Assassin's Creed Valhalla has been updated numerous times since its launch in November 2020. Ubisoft has said on multiple occasions that it's fully committed to providing extensive post-launch support, but recent patches have left a lot to be desired — mostly because they keep introducing new issues. It's been clear for a while that the development team has had problems trying to wrangle such a huge game — and that's probably why its first expansion, Wrath of the Druids, was delayed into May.
But despite the stumbles, the team is willing to be quite open about the situation. In a new blog post, the developer explains the ins and outs of the update process — and it makes for an interesting read.
The big takeaway here is that the devs have altered their approach, hopefully for the better. The post reads: "We have made several changes to production pipelines and tools so that we can deliver more robust updates, which we will cover later. We are also shifting from a 4-week to a 5-week Title Update release cycle to allow for more thorough testing and refinement." In short, bigger updates that take a bit more time to get right. Sounds good to us.
The post goes on to say that Valhalla's next update, patch 1.2.1, will launch next week, on the 27th April.
Any developer will tell you that making a game is very, very difficult. And for something like Assassin's Creed Valhalla — an open world title that has so many moving parts — we can't even begin to imagine how hard it is to pin everything down. Here's hoping that these internal changes help both the developers and the game.
To round things off, Ubisoft shares its plans for the relatively near future of Valhalla. Again, the next update hits on the 27th. Then, we've got Wrath of the Druids on the 13th May. Beyond that, "late spring" will see the introduction of both update 1.2.2, and the next free content drop, in the form of the 'Mastery Challenge' — which is supposed to be a combat-based activity.
Are you still playing Assassin's Creed Valhalla? Continue your conquest of England in the comments section below.
[source ubisoft.com]
Comments 10
We are also shifting from a 4-week to a 5-week Title Update release cycle to allow for more thorough testing and refinement.
Are they joking?
What a nice strategy :
After examples like Disco Elysium and multiple small patches in the same week, such a strategy really looks like a big f*** you to fans who already bought the game and are waiting for it to be fixed to play it...
@Olmaz Well, to be fair to the devs, it's a vicious cycle. Yes, Valhalla shouldn't have released so buggy — that's ultimately the problem, and it's the cause of this snowball effect.
But based on recent updates, and the fact that there's a list of issues that haven't been fixed, clearly they need to change something. The game's been out for months now and there's obviously no going back, so taking their time to better the update process seems like the right call.
Again, they've been left in a crappy situation, but this will hopefully help.
@ShogunRok I'd say the solution is "obvious" :
1-Don't release a buggy game (or at least that buggy) - and we all agree on that (I'd bet the devs do too)
2-If, nevertheless, your game is buggy, then release a small patch every week (or even multiple patches each week if needed) to fix a small amount of bugs each time. Thus you will lower the risk of messing things up and creating new bugs, and you will give your users the feeling that the game is constantly getting better because you're working on it. I shouldn't have to go through multiple forum boards to find out if Ubisoft is working on game breaking bugs on the game I just bought, it should be evident by constant updates and fixes...
But every patch released mean you have to pay Sony/Microsoft a fair amount, so it's "financially better" to put all your eggs in the same basket. And I'm sure internally it's easier and more "efficient" (again, financially speaking) to output a big patch every month than a small patch every week...
@Olmaz Don't BUY a buggy game.
@Fyz306903 Though I agree with you, and this is why I never buy games at launch, I bought Valhalla in March. I don't think you can expect me to blame myself for buying a game 4 months after launch and expecting it to be fixed at that point...
Really, I do wonder how is the gaming experience of "casual gamers" who do not follow as eagerly as us video game news, and who buy games at launch...
@Xenomorph_79 Yeah, I think people didn’t make as big a fuss about AC Valhalla being a buggy mess (as they did about CP2077) because it’s Ubisoft/AC and at this point, we all expect a buggy mess from them.
@Olmaz I think most casual players will just play the main storyline and aren’t bothered if a side quest glitches.
It’s the committed AC fans and completists who do invest their time (and who are bothered about completing the game 100%) that Ubisoft don’t give two F’s about.
I have +30hs in and having a blast, didn't face any glitch or bug and I'm chasing every single side quest and challenge. Maybe I'm just lucky
It's just not holding my attention like the last two games.
@Olmaz They keep adding bugs with these small patches. I'd rather they take longer and not introduce new issues all the time. they got the mouths moving again, I think, so it's playable now. It should have been fixed in the first place, but we are where are, and I think this is the beset approach.
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