Ubisoft hosted a livestream where host and producer Youssef Maguid and PR intern Ellie Vengala sat down with Assassin's Creed Valhalla narrative director Darby McDevitt to talk about the game's ending. The conversation was full of fascinating insight into the design decisions behind many of the major storytelling moments in Valhalla, including the tidbit that the game's major final reveal actually wasn't a part of the original plan for the game.

Perhaps this goes without saying, but major spoilers for Valhalla follow. If you haven't yet picked up the game and beaten it, you should. In GameSpot's Assassin's Creed Valhalla review, I said, "Despite its strong connection to past games, Assassin's Creed Valhalla is more than capable of standing on its own. It takes a little while to build momentum, but when it hits its stride, Valhalla is a confident Assassin's Creed title that takes a few narrative risks which, as a whole, pay off."

So onto the spoilers. Turns out, Valhalla originally didn't end with the modern day protagonist becoming Basim. "Later in production--I remember [the game director] saying, 'What if we switched to him as the modern day protagonist?'" McDevitt said during the livestream. "And that became an interesting idea because the original idea was that once Layla is gone, maybe you go back and you play as Shaun or Rebecca and you get to choose, you get to swap back-and-forth and play as them."