My Parting Assassin's Creed Thoughts & Wishlist for the Future

After my marathon playthrough of Assassin's Creed: Valhalla, I decided that it was time for something completely different.  The Steam holiday sale is currently in full swing and I had grabbed a couple of titles from my wishlist with the intent of trying them out after AC.  As I've started my journey with Wasteland 3, I've realized how amazing it feels to be playing something that's not Valhalla--I think that feeling is a problem and could potentially impact my desire to continue investing in the AC universe.  A game shouldn't feel like work or that you're just trying to push through to get it out of the way.  I'm not saying that there weren't things I enjoyed about Valhalla, but personally, I am starting to get that stale feeling from the series--something needs to change!

My AC wishlist:

1.) My (and many others) biggest gripe about the new iteration of the series is the amount of bloaty content in the game.  As much as I don't want to complain that there's too much...well, there's too much and it greatly detracts from the game.  Valhalla included the staples of the series (assassinating members of a massive conspiracy to unravel clues to track down the leader; a huge map filled with tons of optional treasures and artifacts to track down; a main storyline that focuses on the historical character in the animus as well as the modern day issues...etc.) but also decided to add in fishing and hunting deliveries, river raids, tombs of the lost, seasonal events, a new crossover storyline between Odyssey and Valhalla, a side storyline that takes place in Asgard and Jotunheim--there's just a metric ton of stuff to do!

In my head, I wish they would build the game around the concept of assassinating members of the order.  The story could involve finding and tracking them all down--they could keep the entire system that requires players to find clues and could also build the story around the baddies that you track down.  Each region could focus on hunting a particular target and could still involve the intricate web of lackeys that serve the conspiracy.

2.) A new setting that's more interesting than Dark Ages England (Sorry England, I didn't like you as much as Egypt or Greece).  I think it would be great to see a game set somewhere that doesn't get a lot of screen time in games--India, Africa, Cambodia...somewhere with less of a European connection.  Part of the challenge of the new series is trying to find a historical period and adapting the game to that time frame.

Eivor just isn't Kassandra.

3.) Eivor =/= Kassandra.  I also wish for a more interesting main character.  Kassandra was the absolute highlight and even though I enjoyed Eivor's Viking ass-kicking attitude, it just wasn't as playful or fun.

That's all I can think of right now.  Whenever I think of Valhalla my brain gets all fuzzy and I just picture a massive map filled with glowy dots.  I'm looking forward to not thinking about Valhalla for a long time.