Odin: Valhalla Rising

 Whenever anything goes wrong, I just blame Loki. It saves time.

Every now and then you see a game pop up around you that's automatically affixed with these impressive tags of, "the most ambitious open world project of ___" or "The best looking game this year" and I always find myself pointedly ignoring those sorts of posts. Not because I disrespect that person's opinion but because I think I'm ingrained enough in the gaming news ecosystem that I either know exactly what game they're about to hype up or can instantly figure it's clickbait about some nonsense. More often than not these sorts of videos are easily spotted from a mile away in that they feature a normal screenshot from a popular open world game but saturated in order to seem like something different, even when the original context is obvious. (God I hate that stuff) And other times it's just some concept or fan art thrown up as though it represents the entire project or is just eye-catching enough to draw in the curious. (Usually attractive women, for obvious reasons.) Yet now and then I see such videos that don't have all that clickbait, are titled around a game I've never heard of in my life, and look genuinely interesting after a brief perusal of the preview function. And that's how I ended up hearing about 'Odin: Valhalla Rising'.

So first I must address this incredibly relevant issue; that is possibly one of the worst names I've ever seen for a brand new video game. (The marketing department should be ashamed.) First you have the core title 'Odin', that is meaningless in terms of owenership and branding. The Norse god 'Odin' may be recognisable, but that comes from both his fame as a much referenced mythological god and possible his recent exposure in pop culture through Marvel Movies, God of War and the latest Assassin's Creed. What I'm trying to say is, there's no way in a thousand years that any search engine will direct someone to this game when they type in the name 'Odin', which makes it invisible for new comers to find out more. Then you have 'Valhalla Rising' which clashes with the AAA release of the aforementioned 'Assassin's Creed Valhalla' (Once again, obscuring your marketing reach) and doesn't mean anything anyway so lacks any emphasis or punch to it. (Also 'Valhalla Rising' is a 2009 Mads Mikkelsen film) All in all, this is the sort of game that repulses me before I've even seen a single asset, so it should be a testament to those assets that I'm still talking about it now, no?

So the trailer that was released not too long ago actually does a decent job of living up to the sort of expectations one expects when approaching a Nordic based game, and that's what immediately drew me in. There were these impressive shots of frigid glaciers and solitary Celtic settlements that had a good sense of scale and dramatic intention to their visual design. There's an artistic respect being paid to the mythological routes behind the concept, and I'm encouraged by that. Some aspects of the trailer do veer rather significantly from the Nordic, however, with one forest full of fantasy-sized trees really standing out to me; (It looked like something off of Endor) but the general ambience and design of the creatures and world seemed decently on point. Until I saw one of the characters up close, a beautiful pale-skinned blonde woman with a bit too much cleavage going on, and I realised what this game is; (and incidentally why so many Youtube channels are looking forward to it as their next clickbait farm) this is a Korean MMO, isn't it?

Now I have nothing intrinsically against Korean MMOs (unless your name is 'Black Desert Online' in which case I curse you to hell you avaricious Satan-spawn) but there's something almost comically mismatched about the definitively Asian looking player characters against their Nordic backdrop. It looks like the BDO crew got lost on their way to the ingame storefront, I just can't wrap my head around it. Plus it's worth saying that beyond this glaring standout, the rest of the game feels impeccably designed. Viking longboats are here, there's the classic two-tone wooden shields that I love, and the creature design is chef kiss worthy. It's not at all derivative of other similar Nordic properties (With an except given to Jörmungandr who looks right out of 'God of War') and there's this almost Souls-like gothic twist to them that tickles my undead cockles just right. But even with all that going for it there's a distinctive cognitive dissonance here and I need to know more in order to make sense of it all.

And this is where we circle back around to admonish the marketing department once again because I can't find anything. This game is coming out in 2021 by most affirmations, and there's no official website within the first three search results of Google; that is a problem. In fact, I can't find a website at all which leads me to scouring second hand sources and that is never where you want the bulk of marketing to be coming from. I'm not trying to make this a job application or anything, but if I were to have a hand on this I'd be looking at a rebranding for clarities sake, working on a website to be live in less than a week and messaging outlets to mention the Developer as 'Lionheart Games', not 'Lionheart Studios', because the latter is too close to the much famed, and defunct', 'Lionhead Studios', which will confuse audiences and already confuses Google. (That being said, I would absolutely be down if anyone is hiring, this does sound like a marketing challenge I'd love to tackle)

As of right now, from the scattered sources I can dig up, the game is a seamless openworld that promises to span several 'continents' that already promise to be culturally distinct. There's world of humans, forests of Elves, caravans of Jötunn, and just everything in-between. There are also classes, mounts, a Godly threat in Loki (surprise, surprise there) and that's about the extent of what I could uncover. (And most of that was from one website source) Have you noticed anything missing from all that? Something that would really make the conversations start around this title? How about the USP? (Unique Selling Point) I mean they could be talking about anything regarding unique gameplay features, specifics about the complexity of lore, perhaps an ambitious MMO mechanic they want to try out; somewhere down the road there just has to be a conversation that perks people up and I'm not hearing it right now. All I've found so far, and I'm dubious about this, is that the game is apparently slated as a mobile title as well as PC.

Now in a post Genshin Impact world I think we're all far past immediately writing off such a prospect, but you have to admit that it still elicits some pause. This a game that's simple beautiful, from all the rendering of characters, world and general graphical prowess that we've seen, but it's not stylised like Genshin is, so it's a wonder how this apparently seamless open world could function on phones. (Then again, with how Mobile Genshin runs, maybe the point is that it won't!) Then there is the aspect of this being an MMORPG, which is excessively demanding from players as well as developers, and one might wonder about how cross platform play could be even remotely balanced. I've already seen one screenshot that appears to show the HUD and it looks messy, I wonder if phone players will be able to press all the icons and menu items easily. (There's a lot of unanswered questions)

But I'm ever ready to accept a new game to look out for and this Free-to-play MMO crosses the bare minimum threshold to grab my attention, it looks pretty. Perhaps there is a surprise hidden here that will become apparent closer to launch, something that'll grab everyone in a manner similar to how Genshin did, afterall, the developer, Kakao Games, aren't no slackers when it comes to the gaming world. They were one of the publishers behind PUBG, so they know how to back a hit. They've also working on another MMO called Elyon and have already put out one successful well-known MMO called 'Black Desert'... On... line... wait a minute... And on that bombshell, I'll leave you to ponder just what will become of 'Odin: Valhalla Rising' in the months to come whilst I retreat with my thoughts for a solid 5 hours. (This bodes ill...)