 What's up, everybody? I'm the hook and I'm the blade and together we are you know Welcome to the hook blade podcast a show about all things assassin's creed I'm your host Lawson and with me as always is my co-host Tim. How are you doing today, Tim atrocious atrocious? That would a great way to start the first Well, look it only goes up from here. That's true So which means that this recording of this episode is gonna be the highlight of your day exactly so Tim I guess the best way for us to get started here for people who are who are listening to this is to just sort of Give a brief overview of like who we are in terms of our assassin's creed fandoms You know, yeah, where did you where did you kind of get started? What was your first exposure to assassin's creed the biggest assassin's creed memory? I have of starting off was going to the assassin's creed revelations midnight launch at my local GameStop damn That's also with three other people. It was a lot of fun. Dude. You had friends in high school. No, no, I'm saying I Did not mean to put you on blast like that No, yeah, even if I did have friends they wouldn't have gone with me I came a little later to the game My parents got me assassin's creed when I was probably like the first game when I was like 12 So it was still a few years after and I remember everyone being really excited for assassin's creed 3 And I wanted to play it because everyone else in seventh grade wanted to play it But I had to wait until I played the other games So I waited and then once black flag came around I really had to jump on board So I played them all and that's the same year 2013 that I joined the subreddit. So it's been a long time Us being assassin's creed fans Once the hype was really building up for unity and rogue I started the assassin's creed marathon So you might see some of those posts every year It's kind of like this advent calendar type event where we count down to the new assassin's creed game by playing levels and sequences of the old ones I worked on a couple of assassin's creed podcasts a few years ago There was the animus island podcast that I was sort of like a contributor to and then there was the bureau podcast I was a host of that and you were one of our contributors on that podcast as well So that's kind of how we know each other. That was a good four or five years ago now, right? Yeah No, for sure I mean, I remember I first found out about you through animus island because you were doing the music for that as he mentioned Yeah, and then the bureau was kind of forming at that time and I was kind of a part of that and then Then then the rest is history essentially in a lot of ways us doing this podcast right now and talking about these things This is kind of us coming out of an assassin's creed fan hibernation. Would you agree? Absolutely For I think both of us Valhalla is maybe the most exciting assassin's creed game in a long time Yeah, for sure It's been a while for those of us who are kind of fans of the more classic style of assassin's creed It was hard to kind of get excited for games like origins and Odyssey But Valhalla's is they're making the right moves. You know what I mean? Absolutely. Yeah I mean, they're saying the right things. They know what we want to hear I haven't been this excited about an assassin's creed since probably unity. Yeah, I I can't say this compares to my unity height. My unity hype was through the roof I was really excited for that setting and that next gen gameplay Next generation Arno all of it man And when it wouldn't run on my gaming PC. I like I cried real tears that day. I really did So so this isn't this isn't quite unity hype for me, but I'm glad that it's unity hype for you Yeah, I mean, yeah, I mean and unity hype for me was pretty fucking severe just because Like I don't know I was I was starting to get old enough to like theorize about things because I mean I mean, we were both pretty young ins when we first started playing. Yeah, we're talking. I mean for those I mean, yeah, it's probably important to note here when we're talking about unity And we're talking about me crying. We're talking about Yeah, you're not 14 year old You're not 30 years old. You're not 30 years old and crying over that. Yeah, I mean, yeah Just in case that wasn't clear 2014 so I was I was like 15 years old. Yeah when unity came out So that was I was officially able to navigate a computer. Yeah, I was 15 when you like came out Yeah, so I was like going on the forums And I hated it and that's how I eventually got to the subreddit. So damn, we're we're putting the forums on blast on episode one Okay, no, sorry. I loved let's let's not post this episode I loved it. I loved it. I loved it. It was great. We love the forums. We love the forums. Yeah The people there are fine the people there are fine. I just didn't like the interface Okay, all right that makes more sense forum interfaces are like Are like stepping into the year 2007 through a time machine But speaking of the subreddit, I'm also really excited about being a moderator now. That's kind of cool Yeah Because a lot of the people who moderate the subreddit and have moderated it for years are really good friends of mine So I just kind of felt like once they were looking for some new hands That uh, it was time to it was time to take my relationship with the subreddit to the next level You know what I