A couple of days ago, Ubisoft released Assassin's Creed Valhalla to PC, Stadia, and current and next-generation consoles. Of course, given that Assassin's Creed Valhalla is one of the highly-anticipated games this year, its success is not at all surprising. However, it appears that the game's performance blew expectations away, given that more players played Assassin's Creed Valhalla on launch day than its immediate predecessor, Assassin's Creed Odyssey.
In a press release published by Ubisoft's CEO Yves Guillemot, it was revealed that Assassin's Creed Valhalla got twice as many players on launch day compared to Odyssey, which released back in October of 2018. The CEO went on to say that the studio is "humbled by the reception from the players" and is proud of the strong launch Valhalla had amidst the COVID-19 pandemic and the challenges of releasing the games to seven platforms. "We are excited to greet players on Xbox Series X/S and PlayStation 5 with a game that unleashes the power of the new hardware."
Apart from the warm reception from players, it appears that critics were also impressed with Assassin's Creed Valhalla. Shortly after its release, the game received mostly positive reviews from several gaming outlets thanks to Assassin's Creed Valhalla's immersive story and its focus on exploration and the action-adventure elements that the franchise is known for. Given the glowing reviews received by Assassin's Creed Valhalla, the news that the game outperformed its predecessor in terms of the number of players at launch is not at all surprising.
However, while the game's launch performance is off to a strong start, Assassin's Creed Valhalla quickly found itself in the middle of a controversy. Immediately after the game's release, players stumbled upon one line of dialogue that is viewed as reinforcing ableism. The discovery was made by Courtney Craven, who founded the award-winning games media outlet for disabled gamers. The controversial line of dialogue was found in Eorforwine's that describes how the character was "horribly burned in a childhood accident" and is now living in fear that people will "see her disfigured face."
Moreover, Courtney Craven revealed that when they encountered this dialogue, their girlfriend, a burn victim, was sitting next to them and was embarrassed by the notion that the video game industry reinforced ableist language. Now, the official Assassin's Creed Twitter account was quick to learn about the issue and offered an apology for any discomfort the dialogue has caused. Furthermore, the developers reassured fans that the dialogue in question will be removed in an upcoming update.
Assassin's Creed Valhalla is out now for PC, PS4, PS5, Stadia, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X.