Ubisoft has said both male and female main character options in Assassin’s Creed Valhalla will be canon – but the game’s official prequel has picked to portray Eivor as a woman.
Dark Horse graphic novel series Assassin’s Creed Valhalla: Song of Glory details Eivor’s life prior to Ubisoft’s video game. A blurb, which we’ll post beneath a spoiler warning below, includes some new details about her family we didn’t know before.
It comes just a week after allegedly leaked messages from Valhalla’s now-departed creative director Ashraf Ismail claimed the game was originally planned to feature Eivor as a woman only (which is why she has a traditionally-female name). Valhalla narrative director Darby McDevitt stepped in to say the claim was not “wholly accurate” but “obviously there is more nuance to all this”.
This situation – where the hardcore fan-preferred female character option is picked for the game’s extended universe – has happened before. Ubisoft said Assassin’s Creed Odyssey supported both the male Alexios and female Kassandra as twin protagonist choices – only for that game’s novelisation to go with Kassandra to canonise.