Assassin’s Creed Valhalla was released on November 10, 2020, as the third major Assassin’s Creed title to release since the franchise received a substantial shakeup to its formula. Moving away from the humble stealth roots into a more conventional open-world action RPG, critical reception has been relatively positive for the new Assassin’s Creeds, and Valhalla is no exception. Sporting an 82 on Metacritic, the most common complaint regarding Assassin’s Creed Valhalla is its overlong time-to-completion. A minor issue, all things considered. Now, with a season pass under its belt and three full-length expansions, Assassin’s Creed Valhalla is an incredible package in size and scope.
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The Steam release of Assassin’s Creed Valhalla came on December 6, 2022, along with a 67% discount for the base game and its DLCs on the platform. For those looking to consolidate their PC collection or Steam Deck owners wanting native support for their games, the decision was laudable, but almost immediately after the game was released, fans discovered that Assassin’s Creed Valhalla was missing achievements on Steam. There was some outcry regarding the omission, and fans banded together to petition Ubisoft to rethink its stance. Nearly two weeks on from its December 6 release, Ubisoft has finally come out on the Steam message boards to confirm that it has no plans to add achievements to the game now or in the future.
Fans took to the internet to voice their displeasure. While not a deal-breaker for most, the consensus feeling is that adding achievements would have been a relatively simple aspect of porting Assassin’s Creed Valhalla onto Steam. There were some who speculated the decision ultimately came down to incentivizing players to remain on Uplay, where the game has a full suite of achievements and a more fully-fleshed out ecosystem. Additional Ubisoft titles, Anno 1800 and Roller Champions also recently released on Steam, and neither include achievements, lending credence to the theory that Ubisoft recommitting to the platform, at least for now, is somewhat half-hearted.
Despite the lack of satisfaction that unlocking achievements provide, Assassin’s Creed Valhalla remains an incredibly dense package with over a hundred hours of content spread across a gorgeously rendered open world. Whether future Ubisoft titles will release with Steam achievement support is unknown, but this current backlash to its decision will certainly factor into whatever it decides to do next.
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