Assassin’s Creed Valhalla will arrive a week early thanks to the Xbox launch

Ubisoft today announced that, in contrast to what everyone else has been doing with their games this year, it’s moving Assassin’s Creed: Valhalla to an earlier release date. We’ll now get it a full week earlier, and the new date just happens to coincide with the launch of the two new Xbox consoles.

Assassin's Creed Valhalla launches with Xbox Series X | S on 10th November, 2020.
Build the legend of a Viking raider on any console.
Upgrade from Xbox One to Xbox Series X at no additional cost. pic.twitter.com/0IH29wpbIz

— Assassins Creed UK (@Assassins_UK) September 9, 2020

According to Ubisoft’s update, Valhalla will release on not only the new Xbox Series X and S, but also the Xbox One, PS4, Stadia, and PC on November 10. The original release date was November 17. In case you haven’t kept up, the latest Assassin’s Creed casts you as a Viking, out to go a-pillaging in the ninth century. As someone who’s been a fan of Assassin’s Creed for almost half my life (really closer to 13 years), I’ll be playing it no matter what console it’s on.

Read: Xbox Series X and Series S launching November 10 for $499 and $299, respectively

Not to be hyperbolic, but Ubisoft may have done a lot for the game’s fortunes by moving the release date up. For starters, the console will now be a launch title for the console, as opposed to coming out a week after the console’s release. With so many games — including Xbox flagship Halo Infinite — being delayed, anyone who gets the console on launch is going to need all the games they can get. Also, the original release date would have put the game just before the release of Cyberpunk 2077, which (while I’m not a convert personally) has had a much longer time to build up hype than Valhalla and would no doubt be a higher priority for a lot of gamers. Now at least Valhalla has a bit of breathing room.

Notice one name was left out of the line-up: the PlayStation 5. Sony’s still not released a date or price for its own console — meaning Microsoft is the first to answer my recurring questions — so this is either because Ubisoft isn’t permitted to give that detail away, or it genuinely doesn’t know. At this point, I’m not sure Sony knows either. I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it once more: we don’t know how long Microsoft would have sat on the console details without the leaks preempting them, so I’m more than a bit worried.