mean? Yeah when a man loves a subreddit Well Exactly you get it. Yeah, I get it. I get it So really what this episode is all about besides introducing ourselves to you is Just sort of summarizing what we know about assassin's greed valhalla talking about the things that have us really excited the things that we're looking forward to and things that we're maybe The arising or hoping for because it it really is pretty early days There are a lot of things we know, but there is a lot more that we don't know for sure I think once we get a gameplay demo, we'll start to have a better feel of what we're really in for But we're going to be waiting till like july for that demo Yeah, I mean, I feel like a lot of the information while I am happy we are getting it A lot of it poses more questions and answers right now. It totally does I mean darby McDevitt the writer of this game who we're gonna we were definitely going to talk about because If you don't know Darby McDevitt was the lead writer on assassin's creed revelations and assassin's creed black flag Two real highlights in the series as far as we're concerned at least and I think it's probably most fans like those games So having him back on board to tell the story is a really encouraging sign because it's been a long time I mean the last game he wrote on was for assassin's creed was black flag. So But but he's been on twitter being very cryptic about some details of the game like You know everyone's talking about avor the gender options and he's like Both are cannons somehow. Yeah, I have to figure it out. That means I have no idea what that could possibly mean. Yeah, I don't know because because I with darby Nothing's ever simple. No, he likes to play with us. He likes to mess with our heads Right. I mean, so your first assumption is probably not Correct, right also the director of this game. I'm sure everybody listening to this knows us by now Ashraf is male. Who's best known for black flag and origin? So Really, I mean, this is the first time the black flag team has completely reunited and I don't mean team I mean everyone that works in these games is important But definitely your your creative director and your narrative lead are setting him a pretty big Tone and standard for the entire game So it's really encouraging to see them back and we just found out recently that The legendary composer Jesper kyde. Is that how you say it? Is it Jesper kyde? I used to say Jesper like And I feel like that is the uncultured way to say it. Jesper. No, I'm not asking about how Jesper is pronounced, but kyde though Oh Is it kyde or kyde? How else would you pronounce Jesper tib? Jesper really with you with the j. Yeah, maybe I don't know. Hey, look, where's he from? Um, no kid. I would say kid though, right? Say kid. I always used to say kid Jesper kid. I want to say kyde though. I'm googling it When you type how is Jesper kyde uh into google before you say pronounced the suggestion is doing How's Jesper doing Jesper if you're if you're listening google wants to know how you're doing Um, but he did tweet that it's pronounced kid. So we know that I've been You were right Jesper kid Jesper kid and sarah shockner sarah just did the organ soundtrack recently, right? Yeah So it's kind of like the blending of old school and new school in the composer's world because Jesper's last soundtrack was revelations Yeah, really. I think mixing old school and new school is kind of the The modus operandi of valhalla the way that they've been talking about it is that they've been saying that a lot of things that are important to Classic assassin's creed fans like you and me are going to be kind of coming back into the fold for sure Yeah, I mean it at least seems like they're pulling out all the stumps here. Yeah The decision to bring back Jesper at least seems like a pretty big Signal to those of us who have been playing these games since the very beginning that like, okay Shit's getting real. They're they're they're doing it. Yeah So i'm just kind of going through a list. There's a there's sort of a batch of recent details that have come out of At access the animus one thing that they've confirmed is that They're going to be three gameplay archetypes. Um, just like how in odyssey there was the assassin the warrior and the hunter Um, so they're they're doing three, but we don't know if it's the same three They're trying to make the skill tree a little bit more granular than just a selection of skills. So it's Maybe going to be smaller Um stakes things like like I don't know stat boosts and and tinier I guess controls over over your gameplay abilities then full on like Press this button to break people's shields and set your sword on fire for 15 seconds and turn invisible and stuff like that Right. They're going to kind of the way that they're doing the long boat in this game, which apparently is called the drakar or drakar I don't know. I'm gonna say drakar it is Some of you can call the same way you'd call a horse They're kind of using it like a horse in the sense that there's going to be this river system through england that you can navigate with The long boat you can have it follow the river automatically if you want to And that you can bring your viking buddies with you to places. Yeah, it seems like uh, if you Not to uh, it seems like in that little gameplay like the short trailer we got. Yeah Avor like