And that update is centred around a Yuletide celebration, meaning obviously Xmas in Raventhorpe. And never mind that your Settlement is the only place in all of southern England where snow falls. People in the Blue Mountains know the same feels.

During a wedding I got the notification my Settlement had changed for the end of the year, so I had two celebrations this morning.

The centrepiece of all of these is drinking. It's one of the main reasons the game has an R18+ rating here in Australia, but it's also how I intend to spend most of my personal Yuletide, so very fitting. Here's the official toast:

Seasons are coming to Assassin’s Creed Valhalla to extend the post-launch experience throughout 2021, delivering a variety of new free content for all players focused on gameplay and world evolution, with updates coming in at different points during the Season.

The first Seasonal content of Assassin’s Creed Valhalla, the Yule Season, invites players to discover the Yule Festival, an in-game event active until January 7 in a dedicated area of the settlement. During the Yuletide celebration, players can join in the festivities with a new Drinking game, an Archery mini-game, a Fist Fight tournament, and two new character quests available in the settlement. In addition, players can earn exclusive rewards including a new gear set, settlement decorations, and more.

To experience the Yule Festival, players must reach England and complete one of the first narrative arcs, either Grantebridgescire or Ledecestrescire. The festival will then be triggered automatically when players visit the settlement.

The real-life Ravensthorpe (population 498*) is also celebrating the in-game Season 1 launch, with the Lord of the Manor, Charlie Reeve, declaring a week-long Valhalliday. From now until December 24, the local Chequers Pub & Village Shop, the village hub, will offer an Assassin's Creed Valhalla-themed takeway menu to patrons. Finally, a donation of $5,000 from Ubisoft will go towards supporting Ravensthorpe’s playground project, as well as other community projects.

A second update will add more content for the Yule Season in February:

• River Raids: a new game mode building on the core raiding mechanic will be introduced, delivering a dynamic, challenging, and highly replayable raid experience. As the River Raids rely heavily on the Jomsviking recruits, players can hire Jomsviking from their friends online to take on an entire crew. The River Raids game mode features raids with higher stakes and different difficulty levels.
  
  
• Ranks for Jomsviking: In the Yule Season, an update to the Jomsviking feature will allow players’ Jomsviking to earn XP and rank up – the higher the rank, the more silver players can earn when their Jomsviking are recruited by other players.
  
  
• Additional new abilities and rewards.

With development led by Ubisoft Montreal, Assassin’s Creed Valhalla offers players the captivating experience of playing as Eivor, a legendary Viking warrior, driven from Norway by endless wars and dwindling resources in ninth century AD. Players can relive the ruthless fighting style of Viking warriors with a revamped dual-wielding combat system and experience new gameplay features such as raids, assaults, and the settlement, as well as a revamped progression and gear upgrade system. Political alliances, combat decisions and dialogue choices can influence the world of Assassin’s Creed Valhalla, so players must choose wisely to protect their clan’s home and their future.

In case you missed our review, it's here, but additionally we've also explored in-depth the game's World Stories here.

Check out a few screens we took ourselves from the Xbox Series X version of the game.