‘Assassin’s Creed Valhalla’: Viking Rap Battles Explained

“Assassin’s Creed Valhalla” won’t be all about killing and plundering. Apparently, there will be rap battles, too!

Recently, it has been revealed that the game will have a feature that will allow players to do flyting or, in modern terms, the Vikings’ own version of a rap battle. Based on Norse history, flyting is a competition wherein two people exchange insults, often in rhyming verses.

In “Assassin’s Creed Valhalla,” there will be flyting between the main character Eivor and his/her fellow Viking warriors.

In order to elaborate more on the new feature, the game’s creative director Ashraf Alsmail took to Twitter to explain the history of Flyting and how it will work in the game.

“Flyting – this was something they did back then, both on the Norse side and also the Saxon side in England,” Alsmail started. “You know, this is one of the fun things to do when you’re sitting around in a Mead Hall. People would start drinking and kind of rhythmically insult one another for the cheers of the crowd around them.

“This is based on history. There’s even a saga written that this happened between Thor and Odin, where Odin destroys Thor through rhythmic insults. So we wanted to have fun with that. It’s part of the time period, it’s part of the culture.”

According to Alsmail, when Eivor challenges or is challenged by another Viking in the contest of insults, there will be multiple choices that will appear on the screen. The fun (and perhaps slightly difficult) part, however, is finding the right response.

“You’re facing off against somebody or they challenge Eivor. They’ll insult Eivor. Eivor will have to find a response. And so you’ll have multiple choices in front of you and you’ll have to find the right one that matches the insult, the one that has the right rhythm,” Alsmail furthered.

The creative director also hinted that there is more to the flyting feature in “Assassin’s Creed Valhalla.” However, fans will have to wait for the game to find out.

The so-called “Viking Rap Battle” is surely an exciting activity to do in the game, especially when things are getting repetitive. It could be said that it is the perfect icebreaker that fits the time and tradition.

“Assassin’s Creed Valhalla” has received some negative publicity lately, starting from its gameplay reveal that didn’t really show much gameplay footage. There’s also the report about the game being unable to run on 60 FPS on Xbox Series X.

With that said, revealing some fun aspects of the game should at least lessen the heat the game is getting.