Used a horn Yeah, and that that my first thought was that was like during a raid and that was what you would do To like signal the start of a raid, but maybe that's calling the boat Maybe I think you're probably right about the raid thing. Yeah. Well, yeah That's my first instinct. But if you're gonna call the boat, I feel like it could be cool if you like use the horn I don't know. I think it's kind of weird I don't I don't want to get too mired on this one detail But like when you call the ship in odyssey or in other games when you're like calling your whole ship They'll like pass time a little bit so that you can at least pretend It took the ship like a few minutes to get there Right. Unlike your horse, which your horse just spawns 20 feet behind you and it's like there he is now um I wonder if the long boat is going to be like the horse or the ship like Is the ship full of my viking friends is going to appear 20 feet behind me on the river Is there a passage of time? I don't know. We'll find out. Um, so The one thing that's interesting is that so darby mcdevitt has talked about there being a unique story structure in this game And maybe one of the first hints of what that really means is the idea that The story is built around these big questing arcs That all tend to start and end at your settlement. So there's supposed to be this rhythm of You know you're in your settlement the settlement is your home base But you have to leave to to accomplish things you have to leave to raid to get supplies and to do things for your settlement Right, and that seems like one of the more interesting ways that they're going to be taking the story I don't know though Like when darby says there's a story structure to this game that has not been seen in any video game before That gets me pretty torqued. You know what I mean? Well, um, I mean That that has me excited. I'm not sure like because also, I mean you have the uh, we do know that romance options can be used to uh Like win over allegiances Yeah, which is a nice Yeah, yeah, well, it's a great way to use romances instead of just fucking people Instead of just like cutting to black and then oh, that was fun. Wasn't it? Yeah, because I could see like, okay So you have like a conscious decision Do I want to go with this person or that person because this person can help me in this way and that person That way that could lead back to your settlement like either you could get more supplies for this part of your settlement Like I'm not too sure how in depth the settlement Mechanic is going to be but it does seem like seems like pretty big part of the story. Yeah for sure Yeah, so probably like there are different ways you could benefit your settlement Um and going with certain people in the world could benefit your settlement in different ways, perhaps Yeah, I think what that's speaking to as well is this idea of like Let's take some of the gameplay systems that are around in origins and odyssey and just give them more Purpose and right not have these things be kind of arbitrary or not feel as connected to everything The a lot of the things that they're describing as far as changes that they're making for this game Are things that strike me is like really focusing On on a particular experience they've talked about how The world is smaller and it's more detailed. It's less Like this big world with every like randomly generated for it or whatever it feels like And that the experience you're supposed to have from stealth to combat to parkour is supposed to be more Sort of meticulously handcrafted in each area to give you an experience as a player Absolutely, and I mean that is Something like that that's a big reason why I'm very excited Is just because the idea that like you don't just have this huge map and yeah While while it's big in size, it's very little and impactful things to do in it Yeah, and since they're I think the fact that they're even treating that as a selling point, which it is It signals a shift in what their priorities are because absolutely most Assassin's Creed games you probably have corporate saying Well, can we get the map a little bigger than last time? Just so we can say it's the biggest map. Yeah Yeah, I want the trailers to say it's the biggest map that was such a like I remember like in like black flag and unity days like unity being The size of all the black flags maps put together was a really big deal Yeah, and and now when you go back to unity and you play it Like it's a big city, but it doesn't feel as big like it doesn't feel very big at all compared to when you have Origins and Odyssey these massive expanses of land right So Yeah, really it seems like the over under on on all of this is that they're trying to kind of hone in on the experience of the game which Is really important. I mean, what's the one other thing they've talked about along those lines is Kind of changing overhauling the leveling system to where there won't be like Player levels and enemy levels necessarily. It's more about the gear you have and the skills you have And how that kind of prepares you for the the world around you and also the fact following on from that That insta kill hidden blade is back. Yeah, which we never thought we'd have to celebrate, but here we are Yeah, for sure I mean, yeah, it's honestly really interesting to be like Wait a second. So I can like actually use the