After the base game in 2020 and the Wrath of the Druids DLC in 2021 I felt like I had a pretty good idea of what to expect, and I wasn't far off the mark. I kept waiting for another Order to go through, but there wasn't any. As much as the Children of Danu was expected in Wrath of the Druids I felt a little bit cheated that there wasn't something similar in Siege of Paris, especially after I picked up an emblem from Little Mother. I thought that would be the starting point for another Order, but no such luck. I kind of missed the investigative element of trying to solve the riddles of where to find the Order members.
I knew a little bit about the history concerning the very real Viking siege of Paris and so I was excited for the story and it ended up being better than the story in Wrath of the Druids. There was a lot more choice and consequence in this DLC than in the previous, including the base game iirc. Mostly concerning whether to fight and kill every French person in sight or whether to try and talk to them. I mostly chose the diplomatic approach, which made Sigfred call me Eivor the Talker, but I felt vindicated (and also a little sad) when I talked him down from his final confrontation and watched him leave. I ended up really liking Richardis. For the most part I felt sad for Charles. History says he was probably epileptic, but the game makes him out as probably schizophrenic.
The siege itself was epic and well worth the wait caused by diplomacy and preparations throughout the game.
One annoying mechanic that I wish wasn't in the game was the rats. I hate hate hate the rats. They made exploration hell wherever they were, even though the game makes it quite clear on how to deal with them.
Rebel Missions were just the same kind of deal as the Royal Demands in Wrath of the Druids. They were repetitive as hell, but I did enough of them to get the achievements associated with them. I ended up running through this DLC with a big ass scythe in one hand and a short sword in the other while completely decked out in the Reaper armor and shooting rats at unaware enemies so I could watch them get devoured by the rats. Fun stuff.
Side note: All the French accents in the DLC inevitably made me think of Orlais in Dragon Age.
After I had finished the DLC I still didn't feel quite done with my time in the game, so I decided to finish up on some of things I had left hanging from my playthrough of the base game. So I did a bunch of drinking games, and defeated all of the Orlog players. I finished up some easy-to-get achievements that I had missed; like lighting all of the braziers on Hadrian's Wall, swimming 3km on the horse, sliding 150m in the snow, and assassinate an enemy from the horse. Then I completed all of the Hunter Deliveries, before I turned my attention to the fishing. I really, really dislike fishing (both in games and irl), but I set my mind to it and spent the two following days just fishing and fishing and fishing. Until I managed to complete all of the challenges and recieved the Swordfish.
After having done all of that I decided to get through the free update content. Starting with River Raids. It was a fun concept, but it soon became pretty repetitive. I played through the entire quest arc in one go and half-way through Ireland I was getting pretty fed up with the repetition. Especially since my crew were so fragile and no map provided enough rations to counter-act their fragility. Eivor was running around like crazy collectiong every berry and mushroom on every raid site just to collect enough stuff for rations. The champion fights in each region provided the best diversion from the repetition of the questing and gameplay, to the point where I kept going with the questing just so I could get to the next champion fight.
When I had finished the River Raids arc. I decided to quickly do the Yule Event, which took maybe 30 minutes all in all, but it was pretty fun, nothing special. And then I headed on to the Mastery Challenge free update, which I started on a little bit just before I played Wrath of the Druids. I only managed to get one gold medal, but got enough silver and bronze medals to complete the quest. It got pretty annoying towards the end, especially on the maps where Eivor had basically no armour and all it took was for one enemy to swing their weapon ones and Eivor was "dead" and I had to restart the challenge. So many sighs and eye-rolls on this one. But I felt pretty good once I managed to complete it.
And then I turned to the Isle of Skye free update, and hello Kassandra. After all the achievement hunting, raiding and challenges it was fun to run around a new zone, do a story and hunt down all the collectables. I wish the questline had been a bit longer. I know some fans complained about the fact that Kassandra showed up in Valhalla, since her story takes place around 200 years earlier, but the devs did make her immortal so...¯\_(ツ)_/¯ Anyway I did enjoy the Isle of Skye update and it made me want to play Odyssey even more. Which I still haven't done...
Once that was done it was time for the last bit of content I had left; the Tombs of the Fallen. I expected intricate, difficult puzzles and fully expected to need a guide to get through them. But I went in blind to all of them and found that they were pretty straight-forward and kind of simple. The first Tomb is just outside Eivor's settlement (that's handy) and it serves as a tutorial for the rest of the Tombs. In each of the three following Tombs you can find an artifact that probably will be needed to open the big gate in the tutorial Tomb. "Probably" because you need five artifacts to open it, and there are currently only three of them in the game. The Tombs were fairly simple puzzles that were entertaining enough without posing much of a problem. I enjoyed these a lot more than I thought I would.
I still want more Valhalla, though, so I'm excited for the next DLC coming in March :3
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