Alright, so I just got done finishing Valhalla, which marks the conclusion of the RPG trilogy (more specifically Layla's story that began with Origins and had its grand finale in Valhalla). After how much time it took I felt like sharing some thoughts, so here we go.
I took a completionist approach to the games, as in trying to finish every single location and quest available, although besides Valhalla I didn't go for all achievements (in that game I went for both the achievements as well as the Core Challenges). Needless to say, this made the whole thing an extremely long journey. My hours played per title, including fully completing the Discovery Tours, would roughly be something like:
Assassin's Creed Origins: 95 hours
Assassin's Creed Odyssey: 190 hours
Assassin's Creed Valhalla: 300 hours
So yeah, roughly 600 hours in total to finally see the end. Looking back I definitely wouldn't call them the greatest RPGs of all time or anything, but spending this long on a journey and finally reaching its end at long last is something. I doubt I'll ever spend that long with any other game trilogy.
I probably would never have done this if I didn't love Origins. It was a fantastic and gorgeous game and I'm so glad the beauty of the games is something that has remained consistent across the entire trilogy. Even if you're in the camp that think they're terrible, it's hard to deny they're at the very least beautiful and impressive in scope, although what they actually do within that scope is another debate entirely.
The RPG games seem to get a lot of bad rap among the general fanbase and it's not difficult to see why. I mean technically within the trilogy you don't even play as an Assassin for 2 of the games. But for those like me who love exploring the worlds they created, it just gives so much to do. Sure there's that typical Ubisoft bloat (especially in Valhalla, which is waaaay too big for its own good) but it is kinda incredible that any video game could have this much beautiful territory to explore with a concerted effort by the devs to give stories to play in almost every region. I can't help but be impressed by not only the size, but at the amount of visual flourishes they've put in each game to make the worlds feel alive.
When it comes to the story, I'm one of those who actually wants a solid modern day story in Assassin's Creed and given they did so little with it between AC III and AC Origins, I was really looking forward to have another character besides Desmond to follow through a series of games with an actual ending. But unfortunately there's so little of it in Origins (basically just an introduction), they did more but still not much with her in Odyssey (especially compared to Desmond) and Valhalla actually had the best overall modern day story in years, but it's like all of it is right at the very end of that extremely long game - and it would be long even if you disregarded all the side content.
I guess the most disappointing thing to me about the story was that the conclusion wasn't as definitive as I would've liked. Sure AC III set-up sequels as well, but I was hoping the crisis would be completely resolved before teasing the next one. But no, without spoilers it just kinda introduces a new "era" while ending Layla's story at the same time, but definitely not the end of the greater crisis they teased repeatedly since Origins. In fact the ending is pretty explicitly just the beginning of something new. And Valhalla doesn't even conclude with a credits sequence at the end of the story besides for one of the DLCs, which is disappointing in that it's such an easy way to provide closure and mark the fact you reached the end. Although if you ever play Valhalla, you definitely have to play "The Last Chapter" if you want a proper denouement to Eivor's story and some closure for the modern day story as well.
But overall I don't regret my time with these games. Although they were so long I'll likely reconsider 100%-ing any future AC games if they're anywhere this massive - whatever happened to that 30 hour sweet spot? I wish it was more common to have that as a starting point for these games then add a whole bunch of stuff via updates and DLC. It's rare that a game can actually justify being over 100 hours. And I doubt we'll ever get an AC game with as much support and content as Valhalla got, given the circumstances of its massive success despite how much backlash it got for its length make it kinda an outlier.
Anyways, this has gone on long enough. If you've actually read all that, kudos!
To anyone coming across this post - did you play the original AC RPG Trilogy (as in Origins, Odyssey and Valhalla)?
What did you think of them? Share your thoughts and experiences!