Between One-Punch Man, baseball man, and multiple nods to popular fantasy franchises, Assassin’s Creed Valhalla is actually the Metropolitan Museum of Easter Eggs. But the best surprise – or at least the one that will appeal to series fans the most – doesn’t appear until late in the game.
Spoilers follow in front Assassin’s Creed Valhalla.
Once you have established Ravensthorpe, about 10 hours into the game, you can develop a whole host of new buildings. Creating the Hidden Ones Bureau gives Hytham, the junior Hidden One, a hip new office. Since this is a video game, it will reward you with a mission: search six codex pages in various decommissioned Hidden Ones Desks in England. As the name implies, these agencies are all off the beaten path. But it’s worth the effort to find them, as this will trigger an Easter egg starring Bayek from Siwa, the player’s character. Assassin’s Creed Origins.
Each Hidden Ones Bureau offers a mix of platform puzzles and environmental puzzles. A flammable capability, such as Incendiary Powder Trap, can help knock down stone barricades, but it is not essential. There’s almost always a pot of flammable oil somewhere nearby, and there’s a handy pad that will help you carry it to the barricade without any hassle. (Whether or not you set yourself on fire while blowing up the barricade is another matter.)
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In other words, once you find a Hidden Ones Bureau, you probably have the resources to complete it. They are located in:
- Ledecestre, in the northeast of the city
- Lunden, just outside the east wall
- Colcestre, at the southern ramparts
- Jorvik, near the theater in the southwest
- The middle of a forest in the middle of freakin ‘nowhere in the southwest of Glowecestrescire
- Wincestre, on the west side, immediately south of St. Peter’s Church
When you’ve collected all six codex pages, return to Ravensthrope and talk to Hytham. He’ll thank a little dutifully – frankly insulting for a task that could take the entire duration of a sprawling role-playing game – and mention that Reda, the black market supplier of goods, has written an old piece. That’s where things get real.
If you ask Reda about the script, he’ll respond lightly, “Oh, that old scrap metal? Yes, it is just a short letter from one hidden to another. “
Push him about how he got his hands on it, and he’ll say, ‘A friend gave it to me to keep it. Bayek was his name. Egyptian guy. Very nice. ”(You wonder how old Reda is. Bayek’s exploits largely took place during the Ptolemaic era, more than two thousand years ago, Valhalla is set in the late 800s.)
After your conversation with Reda, he pulls back the curtain on the left side of his tent to reveal a stage with a letter on it. Anyone who played Assassin’s Creed Origins will immediately recognize it as a love letter written by Bayek to his wife, Aya. They are not mentioned by name, but the indications – that it is written on papyrus; that it names several members of the Egyptian pantheon; that it discusses the nascent beginning, the origin, if you will, of the Hidden Ones – a collective death giveaway. And it’s not just a throwaway piece of in-game text. It is read by Abubakar Salim |, the artist behind Bayek.
Oh, yeah, and you get nice, stylish armor (the aptly named Hidden Ones set) to take out any Hidden Ones desk. With two equipped pieces, you get a kill damage boost, provided you stay in cover for 10 seconds or more. Equip all five pieces and you will improve the damage to your main shot. The gear lines up with the Raven skill tree, so you’ll see even more stat bonuses if you’ve invested heavily in those nodes. There’s also a dagger – the Wolf-aligned Suttungr’s Claw – that increases your critical damage on every hit.
It’s good equipment, but the Easter egg is the real prize. According to our highly scientific methodology, Assassin’s Creed Origins is the best Assassin’s Creed game. Personally speaking, it’s my favorite game in the series – a new take on what Assassin’s Creed It may be that that didn’t shy away from the basics, all wrapped up in an emotional slap of a story featuring some of the strongest characters since Ezio’s three-game escapade. Hearing Bayek’s voice was immediately transporting. Who knew that the Alexandria Library was a stone’s throw from the cobbled streets of old Londinium?