Wondering how Assassin's Creed Valhalla's Mysteries work? 9th century England is a mysterious place. Literally. Look at the world map at any point, and you’ll see it’s scattered with glowing silver dots. These represent the game’s ‘Mysteries’, short activities ranging from environmental puzzles and combat encounters, right through to zany adventures such as mediating a schism within a colony of nudists, or collecting viper eggs for a woman living in a drain.
There are dozens of these activities across the game, far too many to cover in a single article. But Mysteries come in a range of set categories, each of which varies around a specific theme or structure. This guide will introduce you to each Mystery type, as well as offering a few pointers on how to solve them.
World Events is by far the biggest and broadest category of Valhalla’s Mysteries. Basically miniature side-quests, most World Events start with Eivor talking to a quirky NPC, who will give them a task to solve and a small reward once they’ve completed it. This could be anything from helping a farmer out with a rat infestation, to catching fish for a man seeking to perfect his ‘Ledecestrescire Sauce’.
Although quests in all but name, World Events don’t appear in your quest log and, aside from the initial map marker, you don’t receive any further pointers about how to solve them. Hence, the key with World Events is to stay vigilant. Many World Events involve finding objects, so you need to pay attention to what NPCs say, and use your Raven and Odin Sight to identify object locations.
While the much-derided Animus storyline still rears its irritating head in Assassin’s Creed Valhalla, it at least keeps its interruptions to a minimum. But the Animus also pokes through the game’s simulated reality in another form: Animus Anomalies. Essentially glitches in the Animus’ world rendering, they appear as flickering artefacts that cover a small portion of the landscape. When approached, Eivor will be switched out for the game’s modern-day protagonist Layla, while a holographic sequence of platforms appear in front of her.
Completing an Animus Anomaly is relatively straightforward. You simply need to follow the platforms to the end, where Layla can retrieve the Anomaly. Some platforms must be connected to adjustable light beams so they can be traversed, which is the main puzzling element of these Mysteries. Completing an anomaly will reward you with a fragment of video that ultimately reveals more about the overarching story. Find them all with Steven's AC Valhalla Animus Anomalies guide.
Flyting is basically a Viking Rap battle, where both participants attempt compete to best each other with witty, rhyming rejoinders. Check out our this in-depth AC Valhalla Flyting guide for pointers on how to become the Viking equivalent of Guybrush Threepwood.
Fly Agaric is a type of toadstool mushroom noted for its hallucinogenic properties. In Valhalla, Eivor can ingest Fly Agaric at certain locations, which triggers the beginning of a puzzle. At this point, the screen will go all wavy and psychedelic, while a series of wood-post ‘gates’ will appear around the circumference of the area. To complete these challenges, Eivor has to either pass through the correct gates, or pass through all of the gates in the right order.
Fly Agaric puzzles vary considerably. Each has a different way of hinting which are the appropriate gates (or order of gates). Sometimes this hint is obvious, like a happy seal that leads you by its belly to each gate in sequence. Other times it’ll be more obscure, like using the gates as the hints rather than the puzzle object. The clues can be quite subtle, so you must pay close attention to these trippy conundrums.
Completing a Fly Agaric puzzle will net you an extra skill point, as well as some words of wisdom dredged up from the recesses of Eivor’s mind. They aren’t the best Mystery type in Valhalla, but the reward makes them worth pursuing regardless. One of them is especially tricky, so check out our AC Valhalla Fly Agaric guide for the Grantebridgescire puzzle for help with that.
Standing Stone mysteries centre around the many Neolithic stone circles encountered across the English countryside. At the centre of each circle you’ll find a pattern etched on the stone, accompanied by a note. By triggering your ‘Odin’s Sight’ ability, you’ll reveal blue blotches splashed across stones around you. All you need to do is stand in the right position so the blotches arrange themselves to match the pattern on the central stone.
While notionally simpler than the Fly Agaric puzzles, finding the precise location for the game to register that you’ve solved the puzzle can be tricky. It’s easy to be just slightly off in these puzzles, so don’t be disheartened if you think you’ve solved it, but it doesn’t seem to be working. You’re probably in the right spot, just not exactly the right spot. Like Fly Agaric puzzles, Standing Stones reward you with additional skill points. Here's how to complete the one in the AC Valhalla Seahenge area.
Cairns are another Mystery type that involves standing stones, although this time you are literally stacking the stones on top of one another. You’ll find cairns at the top of hills and mountains (where else). Activate a cairn mystery, and the camera will zoom in to a scattered pile of rocks, which you’ll be tasked with stacking on top of one another.
Cairns are a straightforward physics-based puzzle. The challenge is simply arranging the stones so that they balance without collapsing. They’ll also reward you with a skill point once completed, so get stacking.
Pretty straightforward, these. Altars are basically fetch quests that skip the preamble and get straight to the point. Each altar will ask you for an offering, which can range from fish to animal parts to cold, hard silver. Find what the altar demands, bring it back and deposit your offering at the foot of the altar.
Completing an Altar Offering typically triggers a new World Event, some of these are quite interesting, like a chat with a couple of child thieves living alone in forests. So don’t neglect them because they present as a quest you’d normally find in a second-rate MMO.
Legendary Animals are special, extra tough boss-fights with various buffed-up critters across Valhalla’s world. Check out our AC Valhalla Legendary Animals guide for detailed info on how to find and beat each one.
Lost Drengr are the remaining members of a legendary warband once led by King Ragnar Lothbrok. Now old and lacking in purpose, these warriors crave a death that will let them walk through the gates of Valhalla, and they’ve chosen you to be their mode of ascension.
Scattered across England and Norway, accepting a Lost Drengr's request will result in a fight to the death. While the Lost Drengr are aged, they’ve lost little of their ferocity in battle, so these fights are extremely tough. Make sure you’re the at the appropriate power level before taking them on. Fortunately, the rewards match the challenge, so it’s worth giving these grizzled veterans the last spot of glory they crave. Find where to find them, and how to kill the exceptional fighters in Steven's AC Valhalla Lost Drengr guide.
The Treasures of Britain are ancient artifacts made from a rare material. Scattered throughout England, they form part of the questline to retrieve Excalibur in AC Valhalla, the legendary sword purportedly wielded by King Arthur.
The Daughters of Lerion quest is based on an ancient English legend, most famously retold by Shakespeare in his play King Lear. In Valhalla’s version, Lerion was a dark wizard who was killed by the noble families of England. But his three daughters, Goneril, Regan, and Cordelia survived, going into hiding and taking their fathers occult secrets with them.
Encounters with the Daughters of Lerion take the form of boss fights, which are some of the toughest in the game. Each fight has a couple of phases, and their attacks will knock giant chunks off your health bar. The Daughters of Lerion forms part of the questline to retrieve the AC Valhalla Thor gear.
