Viking rap battles – Assassinate some killer beats in AC: Valhalla

Even since the inception of Assassin’s Creed and, somehow, well before we even knew there’d be a Viking-centric entry, everyone has been crying out for Viking rap battles. Cry no longer and get ready to battle rap in Assassin’s Creed Valhalla.

But, seriously, this is probably going to be really good – Assassin’s Creed sea shanties are legendary bangers. We don’t yet know how Viking rap offs will work but it’s definitely a wild card for Valhalla.

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Here’s the description over on Ubisoft’s Assassin’s Creed Valhalla website that gave us this glorious reveal:

“Sail across the icy North Sea to discover and conquer the broken kingdoms of England. Immerse yourself in activities like hunting, fishing, dice, and drinking games, or engage in traditional Norse competitions like flyting – or, as it’s better known, verbally devastating rivals through the art of the Viking rap battle.”

So, you’re probably thinking ‘“Viking rap battle”, that sounds completely unrealistic *eyeroll*’ but you’d be wrong. As you can see from the above description, these rap battles actually stem from something called “Flying”, which is one of many  “traditional Norse competitions”.

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Merriam Webster defines “Flyting” as “a dispute or exchange of personal abuse in verse form”, what is that if not a rap battle?! Culture Trip has done a deep-dive into the verbal sparring and provides this wonderful example from Norse literature:

“I will no longer keep it secret:
it was with thy sister
thou hadst such a son
hardly worse than thyself.

—Hárbarðr, from Lokasenna”

Evidently, these Viking rap battles will be no holds barred but we’ll have to wait until we see some gameplay before we can actually grasp how this will play out in Assassin’s Creed Valhalla. Thankfully, Microsoft might have us covered this coming Thursday with its Xbox Series X Showcase.