One of the major new features in Eivor's Britain-bothering adventure is the AC Valhalla settlement, a place you can call home that can be upgraded over the course of the game. Upgrading your settlement transforms it from a tiny hamlet into a bustling hub where you can greet your townsfolk, pick up quests, and speak to merchants, all while earning resources elsewhere so you can further develop the size and scope of your new home.
This Assassin's Creed Valhalla settlement guide will run through all of the important aspects of the system, explaining how to unlock it, where to find the resources you need to upgrade it, and which buildings you should focus on to get the most out of your new home of Ravensthorpe.
Here's when you unlock the Assassin's Creed Valhalla settlement
You unlock the settlement quite early in Valhalla. There are several main missions to complete in Norway as you prepare to leave Scandinavia for Britain, but once you arrive on the shores of England you'll get the keys to the settlement almost immediately. Try to get everything you need from Norway before leaving, but remember you can fast-travel back to your ancestral home whenever you like from the map screen.
Once you land on British shores, you'll receive the Ravensthorpe settlement, at which point Valhalla's storyline gets into full swing. You'll also be introduced to the settlement construction system, where you can gather resources in order to construct new homes for your settlers, as well as more functional buildings.
How to get settlement upgrade resources in Assassin's Creed Valhalla
The best way to find resources to upgrade your settlement is to embark on raids with your Viking crew. Specifically, you're looking for two key resources, Supplies and Raw Materials. The former can be found in Camps, while the latter are squirreled away in Monasteries.
You mainly find these resources in chests scattered across the map and as rewards for delivering animal parts and other lesser items to settlement vendors. You can speak to the Cartographer to receive maps that point you towards building resources.
Every settlement building, explained
Barracks
Once you unlock the barracks, you can call on the services of an NPC called Eydis. Eydis will help you to create the Jomsviking, your very own special raiding Viking which you can customize with the weapons and armour owned by Eivor.
Once you create your Jomsviking, they can be recruited by other players and you'll receive silver for their services. You can also customise the members of your raiding crew via the Barracks, selecting who gets to join you when you pillage the camps and monasteries of England.
Shipyard
Unlocking the shipyard lets you speak to Gudrun and Gudmund, enabling you to customise the aesthetic of your Viking longship near the shore. From here you can change the hull, sail, shields, figurehead, and tailpiece of your craft.
Blacksmith
You'll be prompted to unlock the Blacksmith as part of the main story. When you do, you'll be able to upgrade your gear using the Carbon, Nickel and Tungsten Ingots you find throughout the world, marked by the gold ‘Wealth' symbols. This lets you upgrade the rank of a given item. It won't let you upgrade the damage of your weapons, however, as this is done in the game's inventory menu.
Cartographer
If you construct the Cartographer building, you'll be able to speak to an NPC called Olsen and purchase special maps. These reveal the locations of hidden Ingots, Raw Materials, and more in the many territories across England.
Hidden One's Bureau
Helping Hytham construct the Hidden One's Bureau will open up the Order of the Ancients questline, similar to the Cult of Kosmos seen in Assassin's Creed Odyssey. You'll also unlock the Leap of Faith ability, which lets you leap gracefully into bales of hay.
These missions are important to the main questline of Assassin's Creed Valhalla, so it's worth constructing the Bureau as soon as possible. You can then give Hytham medallions taken from the bodies of Order members to unlock special abilities, as well as providing him with codex pages to complete a separate questline.
Fishing Hut
Construct the Fishing Hut to meet Merton and his grandson Arth. They will provide you with a Fishing Line accessible from the radial menu. This lets you catch fish, which you can deliver to Arth and swap for runes, Ingots, and customization kits.
Trading Post
Construct the Trading Post to unlock Yanli as the merchant for the camp, to whom you can sell your trinkets, runes, and trade goods. You can also pick up resources like arrows, rations, crafting goods like Ingots and Ore, runes, gear, and cosmetic schemes.
Hunter's Hut
You'll meet Wallace the Tanner and Petra the Hunter if you unlock this building, letting you hunt Legendary Animals throughout the world and trade in your animal parts for runes, resources and cosmetic schemes.
Stable and Aviary
Unlock the stable to meet Rowan, who will let you customise the look of your horse and raven with cosmetic schemes you can purchase with silver. You can also use Rowan to train your mount and unlock abilities that let your horse maintain its stamina, survive for longer, and swim through water instead of avoiding it. This last ability is particularly important if you plan to navigate England with any sort of speed.
Seer's Hut
Building the Seer's Hut will let you speak to Valka the Seer, who you initially meet during the game's opening in Norway. Valka will offer up a special potion Eivor can drink that will take her to Asgard (yes, really). Here you'll team up with gods to take down all manner of beasts. Before long you'll also be able to access Jotunheim, another Norse realm via the Seer's Hut.
Tattoo Shop
Building the Tattoo Shop for Svend and Tove will let you further customise how Eivor looks. Specifically, it gives you access to hair and tattoo options. You can opt for short, long, exotic, savage, or shaved hair for your protagonist, alongside a variety of tattoo styles which can be found throughout the world.
Museum
Build the museum to meet Octavian, who you can give Roman artefacts to in order to trade for cosmetic settlement statues. This will also open up a small questline with a warring collector.
Reda's Shop
As you keep upgrading your settlement, you'll eventually be visited by Reda, a young man of the Thousand Eyes cult. Reda is a merchant who will offer you special gear and settlement cosmetics that refresh on a weekly and daily basis. Reda also offers contracts that earn you extra Opals (a particularly rare resource). These include assassination tasks and other errands.
Other settlement buildings
All settlement buildings listed below don't offer any major benefits. Instead, they upgrade the efficiency of the feast mechanic. If you look on the side of your longhouse, you'll see a dinner bell. If you ring it, you can gather all of the townsfolk together for a sumptuous meal. You'll receive special stat boosts as a reward, with different boosts available depending on which settlement buildings you own.
The buildings that boost your feast rewards are as follows:
- Mayda's House
- Kari's House
- Hunwald and Swanburrow's House
- Bakery
- Brewery
- Fowl Farm
- Cattle Farm
- Grain Farm
