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birdwives · 2 years

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summary of the recent ac sisterhood interview with the creative director of the crossover stories, clémence nogrix:

kassandra and eivor's relationship:

clémence says on paper you could say kass and eivor are very similar. they both had traumatic childhoods, they know how to fight, they're very charismatic and hot-headed--but then you have to keep in mind kass is 1300 years older than eivor. she's travelled, she’s seen the rise and fall of the roman empire, she’s wiser, etc. so there was an opportunity for more of a mentor/mentee relationship

a challenge was figuring out how kass and eivor were going to interact with each other. they wanted the fight to feel substantial and satisfying. they wanted to portray kass as having more varied movement techniques due to her learning and travels over time. she is mostly avoiding eivor's attacks, whereas eivor is being more confrontational and is just throwing everything at kass. you can see kass having fun and eivor getting a bit frustrated

(slightly paraphrased) “i do want to mention the romantic tension between the two characters, they don't kiss or have any intimate relationship, that wasn't the story we wanted to tell. but it was interesting and important for us to show that there can be romance and tension without physical intimate interaction.”

kass and eivor worked well together because eivor had knowledge of the land/culture and the ability to use odin’s sight, and kassandra had the experiential knowledge that came alongside having searched for the artifacts for such a long time

in the scene right when eivor enters the clearing, if you listen intently you’ll hear that they incorporated some of the music from the odyssey theme

they decided the fight would be a cinematic early on (and not a playable fight) because kass is immortal and they didn't want the fight to be a pain for the player. and ultimately the point of the crossover was not the fight but the relationship following it (and having it be a cinematic it would also give everyone the same level of 'epicness' in the encounter)

kassandra’s hidden blade:

they consulted their historian when designing kassandra's hidden blade, based on things that would have been available in ancient greece

a prominent part of kassandra’s hidden blade is the medusa head. medusa is a strong woman/character iconic to that period and she was in the shadows, secluded, misunderstood: a lot of iconography that suited kassandra

they wanted to show that there was some wear in the weapon because kassandra would have used it over time and would have repaired it at different points in history using materials she had available

production and fan response:

the quebec team created both crossover events (odyssey and valhalla), even though they had not done much work for valhalla in the past. clémence describes the quebec team as being "guests” working on valhalla. the post-launch team members in the montréal studio caught them up on lore, etc.

the fact that fanart and fan theories of kass and eivor meeting, as well as fan questions about what happened to kassandra after odyssey, existed before the crossover allowed them to show that there was an interest in furthering kass' story and as well as in kass and eivor meeting

the team had an internal channel called "random" where they would share all the theories and art and memes that fans had made, both during and after the release of the crossover

the decision to just have kass in the valhalla crossover was made very early on and everyone was on board right away

the writer for the valhalla crossover was kate mccollough (if i heard that right)

clémence said the response on youtube, reddit, insta, twitter, tumblr, etc. was "heartwarmingly positive” and the team definitely shared fan reactions/content/excitement amongst themselves. clémence is going to continue to keep up with the community and "snoop" online (including reading some crossover fanfiction she found) because “you learn so much”

during production she didn't want to like or retweet content relating to eivor and kass meeting to not be too obvious because the community is very "eagle-eyed"

#ac valhalla #ac odyssey #eivor #kassandra #acv #aco #long post

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