I have played nearly all AC games until Odyssey then dropping it after about 20h of extremely boring grind just to be able to progress the story. I then decided not to touch these games anymore if they don't change and apparently Valhalla was even worse..? I'm very curious about Shadows but afraid it's the same "pay to progress faster" bullshit. Can you tell me what's it like?

Thank you for the reply - it's much appreciated!

My issue is not with the length (for comparison, I have 150h in Elden ring + dlc without finishing it even once, also in e.g. Cyberpunk pretty much all the side missions are also great and well designed). My issue with Odyssey was that I couldn't go on with the story without grinding generic sidemissions to level up since the main story was so tightly glued to levels. At the same time you get constant ads to purchase "double xp for two days" or something. Too many side missions were clearly built just to make you consider buying xp boost not to have to deal with them.

Too bad that the main stories are usually great but you need to pay extra on top to be able to enjoy them as I think they are actually meant to be played. Also, I usually come back to the unfinished side quests after passing the game once.