Assassin's Creed: Valhalla - Level system explained: Power Level, max Level cap and how to get XP fast
How your power level works and how to raise it.
Power Level is a fairly unique take on levelling up and gauging your progress in Assassin's Creed: Valhalla, working differently to the Level system of previous entries.
Your Power Level is closely tied to your skills this time, as opposed to gear, and while XP plays a role there are arguably more important things to bear in mind.
With that said, below we'll explain everything you need to know about how to levelling works in Valhalla, including the max level cap and anything else of note.
On this page:
If you're looking for more explainers or things to collect, then see our lists of Treasure Hoard maps and Book of Knowledge and ability locations.
Assassin's Creed: Valhalla's Level system explained - how does your Power Level work?
Similar to other Assassin's Creed games, as you explore the world you'll notice each region has a recommended Power Level, often, in the early game, on that's way above yours. But unlike other Assassin's Creed games, or indeed other RPGs, your Power Level isn't affected at all by your gear.
Instead, Power Level in Assassin's Creed: Valhalla represents how many Skill Points you've earned, or more specifically: it's solely determined by how many Skill Points you've assigned to Eivor's skill tree.
To be clear, Skill Points only count towards your Power Level when assigned, not just as soon as they're earned - so if you're Power Level 32 and earn two more Skill Points for filling up your XP bar, you are still Level 32 until you go and assign those two Skill Points in the skill tree. Raising your Power Level is about earning Skill Points, then - the more you earn the more you can assign, and the higher your Power Level will go. (We explain how to earn them fast in the section below, if you want to skip ahead).
The good news is you don't need to worry too much about Power Level when it comes to just exploring the world itself. A region's Power Level indicates the strength of its enemies, but the majority of that region's activities - wealth, mysteries, artifacts, and the like - are still perfectly accessible. Enemy Power Level dictates both their resilience to your attacks and the strength of their own, but most grunts can still be faught with relative ease - and assassinations still work - even when you're way below their level.
There are also different icons to show an enemy's Power relative to yours. Green will mean they're weaker than you, white means it's a fair fight, red means they're noticeably stronger than you and a red skull means they're way stronger than you, and you'll probably die in one hit.
You won't instantly get battered on entering an area at a much higher level than yours, then. But you will if a high-level enemy manages to land a hit. In other words, you can explore the world freely, even tackling Raids in some cases, but just keep your wits about you when you go into a tougher region, and take extra care to avoid the toughest enemies like Zealots. If you're struggling, just head to a region more in line with your own strength and come back later.
How to increase your Power Level in Assassin's Creed: Valhalla
We've established above that your Power Level is equal to the number of Skill Points you've assigned in the skill tree - more on that in our dedicated page on Assassin's Creed: Valhalla's best skills - so to increase your Power Level, you need to earn more Skill Points and assign them.
That, then, raises the question: how do you get Skill Points? There are two ways to do it.
How to get Skill Points to increase your Power Level
- Filling up the XP bar - when you earn enough XP, the blue diamond shape that pops up in the top right of the screen which indicates your progress will fill up, and you'll be granted not one, but two XP points. In other words, every time you 'level up' from getting enough XP, you get two Points instead of the usual one, presumably to encourage you to experiment a bit more in the skill tree. More on earning XP fast just below.
- Completing Offering Altars, Standing Stone Puzzles, and getting the Excalibur-related tablets - these are puzzle-focused 'mysteries', world events that can be found in most regions across England, and they specifically grant you a single Skill Point for each one you complete.
The main one, then, is going to be through earning XP.
How to get XP fast in Assassin's Creed: Valhalla
There are a lot of ways to earn XP, as you get it for completing just about any task in Assassin's Creed: Valhalla, but the amount you get varies wildly from one activity to another. Below are the best and fastest - but by no means all - methods for earning it, in order of fastest to slowest.
- Completing Mysteries - Mysteries, the glowing blue dots on the map, vary quite a lot from one to the next. Aside from the aforementioned Offering Altars and Standing Stones, they include one-off miniature quests like Deserted Chalet, Comb of Champions, or Ledecestrescire Sauce, for example, or recurring ones like the Rygjaflke Fly Agaric, that are often very quick to finish and grant similar 1000+ XP returns to the longer main story quests. Clearing these is seemingly the fastest way to earn XP.
- Completing main story quests - these give you a large chunk of XP, usually over 1000, which more or less guarantees you fill the XP bar and get two Skill Points.
- Wealth-gathering - opening chests grants around 450XP in our experience, and are usually found at the glowing gold Wealth spots on the map. Hunting Wealth is a slower method than prioritising Mysteries, but given you get other loot at the same time it's a good two-for-one option.
- Synchronizing towers - climbing those eagle towers, synchronizing, and jumping off will reward you with around 250XP in our experience. A decent chunk but given how there's a limited number of them in the world, more of a top up than a go-to method.
- Other general activities - finally, things like killing enemies grant a very small amount of XP, discovering towns and docks or other points of interest do as well, and fishing grants you a miniscule amount that's not really worth noticing but does, technically, exist.
The new DLC is here - and we explain how to start The Siege of Paris, as well as new romance options and Treasure Hoard locations. If you're after end game activities in the full game, we can explain how to get Nodens' Arc, Excalibur, Thor gear and other Valhalla armour sets, Power Level and how to get XP fast, Order of the Ancients locations and all Assassin's Creed Valhalla story choices. If you're looking for things to collect and upgrade, we have lists on best skills and Book of Knowledge locations.
What is the max Level cap in Assassin's Creed: Valhalla?
As of the August 2021 update, the power level cap in Assassin's Creed is 430.
This is based on the number of possible skills in the game, allowing you to overshoot the highest recommended Power in certain regions, which is at 340.
This level cap gradually increases as new skills are introduced to the game - such as March 2021's patch which introduced three skills alongside the addition of features such as transmog.
It's possible major DLC expansions could see more significant increases. That said, for now, we suspect for most players getting to level 400 will keep them more than occupied.