Those Assassin’s Creed Ragnarok retailer listings are fake but the game probably isn’t

There have been multiple, pervasive rumours that the next Assassin’s Creed game would feature Vikings, and would be called Ragnarok. While initial screens of the game were proven false, they’re rumours that just won’t go away. Hints in The Division 2, and suggestions by Kotaku (which align with some things we’ve heard) suggest that we’ll soon be playing as Vikings – for better or Norse.

The rumours were given another shot in the arm by multiple apparent retailer listings for the “Mjolnir” special edition of Assassin’s Creed Ragnarok. The first came via reddit, with a screencap of a listing on the Italian arm of game retailer Gamestop.

Redditors quickly realised the image was a likely fabrication, using the same listing number as the Xbox One version of Watch Dogs: Legion – Resistance Edition. Yeah, it’s an easily faked listing. The next listing allegedly comes from Amazon Germany, but that one’s also a little dubious. That listing was originally posted by YouTuber J0nathan who’s posted about Ragnarok leaks before.

While convincing, it too seems to be a forgery. GamesRadar ran the image of the listing through Forensically’s image clone detection tool, and it seemed to suggest that the image was cloned, with the “Assassin’s Creed Ragnarok” bit being new – which means that the “Valhalla Edition” bit of the product description has been used on Amazon before. They’ve tracked it down to the Valhalla Edition of indie Viking exploration game Jotun.

I wouldn’t put too much stock into these listings at all, but that doesn’t mean that the game itself isn’t real. I’m almost certain that the next Assassin’s Creed game will feature Vikings, but whether or not it’s called Ragnarok or not is still in question. I’m also not entirely convinced we’ll see it this year. While Ubisoft’s original plan may have been to release it to coincide with the new consoles (echoing Assassin’s creed 4: Black Flag’s release), things may well have changed given how Ubisoft’s is a little less confident in its releases since the abysmal launch of Ghost Recon: Breakpoint.

Because of that game’s poor performance, games like Watch Dogs: Legion have been pushed out to later this year (from an originally scheduled March release). While Ubisoft may have released both a Watch Dogs and Assassin’s Creed game in the same year had they stuck to the original release date, having them both out in Q4 seems unlikely.

Last Updated: January 9, 2020