hidden blade effectively again. Yeah But I'm so glad too because In everything about Odyssey, obviously, it's a controversial game People especially in the subreddit tend to be split one way or the other I tend to I enjoy Odyssey even if I don't love what it Is in regards to an assassin's creed game But the biggest complaint I have like the one thing I will absolutely condemn like this is bad and no one should like this Is the fact that like you can be in a fort and see an enemy like four levels below you And if they're just a big guy, you can't one hit kill them within a hidden blade at all Yeah, it definitely like It kind of defeats the purpose of even like Trying to stealth because most of the time it's gonna be like here's combat and oh, yeah, and even on this recent playthrough I did of Odyssey I specced as much into stealth as I could and there are still probably You know 25 to 30 of the forts and locations that I would try to do a perfect stealth run through of I would get into open combat purely out of necessity because there was no other way Right, and then you just hope you can kill them quickly so that no one else comes to help them out Yeah, and I mean and that's a big thing for me with this game Is as long as I can like feel like I'm getting a A whole experience without having to like grind and deck out an entire skill tree And I'm happy and it seems like that's not the case because there isn't and there isn't a leveling system akin to Odyssey, so I'm happy about that and they know that people's like if you read the reviews of the Odyssey the biggest complaint and reviews Is the grind is how often you have to step away from the main story to go to side missions because you're too underleveled And this playthrough I did I had the xp booster because you know, I did the project stream thing They gave you like 10 dollars of currency I bought the xp booster because I didn't want to screw around with it And even with the xp booster there does come at least two points in the main story where you won't be fully leveled to play the next mission For sure So the next thing that kind of that um that valhalla does that kind of focuses a little bit that I think is really interesting Uh that we also learned in this access the animus info dump Is that they're kind of trying to make the settlement this very like immersive Simulator like place to live. I think they're maybe taking some cues out of the red dead redemption 2 playbook here You know, you can talk to your war chief about what you're doing. You can Check on the other inhabitants who will mostly be characters in the game. You can interact with things You can lay down in your bed. You can go to sleep you can fish you can go fishing Finally, yeah, that's finally honestly I'm gonna tell you this right now timothy and you don't know this about me I'm a slut for fishing minigames Really? Yeah, like stardew valley all fishing all the time Uh back in toontown. What was I doing? I was fishing Do I ever want to go fishing in real life? No Not even a little bit of no interest It's not very fun in real life, but fishing minigames are always bangers except for red dead redemption 2 I hate that one It's not good. No, it's really bad. Oh, I spent like literally a whole I want to say 25 minutes on this one fish for a mission Literally just trying to reel it in just trying to reel it in it took 25 minutes. I'm not exaggerating Wow, I've never hated myself more for a choice. I made in a video game Yeah, so that's my that to me out of all these like things you can do in your settlement The fishing is the most exciting. I gotta say definitely. I agree again. Good fishing minigame. I am here for it Yeah, I'll pre-order just for that. Yeah. So like other Kind of details that are important Um, you know story wise the setting we're talking 873 ad europe And you're gonna be kind of going from norway to england Um, and it seems like I've heard that I don't know if everyone knows this yet I've heard that norway is not necessarily a location on the map But it's kind of a place like for scy in unity that you can fast travel to as needed right or like or like Cappadocia and revelations. Yeah, exactly like you can go there if you need to But it's not part of the main map and there are also locations that are supposed to be in the game that we don't know yet They're supposed to be like three or four places And some of them are surprises interesting. I'm sure someone who has a better understanding of history and geography Then we do could throw out like some obvious Like examples of where else we would go but unfortunately we're not those kinds of podcast hosts No Also, the thing I was going to mention about the insta kill hidden blade is it's going to be kind of a rhythm game Like the if you try to insta kill an enemy that's really high level there might be like an unplayably hard Like rhythm tapping game like lockpicking goes. