The map literally includes East Anglia, Wessex, etc., which were Anglo-Saxon kingdoms in early medieval England. It’s not just based on the shape of England, it is supposed to be England!
The way viking era was depicted, however, is closer to modern stereotypes, rather than historical accuracy. Shadiversity did a great video on this game and how "accurate" it is.
I played odyssey for 2 years straight to the point where I was navigating using the map on the Adrestia and when I seen Greece on a actual map it felt like I was there lmao could literally name every spot I been to and point in on the map crazyyyy😂
I think the coolest part is that ravensthorpe is a real place in England and its almost in the same place in real life. The devs even said they disnt know it was a real place until after making it.
@@MarkJMonaghanI'm from Peterborough (medeshamstede) in the game we have a place called ravensthorpe in the city. Not sure if it's connected but yeh, pretty cool
If you go up to Hadrian’s Wall at the very north of the map, there is a big sycamore tree on the wall just like in real life. This tree (called Sycamore gap irl) made international news recently because someone cut it down in an act of vandalism. The local people especially were devastated as its an iconic landmark and holds a lot of sentimantal value to lots of people. I live locally and its just not the same not seeing the tree there. So the other day i went to see if they included it in the game and they did. It west of housteads on the map and sits in the same little valley shape on the wall as in irl. You’ll know when you find it as appose to other trees on the wall as theres a little pond at its base.
To be perfectly honest, Ubisoft used an above-and-beyond approach to the design and detail of their AC titles. Unity, for example, was given glory for the sheer attention to detail they put into creating the Notre Dame. So much so that, when the disaster fire destroyed it, who did they come to for reconstruction plans?
@@noaerrr Yeah,the entire map is like 13km long and 9km wide at it’s widest.It’s quite big for a video game but compared to real life, it’s roughly the size of a a regular London borough.
Ngl I actually recognised the places in the game because Eivor’s settlement Ravensthorpe is a real place about 15 mins from my home town. I was born in Kettering, Northamptonshire. Ravensthorpe is also in Northamptonshire, just a few minutes South-West over a few hills. The river in the game is part of the river Nene which connects to the river Ise which is the river in Kettering.
One interesting thing is the in-game Ravensthorpe isn't based on the real life Ravensthorpe. The developers didn't know the real one existed until a few months before launch. That's why the location isn't quite right.
It is quite possible that if some islands or peninsulas look different it's because the shore changed in the last 1000 years. Ubisoft is extremely good at historical research.
It’s not accurate to life, even accounting for tide & shoreline changes but the attention to detail is still impressive. Ravensthorpe, Eivor’s settlement is even a real place in the right location on the map, however, the river Nene which Ravensthorpe is connected to goes through Kettering, which isn’t accurate because the river in Kettering is the Ise, which is connected to the Nene & doesn’t flood Kettering out of existence. Kettering existed before Ravensthorpe. I know because it’s my home town.
People don’t even realise AC Valhalla is based off of actual vikings and real things that took place and real myths and stories it’s probably one of the best out together games ever made in its own right
One funny thing is, that you could easialy think they put way more rivers trough & fragmented the land more, as it really has back then, to make ship-travel more convinient, but you would be wrong, cuz humans dried up many side arms of rivers & straigtened them to, since the early medieval time. And it was generally a bit more wet back then. But the devs surely made them more even leaveld & wide as rl, to avoide a cutscene of your crew heving the boat out of the water & transport it over land on tree stems, like they did it often back then.
I just want to know if England was so navigable by river according to the Valhalla map why was there a huge canal building program in the 17th century?
In England, rivers were one of the primary modes of long-distance transportation for hundreds of years, especially for heavy trade. You'd be pretty surprised how far and deep across England you can get just via natural riverways.
Yeah but it misses out the whole chunk where I live in the east (Bristol) 😒😒 and the entirety of Devon and Cornwall. The latter 2 in particular would have been really interesting to see due to the different culture and more barren setting with the beautiful coasts
I started playing Ac Valhalla and watching Viking on Netflix. I love how as I watched the show. I would hear NPC’s in game speak about Ragnar Lothbrok an all his fame. They even mention his sons too.
This map of England in AC Valhalla is what England looked like during the Viking era before 1066 when the Norman’s conquered England completely. East-Anglia (which still is called East Anglia) was flooded and is why most of the crops in England are from the Fens (East Anglia). After the period of Valhalla, Alfred took back England but the north was divided and was called the “Dane law” which was already in the game, it meant that it was under Viking control. East Anglia in Valhalla was so accurate that it showed the exact river the real Vikings took to raid Peterborough Cathedral (Peterborough Abbey), where today, Anne of Cleves is buried in there and the building still stands today and is well preserved. The reason it’s full of rivers is because the entirety of east Anglia used to be under water. Which is why some places in east Anglia like “Wisbech” (wiz-beach) is called that because it used to be a Beach. And whittlesey/Whittlesea is called that because it used to be part of the sea. It is very very accurate.
The reason there's so many rivers and so much water on the AC map is because Eastern England used to be very swampy and wet with lots of alluvium and fens. It took centuries of terraforming to reclaim the land from the sea and make it arable. When the Normans invaded, an English noble was able to hold out on the Isle of Ely in Eastern England. The Isle of Ely doesn't exist anymore because, again, that whole area was terraformed and is no longer underwater. Just goes to show how wet and flooded Eastern England used to be that there used to be islands there.
The Irish DLC, there's an island off the coast of Dublin called Lambay, ive been to lambay numerous times I actually lived beside it, in the game the island is not much bigger than a rock, but in real life its huge also, along that coast there should be cliffs, but there was none, so that was a let down.
omg no way you mean the game that back in 2010 was making scale models of city’s that kids on field trips could use to find there way to safety is still doing it
The modern map is derived from arial and satelite photos which was not something the Vikings had access to. Maps were drawn based upon the skills available at the time.
If you look in the bottom left in Wessex right at the very bottom of the map there's a island which is the exact same as the real life England map but the only saddening part is long bredy isn't in it which were from
They did manage an approximation of Portsmouth and Hayling Island and even Kingley Vale. No Chichester though, which was 100% a place in the 8th Century.
It’s great. Apart from the fact that it’s only 16km long. Instead of 500k like that bit in real. To be fair, that’d be a helluva lot of horsing around though.
Isn't being impressed that a map that was purposefully designed to be a simplified version of England, looks like England a little patronising to the developers?
so what do you want? you want a shopping mall & airport there? or you want a factory district? it's year is 800's and you complain about emptiness, LMAO
I live right next to "The Wreoken" hill in real life lol can see it from my bedroom window in full its called the wrekin now and a bunch of the named locations on the map match up like much wenlock and shropshire as a whole. Cool game
It's supposed to be England in the 10th century. The land looked somewhat different back then, so don't be comparing to England today. And even so, it's supposed to England, so I don't get the point of praising how close it looks.
Distance on the map is weird af, I live in Norfolk in Norwich, featured as Norvic, and it’s the flattest part of the Uk, sure the rivers represent the broads but it’s weird seeing mountains in the background, as there ain’t any for dozens of miles
