In Assassin's Creed Valhalla, you always play as the Viking warrior Avor, but you can always choose between a female or male version. After revealing the female version, Ubisoft revealed that both are canonical, but thanks to a short video, we now know a little more about how it works.

IGN recently released a series of ads for "Assassin's Creed Valhalla" with several comedians and a small amount of game footage, including a fragment of a character selection screen; Access the Animus spotted it and shared it on Twitter, where scenario director Darby McDevitt clarified several points.

"The Animus represents a stronger female or male memory stream, depending on your current strength," the menu tooltip reads.

McDevitt explained that the Animus determines which eyeballs are canon according to memory strength. Sticking with the default choice would mean playing both characters at different points in time. Alternatively, one can choose whichever one they prefer.

This is still a bit confusing, to be honest. I've played through the entire series and I'm completely lost when it comes to how the Animus works and what is basically contemporary. I know that you don't have to use someone's descendants to access the past, so maybe they are getting their data from other sources apart from the oral and written history of their genes. If so, that might explain the gender change. Perhaps the sources are not clear, and some descriptions refer to Aver as female, while others refer to him as male.

Not having a female protagonist is a rather complicated approach, but according to a Bloomberg report in July, minimizing female protagonists has been something management has been pushing for some time. Executives, including former Chief Creative Officer Serge Hascoe, are said to have pressured developers to reduce the roles of female characters such as Evie in Syndicate and, more specifically, Aya in Origins.

According to Ubisoft, Cassandra in "Odyssey" was a legitimate protagonist and could be played through the entire game without playing as her brother, Alexios. However, marketing certainly seemed to favor male siblings, and Hascoët et al. apparently said that a female protagonist would not sell, which is why Alexios was eventually added to the game.

The fingerprints of those accused of homophobia, sexism, and harassment may still be there, as the majority of "Valhalla" took place before the wave of firings and resignations that occurred in the aftermath of the revelations about Ubisoft's toxic culture.