One question that has plagued Assassin's Creed Valhalla leading up to its release is how the game will handle its main protagonist, Eivor. The game allows players to swap Eivor's gender whenever they want, yet both male and female Eivor are considered canon by Valhalla's Narrative Director. Luckily, any player who wants concrete details about the viking warrior can look forward to a graphic novel collection releasing April 20, 2021 that will reveal Eivor's backstory.
Assassin's Creed Valhalla: Song of Glory is a three-part story being published by Dark Horse that will follow Eivor, canonically female, as she "undergoes a dangerous quest to regain her honor" after being disgraced. Part of the Assassin's Creed Valhalla prequel will also focus on Eivor's brother Sigurd as he seeks treasure in eastern lands.
The hardcover collection being written by Cavan Scott and illustrated by Martin Tunica and Michael Atiyeh will costs $17.99, and it will be available at retailers such as Barnes & Noble, Target, and Walmart according to its listing on Penguin Random House. Part one of the story will be available for $3.99 as soon as October 21, 2020 based on its listing through Dark Horse, which brings it closer to an Assassin's Creed novel leak found in April, before Valhalla was revealed.
With the upcoming game leaning into each player's choice of what gender Eivor should be, it's interesting to see that its prequel will have female Eivor take the helm. Supposedly, some Assassin's Creed Valhalla devs wanted Eivor to be female from the beginning of the game's development, but this idea was shot down.
In fact, female characters were purportedly supposed to have larger roles in a number of previous Assassin's Creed games. For example, Assassin's Creed Odyssey was meant to star Kassandra according to a report from Bloomberg's Jason Schreier, but Ubisoft's Chief Creative Officer Serge Hascoet allegedly believed that "women don't sell."
Ubisoft has been at the center of a movement against sexual assault and misconduct in the video game industry, which resulted in Serge Hascoet resigning from Ubisoft alongside other major executives. Whether that will change how women are handled in Ubisoft games going forward will have to be seen with future releases, but giving female Eivor the lead in Song of Glory may be one step in the right direction.
Assassin's Creed Valhalla releases November 17 for PC, PS4, Stadia, and Xbox One. PS5 and Xbox Series X versions to follow.
Source: Penguin Random House, Dark Horse Comics