I’ll get this out the way first. I understand there are people who may not want more Assassin’s Creed Valhalla. It is an enormous game and, for sure, Wrath of the Druids is no minor DLC. To those people, I hear ya, and thank you for your time here today! Lovely. To those who are hungry for more Eivor and to hang out in a new country’s history, welcome. Ireland offers lots of familiar things to do across a beautiful new landscape, and some fun fresh additions.
Here’s the top-line stuff. Wrath of the Druids adds around two-thirds of Ireland to explore, with an enjoyable self-contained campaign, some interesting new enemies, a major new trading system and, fans will be pleased to know, a boatload of fresh armour sets and cosmetics to unlock and upgrade. This is an adventure focused on Eivor – and while things do skirt very slightly into the supernatural, there’s no major modern day or Isu plotline here.
Assassin’s Creed Valhalla: Wrath of the Druids review
- Developer: Ubisoft Bordeaux
- Publisher: Ubisoft
- Platform: Played on Xbox Series X
- Availability: Out 13th May on PlayStation, Xbox and PC
Designed to be played at any point of your Viking adventure, Druids introduces a new cast of characters led by your hitherto unmentioned cousin Barid, who has wound up becoming King of Dublin (where was he when we were trying to sort out England, eh?). Barid calls for aid via his trade envoy, the intriguing one-eyed Azar, who turns up in Ravensthorpe to rope Eivor in. From there, the action heads across the Irish Sea to a fresh map accessible via your Atlas, akin to Vinland and Norway, and the start of a sprawling new adventure.
If you’re up on your Irish history (I admit, it was never taught at my English school), then perhaps some of what follows may ring some bells. For me, Druids was an introduction to High King Flann Sinna and his shaky relationship with the settled Norse, the rivalry between northern and southern Irish kingdoms, and the Children of Danu: a death cult capable of summoning up representations of werewolves through brain-fuddling fog (this is standard Irish history 101, right?).
If you’ve spent a bit of time with Valhalla’s main story (or north of 100 hours exploring further, hi there!), you’ll quickly find yourself at home here in another tale of kings, castles and political scheming, along with the Ubisoft’s own unique definition of stabbing lots of people to achieve a tenuous peace. Likewise, then, you’ll be familiar with Eivor’s role – a one woman wrecking crew, attempted infiltration expert and flirt. Over the course of around 15 hours, and over the size of a couple of Valhalla’s original map regions, you’ll get to flex all of those muscles once again. Nearly every activity from the main game is also available here, including new legendary monsters, lost Vikings warriors, and offbeat side stories. Even better, I’ve explored pretty much all of the Ireland map now and not found any more sodding rock cairns. [Edit: I spoke too soon. Shit.]