Assassin's Creed Valhalla is a vast open-world game full of content that lasts hundreds of hours for the most committed of players. The Assassin's Creed franchise in general has always been great about sneaking in Easter eggs and references to other pop culture properties over the years.

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A big part of why this is possible is thanks to the series being tied to the open-world genre with plenty of room for exploration. Let's now take a look at Easter eggs people may have missed their first time through Assassin's Creed Valhalla.

10 Death Stranding

death stranding easter egg

Hideo Kojima's latest game, Death Stranding, was a weirdly wonderful expression of his beautiful mind, that when reduced for simplicity was a mail delivery simulator. The settlement Eivor oversees often tasks the character with jobs and quests and one for a shop has them delivering packages. Each item is heavy, has a delivery location that isn't close, and must be transported by walking. this undoubtedly is a cheeky reference to Kojima's game and the absurdity of what it asks players to do gameplay-wise.

9 Fantastic Beasts

fantastic beats harry potter

Not all Easter eggs are created equal and sometimes they happen to be nothing more than a weird pun placed on a quest, side mission, or reward of some sort. In Ravensthorpe, there's a quest that asks Eivor to find 11 missing pages of a book. If the player does this with Eivor and finds all of the pages and returns them they'll be treated with the title of the book, Fantastic Fish and Where to Find Them. A glaringly obvious nod to the Harry Potter spin-off film franchise called Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them.

8 Rapunzel

rapunzel tower tangled

Rapunzel was never the most popular Disney princess, but thanks to the film Tangled the princess found a new fan base. The idea of a princess being trapped in a tower is a high-fantasy trope dating back to the early days of story-telling and is rarely done in an inventive or refreshing way.

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AC: Valhalla pokes fun at this as players can stumble upon a guard standing outside a tower near the ruins of Venois in Ledecestrescire in which a woman is pleading for someone to help her. If Eivor decides to defeat the guard, they'll be treated to the woman providing reasons as to why she was locked in the tower.

7 The Dunwich Horror

hp lovecraft dunwuch horror

H.P. Lovecraft is one of the kings of horror writing and helped popular the genre of horror related to the maddening of the mind and an individual going crazy. A hidden prison room located in Dunwic happens to be the location of a letter in which man explains his descent into madness. He describes hearing talking spiders, and in the Lovecraft book The Dunwich Horror, a monster consisting of features similar to that of spiders is described. Given the similarity in location names, this reference was more than accidental.

6 The Ring Of Power

lord of the rings ring

Later in this piece, an Easter egg regarding a location from The Lord of the Rings will be discussed, but it isn't the only reference to that franchise in AC: Valhalla. Players who explore and are curious enough can come upon a house located on the western side of Glowecestre with a locked door. Using Odin Sight and other means players can find the appropriate key and go inside to find a note invoking the spirit of Bilbo Baggins, and next to it is a shiny golden ring that seems all too familiar and tempts the desires of Eivor.

5 COVID

assassins creed valhalla covid

As one of the first major releases to come out in a post-COVID world it isn't too shocking to see AC: Valhalla refer to the ongoing pandemic. Thankfully it doesn't break immersion by coming up while players control Eivor, but rather can be found while in the modern-day section involving the protagonist named Layla. On her laptop, you can find several emails with references and nods, but among them happens to be emails with references towards the current COVID pandemic.

4 Hobbiton

lord of the rings hobbiton

The gaming industry is filled with a lot of talented individuals who are nerdy and love a lot of high-fantasy and science fiction. This means that plenty of triple-A games have Easter eggs referencing things like Alien or The Lord of the Rings, and Assassin's Creed: Valhalla is no different.

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By traveling west of a town called Glowcester in the Glowecesterscire region and coming upon a river players can find a secluded area that bears a striking resemblance to the home of Frodo and Sam, Hobbiton.

3 Tyrion's Cell

game of thrones sky cell

Despite Game of Thrones falling off the face of the Earth in terms of being a cultural zeitgeist, there are still plenty of reasons to cherish the show and books. Tyrion Lannister is a fan-favorite character, and one of his more noticeable experiences can be explored in AC: Valhalla. His sky cell with no wall can be found in the East Anglia Region in a fortress that's worth exploring in the Dunwic area of the region. It also has a note with written dialogue of what Tyrion said in the show. Don't mind the large crows hovering over the bloodstains, though.

2 Dark Souls Bonfire

dark souls bonfire

With FromSoftware and their Dark Souls trilogy becoming so beloved over the last decade it seems that the inclusion of a Dark Souls bonfire of some sort is required as an Easter egg. Some may argue that this isn't interesting and because it's used all the time it's lost its magic. That's a valid point, but in AC: Valhalla the developers and designers did a great job of making the location feel ominous like a Dark Souls title. It can be found in the ruins of an old building east of the on-map letters for the region of Ledecestrescire.

1 Desmond Miles

desmond miles

Depending on the section of the fan base, the modern-day parts of the Assassin's Creed games are either considered inconsequential or important to the world's overall lore. Out of the modern-day protagonists, Desmond Miles is easily the most beloved and that's due to him being attached to Ezio, the series favorite in terms of assassins. In AC: Valhalla an audio file can be discovered on the game's modern-day protagonist Layla's laptop in which Desmond Miles can be heard talking. It may not be much, but at least he's back in the series once again.

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