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, like the lock pick I'm cautious about that But I can't make an I can't have an opinion on that till we see an action in july I mean it just it definitely seems definitely seems like Like a compromise between the two systems. Yeah, like you want to be able to have there be places You can't just brute force through stealth and I get that like if I could just go to the hardest place in the world And and stealth it out. I think that should be possible personally. I do Yeah, I mean the risk of getting into open combat would just be greater and it would just be more challenging. Yeah, but Yeah, so things like this with the critical assassinate stuff feels like arbitrary Gating but we're again, we don't know we're gonna have to see in valhalla how it goes, right? Yeah, you can mount wolves as as as a vehicle apparently I don't I'm not I'm not sure about that. Yeah, I'm not a wolf expert But I don't know if there are wolves big enough that you could mount Avore can contain animals including bears Eagle vision is called odin sight, but you have a raven instead of an eagle They say parkour throughout the world will be meaningful and rewarding. I have no idea what that means, but I'm excited about it Yeah, I mean it honestly just could be Be like a return to like tomb type missions. Yeah, and that would be cool. Which I which I yeah I'm 100 percent down parkour is one of the things that I love most about this franchise So seeing it done well again would be amazing versions and odyssey where we'll let downs in the parkour department Yeah, I mean just just giving you areas that are fun to climb would be You know, I mean like it's just I feel like climbing is taking such a back seat, you know Yeah, exactly like it just doesn't feel like the game doesn't encourage it anymore the way it used to Right something that I think is interesting is they've talked about how the dialogue choices system from odyssey is returning The idea is that they want Avore to be a focused character with a personality So the options that you're going to get are going to be in line with that personality It's not going to be like You can choose your personality the kind of weight is an odyssey Yeah, it's you're not you're not just like a blank slate essentially like avor is a character that would do certain things So I feel like your your dialogue choices aren't going to be Absurd and radical, you know, they're going to be something that avor could potentially say You have a hood toggle in game Which we don't know yet if that's tied to like a stealth mode like a crouch The way that I think syndicate kind of did it. Yes. Yes syndicate did it that way But being able to just toggle the hood We like that. It's fun. There are like five kinds of gear that you can collect in the world And every piece of gear that you collect will be unique. So you won't be getting like 50 versions of the same mistheos hood or or mercenary armor or whatever an odyssey was Right, and I think it is worth mentioning too that you can essentially Complete the entire game with the gear that you start with Yeah, and you can do transmog as well Which you know means that you are able to kind of customize the look of your gear without sacrificing the stats which is It should be in every game because Yeah, I don't want my character to look like a goofball just because the best armor in the game has Looks like a goofball Yeah, because as as you upgrade the uh the gear apparently it'll change it'll change appearance But you can go back to the original experience if you want to I'm really excited about throwing axes Yeah, I mean it does it does. I mean I'm just the sheer The sheer like amount of weapons and stuff like really reminds me of like the jump from ac1 ac2 We had like spears and axes you could use it's just I like having a lot of Options in terms of weapons. I don't remember where I heard this But I I've heard that there's a skill you can unlock at a certain point in the game That will let you use a two-handed weapon in one hand Yeah, that was from the washington post stream that just happened So you can technically like I think you could you could hold a spear in one hand What I want to know is Is that stackable with the crazy dual wielding system? Can I dual wield spears two spears? Yeah, that sounds cool They seem like they're like they seem really happy that you can dual wield the shields Yeah, so I feel like they're gonna go ridiculous with the dual wielding and I'm I'm here for that Exactly they are kind of continuing the modern-day story of origins and odyssey which I have mixed to negative. Okay, we'll say negative feelings about But um, we're gonna kind of get into that maybe in another episode here in the on the horizon Right, and here's one thing that I always feel like is a signifier of a good assassin's creed game bringing back Traditional loading screen memory cord or white room situation. Yes when you do that that's I think specifically when they do it after not doing it like because not every game with a Memory corridor is great, but every time they get rid of the memory corridor I I feel personally betrayed Yeah, I mean it's it's such a simple thing It's like it feels like a deliberate choice to just be different. Yeah, like odyssey is like we can't we It wasn't enough to take away your hidden blade. We have to take away your memory corridor, too Yeah, it also wasn't enough to take away like everything Anyway We have we have some Between the two of us. We have some mixed opinions about odyssey, but I will say this I enjoy it. It's fun. It's fun. Yeah, I like playing it Um, you're you're allowed to think that sea shanties are implied to be returning But I don't know would you just hear them in your longboat? Is everyone saying on the longboat? I mean, I've also done this Sorry, no you Well, they've also