Before I go into everything about Assassin’s Creed Valhalla—the writing, the action, the open-world jank—I want to offer an unusual preface. Basically: Gosh, I like this game.

It’s a rare earnest turn for me, especially when I’m talking about open-world Ubisoft games. I try to find a fair-and-balanced way to talk about their hours of gameplay, and I respect the heck out of how their multi-studio teams slam together so many moving parts into a giant, playable romp. But personally, I can get bored with them—same fetch quests, same ho-hum mechanics and checklists, year after year. After playing only a few hours of these games, I feel less like an adventurer and more like an errand boy or girl. None of their high-end rendering or historical references can change that feeling.