As a boy, nothing fascinated me more than the stories of Vikings. If there was a show on television or a movie that featured Vikings or Norsemen, I wanted to see it. I wanted to wear those funny horned helmets (I know they really didn’t wear them), explore, wage war and pillage and do all the other wild and barbaric things that the Vikings had attributed to them. Vikings were just plain cool.
So when I heard that Fatshark Games was releasing a game called War of the Vikings, I was grinning from ear to ear. Now was my chance, I thought, to actually become the Viking I always wanted to be. – at least for a little bit of my day. Fortunately, the game is available now as an early access release on Steam. Since it is early access, it is not complete, but it is fun and promising nonetheless.
If you liked the War of the Roses or Mount and Blade series, you are probably going to like this game. Although the gameplay is similar to its predecessor, War of the Roses, it seems a little more responsive, probably because of the lack of the heavy armor the medieval knights had in the earlier game. The graphics in this game are spectacular, as well as the detail and depth of the scenery and setting.
Perhaps because it is still in early release, the game seems a little sparse right now. There are a limited number of maps, with only 2 small maps and 2 large maps. Currently only the team death match and arena modes are available. Weapons classes are limited to archer, sword and shield, and huge two-handed axes. And customization, which is one of the true great strengths of the War of the Roses game, is a little lacking. Fatshark promises to fix all of these issues in the coming months.
The action in the multiplayer game can be describe with one word – CHAOTIC. There is hacking and slashing and more hacking and slashing, but really, isn’t that what being a Viking is all about. If you are expecting to finesse your way through battle, you’d better reconsider. This game is all about action!
It will be interesting to see where Fatshark takes this. So far, it seems very promising. Since this is a preview, I’m not going to give it a score just yet. That wouldn’t be fair. When the final release comes out sometime in the first quarter of 2014, I might give it another go.