This guide includes a set of Assassins Creed: Valhalla starter tips. I have prepared various tips and tricks for beginners. They revolve around the exploration of the world, stealth mechanics, combat, and leveling up the protagonist, Eivor.
Starters Tips for New Players
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Check out the different difficulty settings
In Assassins Creed: Valhalla, you don’t just choose one basic difficulty level. You can adjust the difficulty level according to your abilities and preferences.
This is because the game allows you to set the difficulty level separately for exploration (like being able to find a destination or moving around easily), combat (strength of enemies), and stealth (easiness to be spotted by enemies).
If you want, you can, for example, increase the difficulty of stealth and make it easier to find collectibles or complete a given battle.
This is worth experimenting with, because the game allows you to change the difficulty level even after the campaign has started. You can find more information on the difficulty levels page.
Equip the Raven Outfit after defeating Rikiwulf
Rikiwulf is the first main boss in the game and is described in the chapter titled Bosses. Once you’ve dealt with Rikiwulf, you’ll receive Raven Clan items, and you should immediately equip them all.
This will increase Eivor’s base stats since he didn’t have any unique clothing items when the game started. It’s also a good idea to upgrade each of the items you wear regularly, especially since it’s likely to take some time before you start looking for or getting other valuable outfits.
An additional incentive to wear Raven clothing items is the bonus received for wearing items from the same set (the armor bonus increases with the loss of health points and a greater chance of critical hits).
Initially, you get 4 of the 5 pieces of the Raven Costume. The missing fifth element is the helmet that you get as a reward for defeating the second main boss – Kyotwe.
Try to reach strength 20 before heading to England
We remind you that Strength is a factor that shows how strong a hero is. You can increase this parameter mainly by upgrading your character to move on to the next levels of experience and assign acquired skill points to unlock new skills from the development tree.
Entering a region with too strong enemies means serious problems – the enemies will be harder to defeat and they will deal much more damage.
Try to reach strength 20 before you leave Norway and go to England for the first time. The first two regions in England are recommended for Power 20 symbols.
You can reach this value by completing not only the main quests, but also side activities such as events or searching for secrets in the first hours of the game.
You will find more detailed information about the described mechanics on a separate page Recommended power for the region.
Use Odin’s Gaze to find enemies, keys and treasure
Eivor can use the Gaze of Odin from the very beginning of the game, and this is not limited in any way. A special view mode is based on scanning the environment in search of interesting things. First of all, Odins Sight can be useful for:
Targeting your opponents – this allows you to more effectively avoid them or attack them by surprise.
Treasure hunt – if you can’t see the treasure despite the symbols on the map (like the yellow dot), move the camera vertically – it can be on the roof of a building or underground.
Search for keys – they can lie in plain sight or be carried away by enemies. Keys are useful for opening locked doors and drawers.
Return to Gunnar with the found ingots
Gunnar is a friendly blacksmith – during your stay in Norway, you can find him in the village of Fornburg, and after moving to England, you will be given a mandatory quest to build a hut for him in the newly established Viking settlement.
Gunnar has skills that allow you to improve the quality of the Eivors’ items, which increases the maximum number of upgrades and allows them to set runes.
Keep returning to Gunnar with ingots found in the game world as they are used to fund equipment upgrades (not silver). However, note that ingots come in three varieties.
Their main variety – Carbon Ingot – allows you to upgrade only solid objects to excellent quality.
If you want to improve the quality, you need to find rarer ingots. For more information, visit the Upgrade Your Hardware page.
Events allow you to get a lot of experience
During the game, you can earn experience points in a variety of ways, with World Events being the second largest source of experience after quests.
We strongly recommend that you stay up to date with all the events found on the world map, as well as actively look for new ones (they may be hidden under the blue dots on the map).
Events are different kinds of small quests – you can, for example, be asked to help with a certain task, alleviate a conflict, or find a missing item. They are neither difficult nor long.
The game rewards you with a minimum of 1200xp for completing the event, and especially in the early stages of the campaign, this can allow you to reach higher experience levels much more often.
Event venues can be found in our world atlas. We have also described them in the walkthrough.
Use a hood to reduce the risk of detection
Eivor can put on a hood by selecting it from the drop-down menu (bottom directional key on the panel), but this is only possible if the hero is not currently fighting anyone.
The hood is useful in orange locations, i.e. in places where opponents can attack Eivor after he approaches them.
