The Assassin’s Creed Valhalla Adventurer, Explorer, and Pathfinder difficulties initially seem quite vague. The game only yields a short sentence explaining all three of them. They are a bit similar but contain enough differences to be worth looking into. Here’s what is different about each exploration difficulty.
Assassin’s Creed Valhalla Adventurer, Explorer, Pathfinder differences
While players have to pick one of these difficulties to start out with, they can freely switch between them at any time by going to the “Gameplay” section in the options menu. There is also a custom mode where bits and pieces can be taken from each mode. Achievement and trophy hunters also need not fret since there are no difficulty trophies or achievements. Each section will show the same moment and mission with the different modes.
Adventurer difficulty
Adventurer difficulty is the “easy” mode of the exploration options and spells out a lot of things for the player. The game notifies the player when a mission is nearby, has more dots on the compass, and divulges exactly how far each of them is away. However, players still have to find their objectives within quite a few search zones. Some missions, including those where only very vague hints are given, will mark the general area on the map, unlike the other two modes.
Here is the map of the above mission where there are labeled dots on the compass. The mission area in the map shown below is also labeled with a turquoise question mark diamond near the cluster of yellow dots.
Explorer difficulty
Explorer is the default mode but it’s not that much different than Adventurer. There a decent amount of dots on the compass and are each marked with how far they are away. Many missions still make the player find the objective in the mode, like Adventurer and Pathfinder. However, Explorer is more like Pathfinder in the sense that some missions make the player find the area.
For example, the picture below does not have the turquoise question mark. Instead, players have to read the hints on in the mission objective part of the HUD.
Pathfinder difficulty
Pathfinder is the “hard” version of the three, but it’s only just a little more vague. Fewer dots cloud the compass at the top of the screen (because it picks them up at a shorter range) and it does not label how far each is away. Sýnin, the bird, is best used for judging the distance between Eivor and the dots on the compass. The game also doesn’t notify the player of nearby missions. It is up to them to keep track of what they are near.
However, this mode is still pretty generous. Players can still have the mission objectives on the upper left side of the screen (which can be turned off) and the blue mission mark will still almost always show up. It isn’t quite as hardcore as it sounds, mostly thanks to that aforementioned constant turquoise symbol marking mission-critical objectives. And like Explorer, some missions will make the player read the context clues to figure out where to go. It is very inconsistent on what missions make the player deduce where to go, which is already quite rare.
