Assassin's Creed Valhalla Won't Restrict Romance Options Based on Eivor's Gender

One of the big announcements reveals for Assassin’s Creed Valhalla from the Ubisoft Forward event is how players can change the protagonist Eivor’s gender at any point during the campaign. But when it comes to romance, a Ubisoft representative confirmed that Eivor’s gender will not limit or change any of the available romance options that will be present in the final game. Speaking to IGN during today’s episode of IGN News Live, Ubisoft's Youssef Maguid confirmed that “there are multiple people you can romance in the game, and you can romance all of them as either gender.” [widget path="global/article/imagegallery" parameters="albumSlug=assassins-creed-valhalla-ubisoft-forward-screenshots&captions=true"] The choice-based romance was introduced in Assassin’s Creed: Odyssey and like Valhalla, romance options weren’t restricted by the player’s gender. One difference between Odyssey and Valhalla, however, is that in Odyssey Alexios and Kassandra are two different characters. Whereas in Valhalla there is only one Eivor, who can either be played as a man or woman. In Odyssey, the separation of characters by gender did leave some narrative hurdles including romance. In one of the DLC, either Alexios or Kassandra was forced by the story to have a child with Darius’ son or daughter to carry on the Spartan bloodline. In our preview and interview with Assassin’s Creed Valhalla narrative director Darby McDevitt, the developer confirmed that the Animus will have new powers in this game. “To explain why would spoil a long-running secret, but I will say that the whole reason for why you can switch [Eivor’s gender] back and forth fully embraces the often-overlooked science fiction nature of our series,” McDevitt said. [ignvideo url="https://www.ign.com/videos/2020/07/12/assassins-creed-valhalla-hands-on"] For more, check out IGN’s hands-on preview with Assassin’s Creed Valhalla and our round-up of everything announced at Ubisoft Forward. [poilib element="accentDivider"] Matt T.M. Kim is a reporter for IGN.