Review Copy
“To the glory of Valhaaallllaaaaaa!” I screamed into my mic as my Norse Marauder raised his axe high above his head and charged towards the Saxon scum. Shame I didn’t see that archer perched on the hill beside me. One arrow through the skull later and I was seeing the glorious gates of the Norse afterlife personally. By Odin it was worth it though.
Prepare to cackle maniacally as you land throwing axes square in enemies faces, cry tears of regret as you accidentally kill yet another teammate that got in your way, and yell Norse battle cries as you flail your weapon madly at anyone dumb enough to get close to you. War of the Vikings is a Third Person Arena combat game that lets you take control of the Norse or Saxons as they clout each other to death with sharp weapons over the various locales of 18th Century England.
The game features varying levels of detail and graphical settings, while the low end gives you a basic look to aid performance, when turned up the visuals can be quite stunning. The rural countryside’s and built up towns are all very beautiful to behold if you can ignore all the bloodstains and angry men stabbing each other. In particular water effects have a satisfying sunlight reflection to them when the settings are high enough and all of it adds to the atmosphere. Each of the soldiers you play as are designed very well, the two factions have distinctly different appearances. To top it off the game is accompanied by a full instrumental soundtrack which is reflective of the game’s time era. The drums, strings, and wind instruments are just great to listen to and the war music really helps get the bloodlust flowing during a large skirmishes.
The gameplay consists entirely of multiplayer online matches. When you join a game you are able to pick to be a Norse or a Saxon. The game offers a variety of gametypes with deathmatch and arena being the primary two. Deathmatch is as it sounds, two teams kill each other, respawning each time they die until one reaches a set amount of kills. Arena on the other hand lets the two team spawn and duke it out with each death being permanent. Once either team is wiped out, the points are awarded to the surviving one, and a new round then begins and winning team over the set rounds, will be the overall winner. There are other game modes that built on these two formulas, but at its core these are the main types you’ll find.
Fatshark boast a fully skill driven combat system for War of the Vikings. Combat utilises the mouse in full, forcing you to not only time your swings for maximum damage, but also consider which direction you swing from, defenders need to position and block correctly to avoid being hit from attacks. It only takes 1 to 4 swings to take down an opponent depending on the power of each swing, so it is in the best interest of the player to adopt a tactical play style and avoid taking damage. Attacks will be interrupted by hits too, so don’t expect to run in with an axe and crush everything through the pain.
The game clearly draws inspiration from the Call of Duty franchise. In some ways the inspiration is subtle, some others not so much. The biggest way is the class system. Assuming you don’t purchase any extra content (see below) the game starts you with 1 basic class. As you get kills you rank up, you unlock new classes with each rank and after a few ranks you’ll gain the ability to customise your own class, using in game money to purchase weapons for use. Once you get past this initial barrier the freedom is greater and having your own style of play helps you enjoy the experience furthermore.
As the game features no singleplayer mode the narrative is told entirely through the multiplayer battles. While no specific story is thrown in your face, the aesthetics and the voice over’s give you a feel for what you’re here to do. The game has various voice over’s where Saxons, or Vikings respectively call out to you as you play, updating you when the tide of battle falls from your favour or vice versa. When you lose a match you’re met with a relevant response from your invisible allies, equally when you achieve victory you are praised for your skill and it all adds to the immersion. The simplicity of the goal you’re set (kill the enemy) combined with the subtle voice-overs from you and your allies are surprisingly good at drawing the player in.
At time of writing I have clocked over 9 hours of play time within War of the Vikings. The multiplayer focus means that battles can always go differently, with enough maps of different sizes to vary up the gameplay feel. You can get a large amount of replay value alone from this, and with different game types to take your fancy you can mix it up and get continuous enjoyment for hours upon end. The developers Fatshark have mentioned that further content will be released down the line so this could bring even more replay value to an already great game.
In summary War of the Vikings is very good, but not without its negatives. The combat is challenging and it’s fun to duke out with other players. However, it can be frustrating when the skill difference between you and a foe is very high. It can feel like all players are better than you at times, which is demoralising. Once you get into the swing of the game it can be hugely entertaining, so long as you can stay physically connected to the game. Poor connection can make the game largely impossible to play. Combat is all about timing and coordination, both of which are hard to execute when your opponent is blinking all over the screen like a Mage with no cool down.
Some servers will even boot you if your ping is not consistently high enough, which is very annoying. Those that enjoy arena combat and deathmatch games will feel right at home, but for those with a penchant for less confrontational games will likely not enjoy themselves due to the entirely PvP nature of the game. For what it is though, War of the Vikings is a very well executed game. There’s a lot of enjoyment to be had if you can break past that initial struggle and break into the customisation and weapons.
War of the Vikings is available right now on Steam for £18.99. You can purchase/upgrade to the Blood Eagle Edition at £26.99 and it will come with an art book, soundtrack, special items and more. If that isn’t enough either, you can purchase/upgrade to the Valhalla Edition at £134.99 which will grant you all of the previous items, some extra in-game content, plus all current and future items free to purchase once the correct level is unlocked.
“SEE YOU IN VALHALLA BROTHER!”