Next-gen is here and video games still haven’t figured children out. The most convincing child I’ve seen in a game so far is in The Last of Us Part 2 (spoilers), right near the end of the game where Ellie lives with Dina and her son, J.J., on a farm.
J.J. is extremely cute, but there’s something off about him, and it’s not just the fact he has a head like a Pop Vinyl. The way his eyes are constantly fixed on Ellie with a soulless gaze, and how he stays rigid as you walk around - it’s genuinely terrifying.
But nothing can top the terror inflicted by the children of Assassin’s Creed Valhalla. Not even Fallout’s mannequin children. Not even Bratz. Not even a game website’s comments section.
Assassin’s Creed Valhalla’s children will appear in your bedroom one night as you sleep, their jaws will unhinge, and they will swallow you whole before crawling, elbows snapped backward like horse legs, scuttling across your ceiling where they melt into the shadows.
If you’ve ever seen that X-ray of a child’s teeth, you will know that the inside of a growing human’s mouth is a horror show that triggers the fight or flight response more than a Twitter reply guy who sends out virtual hugs.
But it’s fine in real life, we can’t see it. You can see it, however, in the faces of Assassin’s Creed Valhalla’s children - something is off. We know video game characters are hollow apart from their eyes and teeth, but there’s something happening with these specific teeth. Look at that underbite. Notice how barely any of them have a chin. Something is amiss.
Elsewhere, their eyes are too big, too dead - like a porcelain doll staring at you as you pass a shop window. There’s no soul in these children. No god will save you from their plans.
Some of the kids even have what looks like a soul patch under their bottom lips. On closer inspection, it seems to be where their teeth are clipping through their skin, which is completely good and normal and not at all nightmare-inducing.
Children are used in horror films all the time. They’re shown as these creatures who are capable of poking through the skin of our world, seeing what lies beyond.
My youngest kid has a friend called Joe who isn’t real. He talks with a spoon in his mouth and owns a farm. Oh, and he also apparently lives under my kid’s bed. But he’s just a normal imaginary friend and it’s not creepy at all, no sir. I, an adult man with a powerful beard and a 44” chest, would never be scared of a five-year-old’s imaginary farm friend who inexplicably has a spoon in his mouth.
Kids are unpredictable machines who don’t have a moral compass. That, combined with them having too many teeth, makes them intrinsically a bit scary. Assassin’s Creed Valhalla didn’t need to make them even worse. And if you think their faces are bad, wait until you get the bug that makes the children massive. Here is my powerful Viking man, Eivor, standing next to one of the game’s children:
Please never talk to me or my Anglo-Saxon child ever again.
Image source: KrutToppen