Displaying items by tag: Vikings

Valheim is a Viking survival game, released on steam the 2nd of February 2021. While being on the top sellers list and with over 86 000 reviews, is it a very promising game. After eight days of the release date, it was already sold over 1 million times, five days after that it reached over 2 million. Astonishing!

Adventure time with your friends

The game’s progress is similar to the forest or Rust, in that your advancement feels more than natural. You start your adventure as a Viking, reborn in the 10^th world of the world tree Yggdrasil. The mission, which you got from Odin itself, is to hunt down some of his arch enemies.

In the beginning you find yourself in a simple but vast meadow, where you learn how to build a simple shelter, hunt and how to fight. From there you start to build your settlement. Then step by step you gather materials to make progression in your tools and weapons.

Soon in the beginning you must fight your first Boss, Eikthyr, a huge deer with massive antlers. With his antlers you can craft a pickaxe and so your progress continues.

To help you through the game Odin’s raven Hugin gives you useful tips how to proceed in the game.

Survival game but without survival game obstacels

Valheim is also very forgiving, without the usual survival problems, as expiring food, repair costs for your tools and weapons or expansion costs. Food can easily be hunted or gathered, but the better the food, the higher are your hit points as well as your stamina. But the important thing is, that hunger cannot kill you! Building can be a little bit tricky but after a while you know how to place your walls, doors, roofs etc. and your settlement can grow.

Enemies are in the beginning easy to kill, but as you advance in your adventure the thougher they get. Which means that it is important to pay attention to your food and equipment.

So, like in other survival games, you can not get in too deep without understanding your starting tools and how to fight properly.

The Graphics

Do not be shocked over the visual style. The low-resolution retro textures, help to provide a stunning and wonderful world. The lack of details is balanced buy the incredible sights. Sailing the sea, with your own built ship, is more then immersive and when the sun shine rises and shines through the trees, everything bad is forgotten.

When you are that kind of person, who values gameplay over graphics, then Valheim is definitely a game for you. What the game does with such simple textures is very impressive.

Conclusion

An early access crafting and survival indie game that actually works! Nothing new for sure, but the developers of Iron Gate Studio made an impressive and gorgeous job. Buy sanding down and smoothening the grinding, the survival experience is even ore relaxing to play. And with only 16,79€ a more then correct price.

Definitely on my list for the top games of 2021!

Northgard: A Viking RTS game

Northgard started first released in February 2017 on steam, as an early access game. A year and after more than twenty updates later, the indie game was finally released as a completed game.

In addition, it got a multiplayer modus and a story campaign; through which Northgard managed to develop itself into a serious competitor against titles such as Tropico and the Anno series.

The rough world of the Vikings

In the story campaign we follow the strory of Rig, a proud Viking, who was the only survivor of his clan after a raid. His thrive throughout the story is to avenge his clan.

During the eleven, well designed and diverse, story chapters, we fight ourselves through the harsh and cold Viking world. Besides of raiding other villages, we also have to focus on trading, killing wolves in different forests to get wood, look after our villagers and scout for mysterious runes.

At the beginning of every chapter, we start with one parish hall, a few resources and some villagers. The first thing we have to do, as in all real time strategy games, is searching for supplies to enlarge our settlement.

Northgard is very beginner-friendly and you learn quite fast how things work.

Well fed settlers are happy settlers

By building hunting lodges, lumberjack huts and mines, we can transform our settlers into hunters, lumberjacks and miners. (obviously XD)

How good our stocks are, is showed on top right of your screen, which we have to observe permanently. Being vary of the resources is important, because besides our production, we are also consuming our supplies ourselves, additional to the fact that they are needed in order for us to acquire new upgrade and buildings.

Furthermore, we have to build the scouting hut, to obtain a scout, who discovers new fields, which can be colonised in exchange for food.

Our parish hall is constantly producing new settlers, for as long as they are happy. That means you have to pay attention, that there are always enough houses, food and burning wood.

Nature is our biggest enemy

We have to pay permanently attention to our settlement at all times, because besides being attacked by wolves, Draugrs and not so friendly neighbours, nature can be really harsh to.

For instance, in winter there is always a chance of a snowstorm, which leads large decrease of fire wood and food. In summer, there are high chances for earthquakes, which lead to your buildings taking damage, that you have to repair. follwed by fall, during which mice can lead to a lack of food.

Conclusion

If you like the Norse mythology and are a fan of RTS games, Northgard is defenitly a game worth trying. However, keep in mind that fighting enemies and paying attention to mother nature can still be a challenge!