Like many others and after a very long waiting time, I got the answer to my refund ticket on Ubisoft Connect.
"We cannot refund u, because u have allready startet the game."
So how can we find out if the game is not what was promised without starting it? We cannot (maybe buying, not playing and scouring the forums = but then why did u already buy?)
Cyberpunk 2077 also did also make a horrible bad launch performance on some platforms, but atleast CD Project Red allowed refunds of games, which were already played to salvage some of their reputation. And it feels like ubisoft doesn`t really care about their reputation.
Like killing the chickens to get the eggs.
When a few country`s already cracking down on lootboxes, I really hope there will be a move to change laws to make the practices of releasing bugged games to meet holidaysales illegal.

I am really someone who never makes post and is in only-read-mode, but valhalla has driven me just so far.
I am but one person, but I will not forget.
I will be waiting for your next AC game and I will be damned if I don't take time out of my day the make a post to make others remember this mess and what preordering brought us.

Doens't really feel good to be a dead chicken.....

@cypherx0ne Hate to break it to you, but apparently the 'refund' from CD Project Red is a lot more complicated than people are making it sound. Apparently, this refund is up to individual storefronts, and most places are not allowing refunds for opened or 'used' games- such as if you've installed and started the game. I read all these comments complaining about wanting a refund for Valhalla from Ubisoft because "CD Project Red" is doing it... but yet... the truth is, they're not. Just because they say, "You can request a refund" doesn't actually mean you're going to get a refund- since it's not them, but the retailers, that will be issuing the refund.

CDPR does what they all do, big words on a nothingburger. Not to mention it is not up to them but the retailers.
I don't know when you bought Valhalla but I did just recently and the game plays fine. That is to say no big gamebraking
things so far.

Society does it to themselves because deep down most of us believe in the premise that being "exteme oppurtunistic"
is a necessary and good way of life. Can't say it to once face that is reserved for corporations and shills.

My main gripe to date is that the protagonist both female/male are serious ugly. To have to look upon that in 3de person view
the whole time!

In todays world I can live with some pop-ins, lower framerates and minor bugs. I bought Valhalla on the same day as Cyberpunk or
is it Cyberfunk! CDPR should be ashamed, really ashamed! That thing is not even in a playable state!
Quess what I am playing insted. I smelled it when I went to pick-up my collectors edition that it would be full of bugs, CDPR always is.
But this bad I did not expect. I don't think it will be in a playable state for another 6-12 months if ever and probably due to modders.

@bizantura Seems Sony just pulled Cyberpunk from the PS store and giving full refunds. Right call if you ask me.

@bizantura I guess this just goes to show that Cyberpunk is much, much more problematic than Valhalla. I started playing Valhalla a little over a week ago on PS4 and have only encountered one glitch- and that was the ingot loot from an NPC- where it wouldn't loot as the body had disappeared... simple fix... just had to fast travel away from the location, save game, exit, restart and reload... then travel back and NPC was alive again and was able to loot. Some of the major issues that some people are having, I have not personally experienced. Based on reviews of the game, only a small number of people are experiencing problems with Valhalla... while frustrating for them... it still is not a major number to cause this type of reaction from Sony or other retailers. Even when Odyssey was released it had a fair number of issues, which is why I normally do not play a game until it's several months old.. I waited to play Odyssey until this spring, and the game was completely finished and I had ZERO issues with it. As Odyssey was the first AC game I played, I don't have experience with other AC games, but I've heard almost all of those also had initial problems and glitches... so players should already know and expect an initial AC release to have some bugs that will need to be resolved over time.

@adarklore Most games have some kind of bugs when they get released. I don't know of any game I've owned that didn't have a few patches along the way to fix things. It's the nature of large-scale software development that you'll never reach perfection. As we've seen, the game-breaking bugs aren't reported by everyone. When I look at my PS5 trophy list, I see that people are getting platinum trophies - so the game as a whole isn't broken.

I know Valhalla didn't get the level of exposure that Cyberpunk 2077 did, but it's still a major launch title for the new consoles - a major quality failure would have been widely reported (as has been for Cyperpunk).

The fact that Cyberpunk got removed from the PS store is a huge, huge deal.

Personally, I've done almost 80hrs of gameplay and not found many horrible game-breaking issues that weren't fixed with a reload or a fast-travel. I know that other people have had issues, but not everyone has had the same issues.

@adarklore AC games didn't really have release day issues until Xbox One and PS4 released, and that title was AC:Unity. And every major title, from every major publisher, I have purchased since that time has had issues upon release. Ever since studios moved to this 'gaming as a service' model that we currently have there have been games released that should probably have stayed in development a while longer, but when they can release them and put out hot fixes and patches on a regular basis it disincentivizes studios from releasing bug free games.

I also must agree with most of the posters in this thread that Valhalla is not near as bad as a lot of people make it out to be. Unity was a very bad release and Ubisoft definitely made it right with players. They stopped selling the season pass and gave anyone who had purchased the season pass a free game from their library. They also released all season pass content for free to anyone who bought the game. So they are quite experienced in determining if there is a serious enough issue to warrant refunds or some other compensation for a bad release. I am confident if it was really that bad they would do something to make it right.

