Assassin's Creed Dawn of Ragnarok review: New powers, same old game

Here you play as Havi on a mission to track down his son who is being held prisoner by the immortal fire giant, Surtr, a particularly nasty villain who has his own share of family drama to contend with. On the way you make some surprising allies, while killing many evil beings as you do it.

Dawn of Ragnarok has had much hype surrounding it on the build-up to release and rightly so – it comes off of the back of several DLCs that Valhalla has had now, and there have been more hits than misses. And this one felt like it could be a game in and of itself, a whole new story with exciting twists on the gameplay while keeping some of the mechanisms of Valhalla.

And to a degree it is that. We do have a complex story, full of betrayal, heartache and murder – all the usual Creed beats to hit. The characters are fun on the whole, with some highlights coming from the dwarfs who live in hiding while trying to survive. And there is some fun new gameplay.

Enemies called Muspels and Jotnars (the latter of which we have met before) feel tougher right from the off here (it is no wonder you have to have a certain level unlocked to take this on). And not only are they a bit trickier to kill, but they have some tricks up their sleeve that could cause you trouble. Fire and lava is a big part of Dawn of Ragnarok and is often used as a weapon against you, and certain foes are able to resurrect their fallen demonic buddies so you have to try and take them out first.

But the enemies are not the only ones who have some cool powers to show off as Havi has a few of his own – well, he can steal a few at any rate using the Hugr-Rip. Kill an enemy and in some cases, you have the chance to steal their power to wield as your own. This ranges from the ability to fly, which is handy for scaling viewpoints in record time, to being immune to fire (keep this one throughout) and bringing back dead enemies to fight for you for a short duration.

You can only have two powers at a time so you will need to choose which ones you keep. And refilling the bar to use said powers is not too much of a chore as you gain energy by killing certain enemies, or through weird flower things that are dotted around in convenient places.

But while all this is new and should freshen things up a bit (and it does in places), on the whole it is beginning to feel like we are coming to the natural end of Valhalla and eyes should be looking forward to whatever the next Assassin’s Creed game is.

A large reason for that sameness that is setting in now is while you are a different character here, you might as well still be Eivor. The story takes place in their dream and so you look and sound exactly the same as you always have. Raids make a return here to further drum in the ‘seen it all before’ feeling, and your raiding crew are once again the same Vikings you were crushing skulls with in the main game – which is a bit weird and doesn’t help to draw you into the story of this new world. Your weapons too are the same for the most part - although you do get a couple of fun new additions to your arsenal.

The world, the mythical dwarven realm of Svartalfheim, feels just as full as it has done until now, but without enough to really differentiate this from the England setting we have had, or even the Ireland and France-based DLC's that have come along. Sure, the skyline looks different with various floating, glowing rocks towering down on you, but by and large this is the same old fare that does not do enough to stand apart from what has come before.

The side quests don’t offer much either. Once again you stumble across them, but they are nothing to get too excited about. The fighting arena does have some replayability, which is something, but most of what you find outside of the story just feels like padding – such as a whole other side quest to get new boasts in the arena, which should give an indication of the sort of thing you're in for. The previously mentioned raids do have a slight change up in that this time the aim of the raid is to topple Silica Inciters that can be used to upgrade your Hugr-Grip.

There are also Suttungr's Outriders to hunt down and kill, and while these have a different coat of paint, they are essentially Valhalla's Zealots under a new guise - just a little tougher to take out.

As for that story, it’s fine and at times compelling. It’s not quite as convoluted as stories can sometimes get in Assassin’s Creed, and it zips along at a nice enough pace. There is plenty of lore to get lost in if that’s your thing, and it’s a classic good vs evil plot that does what it needs to do. It just does all feel a little inconsequential and there aren’t any big swings to leave much of an impact.

There is a lot to like in Dawn of Ragnarok and Creed die-hards will likely get a kick out of it, but it is hard to get too excited about what you are seeing when it is now feeling like it might be time to give us a whole new Assassin's Creed sandbox to play in.

Assassin's Creed : Dawn of Ragnarok is out Friday, 10th March. We reviewed it on PS5.

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