If I could cast your memory to a few years ago (less than one for me, when I actually bought it), you might remember there being some bugs/glitches whereby your ship was unable to dock at your destination towards the start of your Odyssey before you embark on your journey to Megaris. I certainly suffered that bug -- and it lasted for nearly an hour and a half, before I finally succumbed to the 'load game save' button and lost about thirty minutes of solid, full exploration and looting and all progress in Kephallonnia. Today, I thought nothing could trump that experience in an AC game playthrough. Boy was I wrong.

Let's talk about these Mastery Challenges. They are the literal devil of my Valhalla experience so far, the only thing keeping me from actually enjoying additional side content in the wait for the Siege of Paris. And now, having played through a number of trials -- I think I made note of my problems with certain trials in a prior post or topic -- I believe the anticipation for Paris for me, personally, is beginning to dwindle... The challenges are just so petty. They rely on absolute dedication, grinding for hours on end trying to aimlessly achieve that gold medal by whatever means necessary -- often to no avail; you hurling your given weaponry of low-tier daggers or swords or mediocre spears and hammers in an effort to kill your enemies, who must be killed in certain ways or else you forfeit your gold. Hell, even the Wolf trials have broken moments with seemingly simply bow gameplay... The Raven trials, too, are horrible to play, although we all knew beforehand how stealth in Valhalla is...

Without getting into the nitty-gritties and complaining like most people do, I'll instead say that it is appalling that the content we are being handed is either incomplete, fractured, or all-around unsatisfactory, even given COVID and the whole scramble for 'protecting staff' in a time of trouble (albeit I think Ubi is exempt from this category of company action; those scandals don't give a good self-image...)

We need fixes. And soon. It is ridiculous that we even have to ask for some. It is deeply saddening that a company as large and vast as Ubisoft, in this day and age, can hardly appeal to one demographic let alone produce passable content packages which just one -- one -- audience can enjoy. As far as I'm concerned, almost the majority of Valhalla's player base is sour to the Mastery Challenges, even if just a bit.