@adarklore
That is why I waited a few weeks before purchase. Cheaper and lesser bugs. Also youtube footage that makes a easyer assesment if one would like it although that is not a guarantee.

@jcar4327 Same here - I have been lucky and only had minor glitches and like 10 crashes (not that much in 180 hours).

If someone finds the characters ugly - well there has been a ton of footage available before launch to recognize this.
I like my female Eivor just the way she is.

@kormac67 I also prefer the look of female Eivor. To my mind, male Eivor looks as though he's very uncomfortably constipated during most of his scenes.

Like many others and after a very long waiting time, I got the answer to my refund ticket on Ubisoft Connect.
"We cannot refund u, because u have allready startet the game."
So how can we find out if the game is not what was promised without starting it? We cannot (maybe buying, not playing and scouring the forums = but then why did u already buy?)
Cyberpunk 2077 also did also make a horrible bad launch performance on some platforms, but atleast CD Project Red allowed refunds of games, which were already played to salvage some of their reputation. And it feels like ubisoft doesn`t really care about their reputation.
Like killing the chickens to get the eggs.
When a few country`s already cracking down on lootboxes, I really hope there will be a move to change laws to make the practices of releasing bugged games to meet holidaysales illegal.

I am really someone who never makes post and is in only-read-mode, but valhalla has driven me just so far.
I am but one person, but I will not forget.
I will be waiting for your next AC game and I will be damned if I don't take time out of my day the make a post to make others remember this mess and what preordering brought us.

Doens't really feel good to be a dead chicken.....

I agree with your post, but I tell you this: NEVER buy a Ubisoft game on launch. Presume the release version as the Real Beta and wait 1 year for most of fixes to be made, and there will STILL be bugs but the worst will certainly past. I am quite sure Far Cry 6 will be in a satisfable state to play by the end of 2022, for example.

@killorio

I agree.

But I'm not sure I'll buy any more Ubisoft games from now on. I love open world games but far cry imo is boring and the next AC game's gonna be a live service, so to buy from Ubisoft it'll have to be something really special.

I'm sick of Ubisofts attitude, they don't listen to fans, and the amount of bugs in Valhalla that are still there after months of reporting (my first proper riverraid I ended up stuck in a wall after getting the St. George bracers).

Some of the DLC from Blackflag that people have paid for not showing up in game even though I've paid for it (it's being going on for over a year, they fixed it for Steam users but not for Ubisoft launcher users (even though they still sell said DLC)

Having to log in to AC Blackflag twice (once for the launcher, and once before you start the game).

And the fact that you get constant connection errors when using a VPN with the Ubisoft launcher, which doesn't happen on any other launcher/software I use, ever. I think it's intentional.

They really do seem like a bad company that is losing faith with its (loyal) customers. And I can't keep supporting actions like this.

@bizantura, man..publisher needs to let us to play for free hours and most important, in theirs eulas to insert that if we discover more than ".." bugs that break the game(u cannont advance in story) to give us money back.They have time to test their games.Who are in speedup to release game bugged?Their, not us-clients

@simplethumb

You're soo misinform about Ubisoft & loyal fans You don't own the game you only have licence to play it on the servers. If you think you have special skills in game coding join the club and prove us all wrong @Ubisoft

@jcar4327
no they did not , there is one item was only avaible with the season pass , and with out it there is no way to get it sadly ( dont get me wrong just the completionist talking from me )

@aorus2017

What a silly argument.

I never said I could do better. It's what I pay companies like Ubisoft for.

There's lots of games better, hell, even Odyssy was a lot better in most ways (less bugs 1 year on, better stealth kills, more varied weapons combos etc)

If you can't see anything wrong in how they're not fixing game-breaking bugs for so long, leaving an event broken till mid January at least (which is impacting people who bought the game very early on) then you are exactly the type of customer Ubisoft is looking for... someone who will swallow anything and be a loyal lapdog.

@simplethumb it's really poor, considering there are bugs existing since day one. Originally I joined this discussions board when I reported Flann over Ireland bug, and then inability to replay Trials of the Morrigan.
Luckily, the second one got finally fixed after several months. Maybe they're short-staffed, but that doesn't mean they should not be professional. Even where I work we have two cycles of releases. One when we deploy new stuff, and another one to fix bugs (not just the critical ones). This shows how little they think of us, customers, how they let us use their broken product. Quality of life in this game is really low. At this point I'm not really afraid to say they don't have anyone in UX, just see the rune list, how disorganised it is. If only they listened to us, players. Threads in Player Support and General Discussion overflow with great ideas to improve quality of playing this game. It's time to do something that would look good (in terms of public relations) and actually be good - for example changing the release cycle, allowing employees to work fully paid overtime, and maybe give the Yule Festival fix a shot at the end of the year - if they already know where the bug is (usually the fix in that case is just around the corner). I heard about CD Projekt RED story with Cyberpunk... They really took a big hit, but they didn't try to run from it. At Ubisoft refunds are almost nonexistent.
Maybe if they would compensate us for the time we spent dealing with bugs we come across, things would be a little bit better - but that's not their policy.
Adding new items to the Animus store - i.e. spending the time on something that would profit them faster - instead of keeping healthy relations with their customers (fixing the bugs should be top priority - but apparently they think once you got your copy they don't owe you anything - they're with the money now) - is like a low blow.