So, a couple of days ago, u/PalpitationTop611 posted a reddit post in r/assassinscreed (hub for his posts can be found here) about a ciphered text that can be found in the tower of Saint Denis church in the Siege of Paris DLC. Things gained traction and not long after, a nearby crypt has been found. This crypt contains a second ciphered text along with AC Unity easter egg (you can see the AC Unity: Dead Kings temple through some bars). If you use Odin sense here, then a mysterious ISU text appears and you earn 2 skill points.

Antoine Henry (the guy behind the "Collector's edition" secret that was hiding the Noden's arc bow) indicated, that there is more stuff to do to solve this mystery. Unfortunately, things seem to have cooled down a bit too much on reddit, so I decided to post this here as well to find more help in solving this. To show everything, I will use pictures from a post created by u/gui_heinen (here)

Access the Animus also made a video about this (here) so if you want to look into this secret a bit more, feel free to check out the video. It includes the deciphered versions of the texts found within the DLC and they also translated these texts into English (the text itself is in Latin). I'll be using some translations made by them here as well (along with translations from u/yesrushgenesis2112, who offers a really good level of Latin).

Summary of what we know so far:

The first cipher:

• The first part of the first cipher talks about a spot between Suessionum, Compendium and Paris (which leads to the crypt next to St. Denis) - already solved
• The second part of the first cipher is a bit unclear, as it seems to be talking about some keys ("The first, the second, the third and the last one") - not clear what it actually means
• The text ends with "Octavus" - could be name, but more likely looks like a hint towards... something

The second cipher

• The second cipher talks about the life of Dionysius (also known as Saint Denis), about his execution and about a device he used to manipulate minds - clearly a reference to the Head of Saint Denis found in AC Unity
• A part of the cipher suggests, that someone decided the artifact, but it was messing with his mind and in the end, he "didn't know where to go left" or "which part he is supposed to move left" - this one is a bit unclear, but Antoine Henry used it as a response to someone asking for a bit of help on Twitter, so it's likely important (
  ), he even corrected one of redditors that he in fact meant left and not improper/evil, which is another possible translation of the word sinistrum
• The second cipher again ends with a latin text, now it's "Secundus post tertium, quartum post quintus" which translates to "The second after the third, the fourth after the fifth" - we don't know what it means

ISU text in the crypt:

• It seems to translate to something like "Once seen, it is done" or "One sees, they do" - the theory is that we have to activate the Odin sense here (otherwise we can't even see the message) and this act does... something, we don't know what, it's quite possible this part of the secret is a dead-end meant to end up as an Easter egg, hence the "Once seen, it is done" option of translation
• The second part of the ISU text contains number in HEX format and they can be translated to 782, 3962, 37, 3101 - the purpose of these numbers is unknown

I'll be really happy for everyone who wants to become a part of this joint effort to find out the secret behind the ciphers and the ISU text. If anyone has any ideas, feel free to join the conversation, you are more than welcome. Also, if you have any questions about the stuff that has already been found, feel free to ask here, I'll try to answer as best as I can.

I didn't know where else to put these questions, so I decided to post it here for @Ubi.Waldo to see.

So anyway, the recent post about postponing the decomission of servers for older AC games is good, but it still isn't completely clear. The post as well as the article on Ubi website state that PC players have until October 1 to activate the DLC and ULC content. However, it isn't specified what "activating the content" means. Does this mean starting a new save game and would the DLC then be locked to the save file and any other new save files created after October 1 would therefore not contain the DLC? Or does "activating the content" just mean launching the game before October 1 and all the save files created after this date would therefore still contain the DLC?

And if the latter is the case, what would happen if I download and launch, let's say, AC Brotherhood right now and then in two months, I decide to download my AC Brotherhood to a different computer. Would this new install contain the DLC? I suppose it wouldn't, but I imagine just copying the game folder should be enough to still keep access to DLC, but these are some questions that I would really appreciate further explanation for.

Thanks in advance

@cap-cla This just can't happen in a game like Assassin's Creed. Or rather it can't happen with the RPG "your odyssey" formula. Romances right now don't really have any significance on the story of the character, so they can easily implement them into the game. However, if they introduced the ability to make a family with whoever you wish, then they could never address these characters again in the future because your choice of family would heavily impact their story.

What I mean by that is that everyone knows who Ezio was, how his life went and who his love interests were. This mean you can easily reference this in other games and they could even say something like "Ezio also had a child with Cristina, but nobody knew" as a retcon. It could [censored] people off, but the writers could do that.

In the current formula, it's different. Imagine if you play as lesbian Eivor and then the next AC game comes and they say that Eivor had a male partner and a child. That would go against the story many people experienced. This is the reason why they can't really give you the choice in major decisions, because the overall narrative of the series would get lost.

The only way to do this is to give you a pre-set storyline which makes the character have a family and a child. I don't really mind this option, but Odyssey already showed how easily this can [censored] people off because it breaks the promise of giving you the choice.

In short, Assassin's Creed is still stuck somewhere between "It's your odyssey" and a pre-set narrative that keeps it all together. This limits the options of the writers a lot.

Huge breakthrough everyone! u/cerulliber managed to persuade someone to visit Saint Denis Basilica in real life, they found a QR code that links to a video on the official AC website

Assassin's Creed Valhalla

Click on the link, you'll get moved to the Ubi website and shortly after, a video should start playing - it contains more ISU text!

