Assassin's Creed Valhalla players on PC were recently surprised to discover that Ubisoft had removed achievements for the game. A Ubisoft representative confirmed that Assassin's Creed Valhalla would instead have Ubisoft Connect "Challenges" on PC, rather than achievements. This led to a lot of disappointment among Assassin's Creed Valhalla players, but Ubisoft has now corrected its previous statement and confirmed that Assassin's Creed Valhalla achievements will be coming to PC.
The problems started with Ubisoft's recent changes to its PC online services. The Uplay service, as well as the Ubisoft Club rewards system, have been combined and rebranded as Ubisoft Connect. It was amid these changes that those looking forward to Assassin's Creed Valhalla's release noticed the Ubisoft Connect listing for Valhalla had no achievements. Ubisoft Connect still allowed for achievements, as other games featured them, but Assassin's Creed Valhalla did not.
Following up on this, Assassin's Creed Valhalla players asked Ubisoft directly about the situation on the official Ubisoft forums. A representative said that Ubisoft Connect would use Challenges instead of Achievements, without clarifying exactly what Challenges would be. They also said, "We know that this is a big change for a lot of you, and we appreciate your understanding in the matter."
Given that Ubisoft clearly understood the gravity of removing achievements, players took it for granted that Assassin's Creed Valhalla simply wouldn't have them. However, Ubisoft is apparently doubling back on that announcement. A follow-up post on the forum described the previous information as a "miscommunication." Ubisoft is actively working on enabling achievements in Assassin's Creed Valhalla on PC. More information will hopefully be available soon.
Obviously, this doesn't answer every question that PC players of Assassin's Creed Valhalla have. It's still unclear what Challenges were supposed to be, why achievements weren't accessible in the first place, and whether or not Ubisoft still has some type of radical change to the system in mind for the future.
Achievements play a key role in many video game players' approach to modern games. As silly as they may seem at times, they're important to some, and while Sony and Microsoft's different achievement systems are unique, they're more similar than not. Hopefully, Ubisoft doesn't diverge too much from that in their plan to potentially gamify Ubisoft Connect, and if it does, hopefully it's more communicative with players in the future.
Assassin's Creed Valhalla is available now on PC, PS4, PS5, Stadia, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X/S.
Source: Ubisoft
