Assassin's Creed Valhalla has a Lord of the Rings Easter egg

Assassin's Creed Valhalla
(Image credit: Ubisoft)

Assassin's Creed Valhalla has a Lord of the Rings Easter egg that's incredibly well-researched, according to Eurogamer

In Assassin's Creed Valhalla, head to the west side of the city Gloucester (Glowecestre), which you'll get to later in the game, to discover the Lord of the Rings reference. There's a pagan community living in Gloucester inside moss-covered homes, and inside one of those homes is a note. The note reads: "One of the little folk asked me to make the door smaller, as he wants to keep unruly houseguests from his house. After the nonsense with the druid last fall, I can see his point." Oh, and there's a ring on top of the envelope, in case the reference wasn't obvious enough.

Moss-covered homes, "little folk", and "druid" all point to Hobbiton, Hobbits, and Gandalf. The note writer in question certainly sounds like a cranky fellow, so we can safely assume it's Bilbo Baggins trying to keep unruly folk like Gandalf out of his home. But the Easter egg goes one step further, according to Eurogamer's Emma Kent.

J.R.R. Tolkien's seminal texts were reportedly inspired by visits to Lydney Park in Gloucestershire in 1929, so the location of the Easter egg is even more in-depth. It's clear that Ubisoft did some serious historical research when working on Assassin's Creed Valhalla, even when an Easter egg is involved. 

While you can't start a quest to bring the ring to Mordor, there's still plenty to do in Assassin's Creed Valhalla, so don't fret. 

Get Viking strong with our Assassin's Creed Valhalla tips

Alyssa Mercante

Alyssa Mercante is an editor and features writer at GamesRadar based out of Brooklyn, NY. Prior to entering the industry, she got her Masters's degree in Modern and Contemporary Literature at Newcastle University with a dissertation focusing on contemporary indie games. She spends most of her time playing competitive shooters and in-depth RPGs and was recently on a PAX Panel about the best bars in video games. In her spare time Alyssa rescues cats, practices her Italian, and plays soccer.