional bosses of the base game. But these variations are limited to mainly ranged attacks. And once you understand the pattern of attacks, these encounters stop becoming a challenge for you. Dawn of Ragnarok can be considered something close to Assassin’s Creed Odyssey’s The Fate of Atlantis DLC, grand in ideas, but much limited in scope. But if you enjoyed boss fights in that one, then you will be hooked into Ragnarok’s offerings pretty easily.
But if AC Valhalla is among your favorite game, then Dawn of Ragnarok will offer you a new map, new enemy types, new weapons, new skills, and abilities to go along with it. There are moments you will find yourself enjoying playing Dawn of Ragnarok more than the base Valhalla. So overall, we suggest you pick this up if you a fan of the base game and want to play more of Assassin’s Creed till the next game in the series comes out in the future.