Assassin’s Creed Valhalla's Narrative Director, Derby McDevitt, addressed a fan's question over on twitter recently about the new placement of the series' signature stabbing implement, stating that it boils down to the Viking's sense of honor.

Traditionally, the series' Hidden Blade has been mounted to the underside of the wrist, occasionally requiring the unfortunate removal of a finger for use. Still, this weapon has been one of the defining aspects of the nearly 13-year-old franchise. With the upcoming Nordic entry, we have seen that the blade is fastened on the top of the main character, Eivor's wrist.

Darby explains that "It occurs to Eivor that it would be much more interesting to let people see this weapon, to be conspicuous about it." before going on to explain that for Viking's, there was a sense of honor about them and that if they had to kill, that they make it apparent and let people know that they murdered them. By having the blade now visible and openly displayed, Darby explains, is an extension of that honor.

With this importance being put on a Viking's honor and being open whenever they had to kill, it will be interesting to see how this conflicts with the series' focus of rewarding stealth and silent killing. These two ideologies could present themselves in unique storytelling ways in Valhalla that could make this one of the more exciting entries to date. All of this underlies the real question of the matter though, if it's not a hidden blade anymore, what should it be called?+

MCDevitt has bene regularly revealing new info on Assassin’s Creed Valhalla via Twitter, we heard about Eivor's personality, tidbits on how the mission system works, and the game world map's size.

Assassin’s Creed Valhalla will launch sometime during the 2020 Holiday season. It’ll be heading to PS4 and Xbox One, as well as PS5 and Xbox Series X. It’s also heading to PC as an Epic Games Store exclusive.