The Yule season brought holiday festivities to Assassin’s Creed Valhalla, including the opportunity to get drunk with in-game friends. However, Eivor’s thirst for mead seems to extend beyond just casual get-togethers. Following the Yule update, many players are reporting that Eivor is consistently drunk. And while it may have been funny at first, this drunk bug — much like with real-world alcoholics — doesn’t seem to know how to quit.
By all accounts, the perma-drunk Eivor seems to be a direct result of the Yule Festival update. Among the many seasonal activities is an in-game drinking contest, with the obvious goal of getting sloshed. Once properly intoxicated, players are subjected to a stumbling, swirly screen effect. It’s a little disorienting, but the effect fades away after a short while.
There is a bug right now in Assassin's Creed Valhalla where every time you reload/respawn Eivor is drunk… lol#AssassinsCreedValhalla pic.twitter.com/3zwT0xRCDb
— JorRaptor (@Jorraptor) December 17, 2020
Or it’s supposed to, anyway. Unfortunately, after downing a few horns of mead, Eivor will then be drunk any time he respawns, wakes up, or a save file is loaded. To make matters worse, being wasted messes with the game’s targeting system, making it much more difficult to fight enemies.
It’s easy to see how this could pose a problem. Saving just before a big fight or important quest activity is par for the course; if things don’t work out, simply re-load the save. However, players who saved before a big fight will re-load only to find that Eivor is once again hammered, making a challenging proposition even more difficult.
There is a drunk bug fix, but it’s not ideal
Luckily, there do seem to be a few ways to fix the drunk bug in Assassin’s Creed Valhalla. Players have reported that you can simply meditate to get rid of the drunk effect, sort of like sleeping off booze in real life. Others have suggested that fast traveling will sober Eivor up. Barring nothing else, it’s also possible to simply wait a few minutes until the effect disappears.
I wish they'd fix the spawning in drunk glitch in #AssassinsCreedValhalla
But I usually just pet dogs until it wears off haha pic.twitter.com/BgbZgYxzQr— Michelle Fernholz (@Michelle48Lee) December 29, 2020
Of course, these solutions aren’t always convenient. Once locked into battle, waiting to sober up is effectively the same as waiting to die. Similarly, meditation is off the table when time is of the essence. And while some have had success simply fast traveling to a new location, others say Eivor will respawn drunk when fast traveling back to Ravensthorpe.
The drunk bug might be one of the most amusing bugs to land in any Assassin’s Creed game, but for all its potential humor, it’s still very frustrating. As with actual booze, the consequences of being drunk at the wrong time can have a devastating effect. As it turns out, even the toughest of heroes can be defeated by the bottle. Hopefully Ubisoft can issue a patch for this quickly, lest Eivor falls victim to his own thirst.