Huge thanks to u/RichardYing as well, he was the one who found the QR code

@michaldk I can't wait to find out the meaning of the ISU text and realize that it means "Saint Denis Basilica, you have to visit that place" to once again end up with another clue that leeds there, lol

Alright, this is quite funny. The text in the video says "Family prepares for greatness" and some people already started making jokes that this means that Dom Torretto from Fast and Furious will be in the next DLC and that his Dodge Charger will be a new mount for Eivor, lol

@cap-cla "At the end he's only the guy that gives us the temporary contracts and products from the Helix store to buy through the opals"

I mean, yeah, I don't think he'll be related to this particular mystery, but I think we might definitely learn more about him in one of the DLCs. After all, there is something strange about this young kid being in both Origins and Valhalla while there is pretty much 900 years between these two games. Also, for a young kid, it's interesting that he controls a large group/syndicate/whatever in Valhalla and also that he is everywhere you go - in England, Ireland and even Frankia.

He might be related to the Hermes stuff, he might not be. Either way, he is either an ISU himself, or he has an ISU artifact that allows him to do what he does.

@thenorfolkian The outcome of the next mystery will be "Did you know that Reda is in both Valhalla and Origins?"

@enkidu98 Want to know something else that's quite [censored] from Ubisoft? If you buy AC Valhalla, you get 300 Helix Credits (I know this used to be the case, not sure whether it still is) yet the most useful stuff - the maps - cost 350 Helix Credits. The intention to trick you into spending money to get one of those maps it's quite clear.

Now imagine how surprised I was when I noticed the current sale, so I checked out the current price of the maps - it's 310 Helix Credits. And once again, the reason is simple, Ubisoft tries their hardest to trick and force the players into opening their wallets. There is no need to do that. There is no need for their microtransaction approach to be this predatory. I absolutely agree with you.

@michaldk Yeah, I think we're missing something like that. I already tried to look at the crosses, but I came up with nothing, perhaps you'll be luckier.

Also, I don't know if you've noticed, but the description of the Durendal swords says "Said to be indestructible and capable of cutting through boulders." and considering the fact Noden's arc was hidden in a boulder and Excalibur had a similar description, I think Durendal could be important in solving this mystery.

Edit: Okay, something even more interesting. Durendal in legend also contained a few relics of saints. The fun part? Among other relics, t supposedly contained a hair of Saint Denis. Interesting coincidence.

@Ubi-Milky Thanks for your response! The original article didn't specify that activating content means activating DLC keys, which was the confusing part. After all, activating DLC keys in the launcher is a clear instruction while "activing the content" could have meant anything from activating DLC keys to starting the game up with internet connection or starting a save file, so thanks for the clarification.

I also appreciate you're still looking into specifics of what the decomission of servers will do, I think it's important for us to have this information in advance (as Ubisoft has also realized) to make sure we can keep backups of important files to keep the access to all the DLC/ULC content even past the server decomission, so I'm glad you're looking into it.

I didn't know where else to put these questions, so I decided to post it here for @Ubi.Waldo to see.

So anyway, the recent post about postponing the decomission of servers for older AC games is good, but it still isn't completely clear. The post as well as the article on Ubi website state that PC players have until October 1 to activate the DLC and ULC content. However, it isn't specified what "activating the content" means. Does this mean starting a new save game and would the DLC then be locked to the save file and any other new save files created after October 1 would therefore not contain the DLC? Or does "activating the content" just mean launching the game before October 1 and all the save files created after this date would therefore still contain the DLC?

And if the latter is the case, what would happen if I download and launch, let's say, AC Brotherhood right now and then in two months, I decide to download my AC Brotherhood to a different computer. Would this new install contain the DLC? I suppose it wouldn't, but I imagine just copying the game folder should be enough to still keep access to DLC, but these are some questions that I would really appreciate further explanation for.

Thanks in advance

Another quick update, issue still persists even after the Forgotten Saga update

New update, issue still present on PC

Quick update, issue still not fixed (1.5.2)

@ubi-milky Thanks for responding, I'm glad it's being looked into. As for the save files, I have no issue with that.

Right, so it's been quite some time, I launched AC Valhalla after the most recent update and I still have like a million icons of Classic Hair (blonde) in my hairstyle inventory.

@Ubi-Mark any chance of an update?

I never really noticed anything strange with the audio. Yes, it never felt great, but I didn't see that as an issue. However, I have finished Red Dead Redemption 2 recently and I noticed that there is a challenge in Valhalla, so I started the game up (I play on PC) and holy [censored], the audio sounds so bad in comparison to RDR that it's genuinely laughable a company like Ubisoft released this. I have been a huge AC fan ever since the first game, but seriously what the hell is this [censored]? It's like listening to a low-quality compressed MP3 via an old MP3 player, it's crazy. I can imagine that the devs did a lot of good work at recording audio, but the way the audio works in this game is just ridiculous.

I guess I never really noticed it because I never actually played much Valhalla with headphones and now that I did just that, I don't think I can continue playing. The fact this won't get fixed makes me even more angry, it's a massive issue. If anyone wants to reproduce this, then just play something like RDR2 with headphones and then switch to Valhalla. Night and day difference.

Two weeks later, still a valid glitch. I'd love to see this addressed.

@ubi-mark Right, so it's been a few months and I still have the same issue (I haven't played much Valhalla lately and just came back to it). For some reason, I have an insane number of the same basic hairstyle in my hair menu and I would kinda like to clear it up. Has there been no development with this bug/glitch? I understand not many people probably have this glitch, but still.