Microsoft held a stream to reveal games and gameplay for Xbox Series X, which had one highly-anticipated gameplay trailer for Assassin’s Creed Valhalla. The Viking-centric entry of the franchise, the first since the critically-acclaimed Assassin’s Creed Odyssey, got people excited when it was unveiled last week, but the trailer that was a part of the event today has left a lot of fans with a sour taste in their mouth due to its presentation.

While apparently being in-engine, the “gameplay trailer” featured absolutely no perspective gameplay in its minute-and-a-half runtime. Immediately, fans took to social media to express their frustration. There’s a distinct difference between watching cutscenes/CGI and watching someone actually behind a controller/keyboard moving the playable character. In Valhalla‘s case, there’s not even a shot of this present.

This is quite reminiscent of E3 2005, where a Killzone 2 “gameplay” trailer was shown, looking technically out-of-this-world and lifelike. While it was framed as gameplay, this was a completely rendered piece of video in a first-person perspective and was not reflective of how the game would look on the brand new (at the time) PS3 graphics. Valhalla‘s trailer doesn’t even present it as if there’s a player, instead opting to appear as a video, devoid of any game.

The public reaction to this has been abysmal for Ubisoft. The IGN video even went so far as to rename their coverage from “gameplay trailer” to “game engine trailer,” while Ubisoft North America’s video currently has a like/dislike ratio of 16K to 28K.

All it takes to tarnish a game’s reputation is one fragment of controversy, and this one, widespread, has already made people scoff when they think of the words “Assassin’s Creed Valhalla.” While it isn’t as dubious as the messy “Unity” launch, this is a serious blow to Ubisoft’s flagship franchise, one that they still have time to recover from with proper gameplay footage in the future.

Editor’s Note – After this article was submitted, Creative Director Ashraf Ismail responded to the backlash. You can find more information here.

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