Since its release in November, Assassin's Creed Valhalla has met one of the most successful launches of any game in the series. Reports put Valhalla at 1.7 million units sold at launch -- 50% more than its predecessor, Assassin's Creed Odyssey.
Perhaps the most obvious and direct factor that led to the warm reception of Valhalla is how Ubisoft has paved the way for its success by working hard on the Assassin's Creed franchise itself. Having cultivated the series into one of the publisher's biggest, Ubisoft had put a lot of time and effort into producing great quality Assassin's Creed titles one after the other. One could actually argue that each title improves on the last one - with maybe a few exceptions.
The fact of the matter is that Assassin's Creed has been on an upswing following the stellar reception of 2017's Assassin's Creed Origins, which functioned as something of a soft reboot for the storied franchise. 2018's Assassin's Creed Odyssey followed up on this success and was quickly recognized as a notch above its previous installments. With a stronger focus on its Action-RPG elements, Odyssey had fully-realized characters, engaging storylines, and a sweeping overworld on an epic scale.
There's also Valhalla's timing, launching just in time to be a flagship title for next-gen. While the number of games to choose from to showcase the new Xbox Series X or PlayStation 5 specs are limited, most players would usually go with the games and franchises they're excited about or stick with something from a trusted developer or publisher. Assassin's Creed Valhalla played to these perfectly and made it one of the brightest games to showcase the latest iteration of gaming consoles.
It also helps that Valhalla's launch window was opened up a bit thanks to another Cyberpunk 2077 delay. Now that it's finally launched, a huge percentage of gamers have already dipped their toes in the neon pools of Night City. Cyberpunk 2077 had no doubt been one of the most hyped and highly anticipated games of perhaps the entire past decade, and CD Projekt Red's techno futuristic RPG and Ubisoft's Viking romp were supposed to launch at around the same time.
We already know that a huge majority of players would have had to think twice before deciding on which game to get had that happened. Thankfully -- for Ubisoft, at least -- Cyberpunk had been delayed enough for Valhalla to do pretty well for itself at the market at the time of its launch.
Assassin's Creed had come a long way from our first foray into the genetic memories of Desmond Miles. With a dozen games in the main series and a smattering of supplementary media that further expounds on its lore, there seems to be no end in sight for the franchise, and it only keeps getting better and better.