like said that there are viking rap battles. Yeah, flighting Whatever that's about so that may perhaps that could be a shanty type deal Like those songs are shanties. Well, it wouldn't be songs really what flighting is supposed to be I mean, yeah that like colloquially we can call it a rap battle, but I think the idea is more like spoken word arguments It's like okay under it. It's like I Yeah, you're trying to be clever and funny the way you would in a rap battle But there's not necessarily music going on. I don't think um and Something that was interesting about it that someone said I think ashraf said on the on the washington post stream is that like avor is kind of a poetic person like That's something that might appeal to them the flighting because They are they're they care about words and poetry. I think avor is apparently, you know, he's got a sense of humor He's still like but not Right, uh Yeah, they have the sense of humor You know, but they're stoic but not too stoic And so there's a lot of personality things going around here that I think Could make avor a very interesting character Can I also just say really glad that they decided that even though it's male or female They have the same character name so that I don't have to be called the eagle bearer for the whole game Yeah, yeah, they can just record a they can just say avor I don't think they've gotten enough credit for that yet. So yeah, I think it's a great choice, honestly I was laughing my ass off the other day because I was playing Odyssey and I was playing as Cassandra and she's talking to this character and and she's like oh The eagle better and then Cassandra is like call me Cassandra. And then for the rest of that storyline, they never say her name So really at the end of the day, what we're expecting out of Valhalla is Taking the ingredients of gameplay that were introduced by origins and changed a little bit in odyssey And putting them towards a more like focused Smaller cohesive experience, right? That's kind of the gist I'm getting from all of this. Yeah, I mean and I think I think with Darby at the helm and Ashraf I mean, they're definitely a team that can really focus on what makes that game in particular special Yeah, and so I don't think they're going to be worried about doing a bunch of new things I think they're just going to be able to really just Just sit down and just hone in on very specific things and do them very well This game is interesting because it both feels like in some ways Other, you know contrary to games like origins odyssey or really any of the main pillar games for the last five six seven years This doesn't seem to have the big like headline feature changes or Dramatic shake-ups like some of the other games have had in the past It's really more about like owning that this is an iteration This is a cousin of the the games that that have at least come out previously And just saying we're going to take all of the things that we've introduced all of the big ideas of origins and odyssey on a gameplay level and just say concentrate it grind it down boil it down to its its essence and just Deliver that in the best possible way Again, we're making a lot of assumptions here. We don't know what the game really looks like yet We contrary to ubisoft's belief have not seen a gameplay trailer Yeah, which is which is uh, because to me the cinematic trailer was not that excellent I don't know, you know, it's kind of it's kind of grown on me a little bit in the in the terms of like I don't know what else I would have expected from the cinematic trailer You know what I mean like but we've had such great cinematic trailers though Like even the origins trailer is is is awesome. Is it? I like it. I don't like it that much I mean, I like the like, uh Leonard Cohen I mean, well, you think unity cinematic trailer is the best. I do it is the best Yeah, I think the revelations cinematic trailer would have a word So, I mean, yeah, I mean Valhalla. It's exciting. It has brought us out of Assassin's Creed retirement. We're basically doing this podcast because The excitement for Valhalla has made us feel like we have to be doing Some Assassin's Creed stuff. We have to be doing projects Hopefully the more that we see and the more that we learn about Valhalla that excitement increases I would hate for the gameplay to come around and then let's be like, oh Yeah, but I mean played podcast to abruptly canceled after gameplay down Right, I mean, but you know, I mean I I'm very optimistic about it. I I think that gameplay was gonna is gonna knock her socks off I think it's gonna it's gonna it's gonna That it's gonna knock her socks I'm excited. You're excited. Um, really that's been it for our first episode. Thank you so much for listening I've been the hook. Fuck. No, I'm the blade. Shit. Yeah, that's right. I've I've been the hook You're the hook. I'm the blade. These titles don't mean anything. We just thought this would be a funny name for a podcast I don't know. I it's an elegant name I think people would consider me very hooky. You're I'm kind of a blade too. I mean, I'm I'm pretty stab-like in my personality. Yeah. Yeah You're the you're the hook that gets people into the podcast and then I'm the blade that comes through and kills them So, uh, yeah Thank you for for listening and we will see you next time. See you next time on the hook blade podcast