In the earliest days of Assassin's Creed Valhalla, marketing treated female Eivor as a second thought. She did not appear alongside her male counterpart at first, instead leaking shortly thereafter and well before a proper reveal, and her trailer was just a swap with the initial male Eivor trailer. Even finding merch for female Eivor is much more difficult than male Eivor, who also appears on all of the game's major marketing, including the upfront game cover. Indeed, female Eivor is on the reversible cover, but once more she is treated as a second thought there. MAJOR SPOILERS FOR ASSASSIN'S CREED VALHALLA AHEAD.
It seems the marketing was targeting those who wanted to play Male Eivor, and then it continued to do so in nearly every regard after launch. For many, this can seem misleading. Choosing to play the canon option, "Let the Animus Decide," as many may opt to do, means that players are always the female version of Eivor with the exception of one particular story arc. Indeed, Male Eivor doesn't particularly exist in this regard, nor as he was marketed, and so for those who wish to play him, they can be misled by what is "canon" and what is marketed.
This sort of communication even continued with the recent Assassin's Creed Valhalla Funko Pop reveal, as both of them are male Eivor, with no female Eivor in sight. Regarding the marketing, this Funko Pop, and more, Game Rant spoke with Assassin's Creed Sisterhood founder Kulpreet Virdi (who is both a Uplay Ambassador and an IP Lawyer) to get her thoughts.
Early on in our discussion, we talked about what the marketing told fans. Marketing is to inform potential consumers of the product and to encourage sales, at least in a crude definition of the term, and it would seem that the marketing did not accurately showcase the product. Indeed, despite the marketing focusing heavily on male Eivor, choosing to play the canon option put players in the shoes of two characters: Eivor herself and Havi. For many reasons, this should be concerning, but Virdi added...
I think if you went through the whole game and you played as male Eivor, then you might not see a problem with the way that it was marketed because you see him throughout the game. Obviously, there's that plot twist, you know the spoiler plot twist, but if you played 'the Animus decides' version or you played as female Eivor, you'd be really disappointed...I guess maybe they were like, 'oh, maybe we don't want to add a spoiler in, you know, just to say, we will slap male Eivor all over the marketing,' but it's not actually available to play [him] in the game when you find out who he really is.
Virdi did sympathize with spoiler territory aspect of this Assassin's Creed Valhalla decision. While those who will have played the game know male Eivor does not exist and that, instead, the character's name is Havi, many do not. It does make sense for Ubisoft to avoid that twist as much as possible in pre-launch marketing as it is a big crux for the game; at the same time, denying Eivor her rightful opportunity as a canon character (just as Assassin's Creed Odyssey's Kassandra), treating her as second fiddle, and showing another character in context which he will never be properly seen in isn't justifiable by this spoiler. As Virdi put it, "I guess it strengthens the argument as to having them both on the cover if he actually isn't Eivor."
Of course, the pre-launch marketing has come and gone as Assassin's Creed Valhalla moves ever forward with content updates, but unfortunately, it doesn't seem this particular treatment of Eivor is moving forward. It was revealed that Assassin's Creed Valhalla was getting TWO Funko Pops in celebration of the game, but that both characters are Havi...despite it saying "Eivor" on the box. Both characters are depictions of male Eivor/Havi, with one having two axes as opposed to just one, and once again the real Eivor is left in the dust. When asked about the usage of Eivor vs. Havi on the box, Virdi stated:
Again, it's the whole spoilery thing. I get why they've done it, I really do get why they've done it. It's that balance between a spoiler and actually representing who the protagonist is. I mean, the devs have said that both are canon. Because if you pick it up, and it says Havi on it, you're kind of like, oh, who is Havi? The main person on the marketing, on the cover, it says that it's Eivor. So how do you know what to read? It's a bit confusing in that sense. But I think the thing that I took the most issue with, with the whole Pop discourse that went on, is the fact that they have made two Pops. And they are both male Eivor.
We also discussed the online discourse that surrounded the reveal of this Funko Pop, of which Virdi noted two reactions: "First, this is Havi. Secondly, where is female Eivor?" With two Funko Pops designed for Assassin's Creed Valhalla, with the narrative being that these two characters are closely intertwined, it makes sense to represent the full story. This particular treatment of Eivor here is akin to theoretically releasing a Funko Pop for Joel, but not Ellie for The Last of Us; it wouldn't represent the full game as a piece of merchandise. In no way does one Funko Pop of Havi/male Eivor symbolize the full story, just all the marketing that went into it.
With this in mind, there were two questions that really just leaped out at us—will we get a proper Eivor Funko Pop? How are such deals decided? As an IP Lawyer, Virdi gave us a "legal overview" of the scenario:
So, Funko, they do officially licensed products, so they don't make things that they don't have a license to, and Ubisoft obviously own the rights to Assassin's Creed. They own the rights to the likeness of the characters, they basically own anything which has to do with their characters and all the rights around that. So what would have happened is either Funko would have reached out to Ubisoft or vice versa. And what I think would have likely to have happened, because I've never dealt directly with Funko before, they would have reached out, they would have had conversations about, 'what do we make?' So, somewhere, they agreed that it would be to male Pops in that process, in those discussions, and I think possibly it would have been at that point, where they're discussing what it's going to look like, the prototypes, and things like that, that it could have been raised that 'actually, we should have done male and female Eivor.' But, you know, ultimately, someone somewhere signed off.
Indeed, having done both of them makes more sense beyond showcasing or symbolizing the true story of Assassin's Creed Valhalla—even if Ubi or Funko did not want to put 'Havi' on the box, it wouldn't technically be wrong to put 'male Eivor' and even 'female Eivor.' This seems like it would have been the proper course from the start, but even now, coming out with an Eivor Funko Pop would make many franchise fans happy. On whether or not that'll happen, Virdi believes it depends:
Ubisoft and Funko might have seen how unhappy people were with the decision to have two male Eivors. I really hope that they took that [reception] on board, and you know, that we get a female Eivor sometime in the future, but I guess it's completely up to them and in their hands as to whether we will get that. I guess, hopefully, talking positivity going forward, that if in the future, they do offer a choice of protagonists and they do the merchandise and the Funko Pops, whether that be Funko Pops or otherwise, that actually the merchandise as well has both options.
Again, it's a matter of simply making sense. While "male Eivor" may not exist as "male Eivor" in the canon, there's nothing wrong with giving players the option to feel seen in-game, yet there is a problem in treating the canon character as an option and hiding that, thereby meaning certain players may not feel seen. From pre-launch to in-game to Funko Pops, this has been a consistent problem, yet it's not one wholly unique to Ubisoft—at times, it feels as if the entire industry is blind to the women in gaming. At the worst of times, it feels as if the entire industry is hostile to women in gaming or to anyone in gaming who doesn't fall in line with Altair, Ezio, Edward, Jacob, Alexios, or male Eivor.
"I think they probably just need to listen," Virdi said when asked how the industry, how massive gaming companies can break away from this 'video games are for boys' mentality, "and it's as easy as that."
Assassin's Creed Valhalla is available now for PC, PS4, PS5, Stadia, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X.