Assassin’s Creed: Valhalla has been pushed forward by a week in order to match up with the launch of the Xbox Series X and Xbox Series S. Now, instead of coming out on November 17, the latest from Ubisoft’s long-running franchise will launch on November 10 alongside both consoles.
News of this came from Ubisoft’s social channels, where the company confirmed Valhalla was making moves across the calendar to line-up with the beginning of the next generation of consoles, but this would apply across generations as well. So whether you’re playing on the new Xbox Series line or Xbox One, PlayStation 4, Stadia, or PC, you’ll have access to it a week earlier than expected. Notably, the PlayStation 5 is not listed among these systems, as that console doesn’t have a release date yet. Even so, evidence suggests the PS5 is coming out after its direct competitor, including some of Sony’s documented marketing spend set for the following week.
Assassin's Creed Valhalla launches with Xbox Series X | S on November 10, 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/dGukVP5U8g— Assassin's Creed (@assassinscreed) September 9, 2020
If you don’t decide to upgrade to the Xbox Series X/S and opt for an Xbox One version, you’ll be able to upgrade your copy of Assassin’s Creed: Valhalla to the next-gen systems at no additional cost. The same will apply for PlayStation 4 to PlayStation 5 upgrades whenever that system comes out. So, in theory, if you wanted to play Valhalla a week early and were planning on getting it on PlayStation 5 originally, you could play on PS4 and then upgrade in the next week or so when the system reportedly launches. Luckily, it doesn’t seem like you’ll have to jump through any weird hoops to get an upgrade for Valhalla, unlike Control: Ultimate Edition, which required players to have purchased a specific edition of the game in order to get it for free on Xbox Series X/S and PlayStation 5.
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Assassin’s Creed: Valhalla is the first game in the series to come out since Ubisoft has been dealing with a sort of Me Too moment within the company, one that the publisher has made a habit of ignoring while addressing the public. However, reports about how it has affected this series in its creative decisions have come out in all of this, as well. But it’s unclear if the reckoning happening right now could have any effect on Valhalla this far into its development.
This shift in schedule makes Assassin’s Creed: Valhalla among the growing list of Xbox Series X/S launch titles alongside games like Yakuza: Like a Dragon, which the system really needs in the wake of Halo Infinite’s delay into next year. The sixth mainline game in Microsoft’s much-beloved shooter franchise was being positioned as a tentpole game for the Xbox Series X/S launch in November, but was pushed back into 2021. It also seems like it might be fairly far into the next year based on its personnel changes, including bring back series veterans from back when Halo was still at Bungie. Either way, it couldn’t stop all the promotional campaigns Microsoft had in place, including Monster Energy Drinks and Snapchat filters.
