Which is to say overnight Ubisoft snuck in the latest update for our Game of the Year for 2020, Assassin's Creed Valhalla. The new update adds a new mode: River Raids which itself is a side-mode of sorts that doesn't impact your main narrative progress, but still rewards you with things to play with, be it a new building for your Settlement, a new upgradable Longship for your new river raids, weapons, Books of Knowledge and more.

Here's Ubi's official note on the upgrade we found stuck to a pylon with a dagger:

The River Raids is a permanent addition to the game and a new replayable mode enriching the raiding experience in Assassin’s Creed Valhalla. The mode contains:

• Higher-stakes raids, with unique maps and rewards, in which the player can raid without impacting their main game progression and alliances in England. Unlike the original raiding feature, the raiding crew can be temporarily lost if players don’t revive them during the raid.
  
• A Jomsviking Crew: Recruited Jomsvikings (created by other players online) are led by the player’s personal Jomsviking Lieutenant.
  
• A New Longship: An all-new fully customizable longship exclusive to the game mode – whose cargo hold can be upgraded to bring more resources back from River Raids.

The new Jomsviking Hall has three levels to upgrade in Season 1, with the higher the Hall’s level the higher the ranked Jomsvikings it will attract for the player to recruit. Jomsviking also now have ranks, with the higher ranked Jomsvikings having greater survivability in River Raids.

After players complete one of the first narrative arcs in England, either Grantebridgescire or Ledecestrescire, build their Barracks and recruit their Jomsviking Lieutenant, they will encounter a new NPC named Vagn and his crew of Jomsviking raiders, who will introduce them to the River Raids game mode. The mode introduces three new river maps set around the coastline of England full of locations to raid and treasure to loot.

Finally, the update brings additional abilities and rewards:

• The Saint George Armor set and Great Sword
  
• 3 new Abilities, hidden in monasteries
  
• 2 new Settlement Buildings
  
• A new set of longship and player cosmetics

The River Raids game mode update, a part of Season 1, is the latest addition as part of the Assassin’s Creed Valhalla post-launch experience, with a variety of new free content for all players focused on gameplay and world evolution coming throughout 2021.

Season 2, named Ostara, will start in March 2021 with a first update bringing a festival in the Settlement, a new game mode that builds on Valhalla’s core combat experiences, new gear and cosmetic items. More information about Wrath of the Druids, the first expansion of Assassin’s Creed Valhalla releasing in Spring 2021, will come at a later time.

Available for free now, watch a trailer for the new update embedded below.

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