It has two main applications that allow you to sneak more efficiently and stay hidden:
- The hood can delay Eivor’s detection. This is a useful feature, but keep in mind that it does not guarantee invisibility. It is still useful for dodging enemies at medium range.
- The hood allows you to merge with the environment. For example, Eivor may sit on a bench or stop by a table, allowing him/her to hide. In this case, you don’t have to worry about maintaining a safe distance, but the downside of this solution is the need to stay put. So it’s mostly useful if you’re waiting for a mission objective or any other event.
Use materials for the first ration and quiver upgrades
In the game, you can spend crafting materials to improve your inventory. Before you decide to upgrade your weapons and armor, make two more purchases from your inventory:
- Upgrade your diet by spending 50 leather and 100 iron ore. This will increase the number of possible positions and possible treatments by 1. Of course, it will come in handy in every difficult battle. Another ration upgrade is unfortunately much more expensive (140 leather, 300 iron ore) and better to wait.
- Upgrade the quiver by spending 30 leather and 20 iron ore. You can also unlock another level for 80 Leather and 50 Iron Ore immediately or shortly thereafter. Upgrading your quiver will allow you to carry more arrows. This will reduce the risk of tiring them out during fights, and you’ll be less likely to have to search the game world for places to resupply arrows.
- Information on how to get leather, iron ore and other raw materials can be found on a separate page called Crafting Materials.
Be sure to quickly build important buildings in the settlement
Blacksmith Gunnars’ Hut is the only building in the settlement that needs to be built. You have the choice of whether to build other buildings, but you should be aware that you will have a very limited supply of crafting materials.
As a result, it’s important to build buildings first, which will unlock important new game mechanics, quests, and features. Our recommendations:
- Bureau of the Hidden – opens the entire storyline of the Order of the Ancients (similar to the Knights Templar). You will be able to identify members of the Order and hunt for them.
- Barracks – open the possibility of recruiting Jomsvikings. You can hire other viking players and also let other players use your subordinates and benefit from it (you must play online).
- Hunter’s Hut – unlocks the ability to deliver legendary animal trophies and unlocks hunting quests that can be rewarded with ingots and runes.
- Other recommended buildings are listed on the Best Settlement Builds page.
Raiding monasteries allows you to loot rare materials
For the construction of buildings listed in the previous section (and all the others in the village) you need to have special materials with you. Unfortunately, you will never have too many of them.
The most problematic are the Raw Materials, since they are not found in large quantities when simply exploring the game world.
Try organizing raids on the abbeys found on the world map. In each such location you will find at least two large containers in which raw materials are hidden.
Raiding monasteries in the first place will make it easier for you to build a few initial buildings that do not yet require a very large amount of raw materials (average 30-45 materials per building).
The game has important options, but they are few
Assassins Creed Valhalla, like AC Odyssey and AC Origins, draws inspiration from role-playing games, which means, among other things, that in some quests you will have to make difficult decisions.
Some decisions only slightly change the course of a quest or a single conversation, but there are also important choices in the game that have long-term consequences.
Your decision may, for example, lead to the acquisition or loss of a potential ally, and also contribute to unlocking the other end of the game.
It’s best to save the game before each conversation (you can create both manual and quick saves) in case of inappropriate behavior or the wrong choice of dialog box at all.
Use the horn to call your companions for help
From the start of the game, Eivor has a horn that has two uses – it can be used to summon boats and crew members. In both cases, to use the horn, you must hold down the bottom directional button on the panel and select the appropriate item from the drop-down menu.
The second option is more useful. While staying in a hostile place, you can call on other Vikings to help. This is especially useful in situations where you have failed with a stealth approach and have been discovered as you won’t have to fight all of your opponents only.
However, Viking support can also be useful if you want to secure a location faster. In a group, you can get rid of enemies more easily.
Look for Books of Knowledge
In addition to unlocking new skills, you can also use active abilities. These are unique combat techniques that include the use of melee and ranged weapons. With abilities, you can, among other things, shoot a hail of arrows, throw axes and attack enemies.
Since the abilities are powerful attacks, their use is limited – you must fill up a special adrenaline bar.
The only way to unlock a new ability is to find the corresponding book of knowledge – they are one of the collectibles in the game.
Once you have learned an ability, you must add it to your hotbar – Eivor can have 4 ranged combat skills and 4 melee skills at the same time.
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