the developers have removed the violence from the game, replacing it with quests which are designed to allow the player to gain greater historical insight about the period. valhalla is the third assassin's creed game to feature this element, called discovery tour: viking age. we must exit the fjord, sail right. we have created these quests that are basically around empathy, because videogames have a strong component to make people learn, because we feel what our avatars and what the characters are living through. then i shall observe and hopefully learn some new tricks of my own. one of the most famous viking settlements in the uk was in york, and it's here we find the jorvik viking centre, home to a vast array of period artefacts — some of which provided inspiration for the developers. and it's here we also find writer and broadcaster danny wallace, he's has had a long association with the assassins creed series, providing the voice of one of the game's characters, historian sean hastings.