Assassin's Creed Mirage looks grand, but replaying Valhalla has made me pine for Assassin's Creed Hexe more than ever

Samhain – or Halloween – is fast approaching, and it has me nostalgic for Assassin's Creed Valhalla. It might not be the first game that comes to mind when you think of spooky season, not like something you might find among the best horror games. However, the Clues and Riddles and First Night of Samhain quests respectively fit the bill.

Set in Glowecestrescire, the missions are littered with allusions to paganism and the Old Gods, replete with wickerman effigies, human sacrifices, and peculiar druidic riddles. Ubisoft handled these themes with style, if more than a smidge of creative license to boot. With what little we know about Assassin's Creed Codename Hexe, revisiting this unique set of Valhalla missions had me dreaming up what might be next for the series beyond AC Mirage.

Just a bunch of hocus pocus

The Halloween-themed questline is a departure from the norm in AC Valhalla. Unlike some other city pledges that are more combat-focussed, the Glowecestrescire arc sees Eivor dressed to distress in a horse's skull and a black fur-lined cape, parading about in a Mari Lwyd costume for a spot of ye olde trick-or-treating. These missions are set in 800s Anglo-Saxon England, and although that was over a thousand years ago, many of these deep-seated Celtic traditions still hold up in parts of Wales. 

Accompanied by Ravensthorpe's resident blacksmith, Gunnar, Eivor is sent on a hunt for cakes and ale around Glowecestrescire to celebrate the first night of Samhain. In the game, the spirit of the Mari Lwyd is revered by druids and other followers of the Old Gods, a figure that, despite its creepy visage, is supposed to instil a sense of holiday cheer. "I am not going to sing," Eivor insists testily when encouraged by Gunnar, and instead engages in a poetry slam or sorts upon visiting the homes of various townsfolk.

The First Night of Samhain mission feels like a welcome change of pace, not only in gameplay but in setting as well. The celebratory atmosphere of Glowecestrescire, paired with its strong pagan, roots turns it into a verdant fantasy world teeming with natural magic. Compared to the dreary, fractious kingdoms Eivor has encountered up until this point, it's good to see them letting loose for a change. 

Flyting with the villagers is fun, but the witchiness of Glowecestrescire really comes into its own during the Clues and Riddles mission. In order to get Druid Halewyn to open the door and speak to you, Eivor needs to once again don their horse spirit disguise and pretend to be a ghost. This time, though, instead of being challenged to a rhyme battle, Halewyn seems to actually believe that Eivor is a ghost and wishes to test their pagan knowledge.

From Celtic symbols scrawled on doors to makeshift talismans composed of sticks, the pagan imagery of Clues and Riddles more than reminds me of Codename Hexe's short teaser trailer from 2022. It might be a little early to get my hopes up, and I know that Hexe is supposed to be set in the 16th century rather than the 800s, but many of the pagan traditions shown in Valhalla could very well have held up centuries later. 

Whether these are deliberate hints or not, these short Mari Lwyd sequences show that Ubi knows what it's doing when it comes to creating a decent witchy atmosphere. As one of the upcoming Assassin's Creed games in development right now, and potentially coming after Assassin's Creed Red, I wouldn't put it past the publisher to have hinted at Hexe back in 2020 through pure contextual clues alone. 

The "bad" Assassin's Creed Valhalla ending is actually the best thing for Eivor, if you ask me.