Northgard is a splendid RTS about rearing a clan of vikings in a punishing climate that makes every decision matter. But you’ve read my review, and you already know all that. Northgard is a fantastic game in the present, but what does its future hold? I spoke to CEO of Shiro Games and Northgard dev Sebastien Vidal about what we’ll see in the next update, competitive play, and expansion plans for further down the line.
My clan folk are starving, freezing and diseased. It was a harsh winter, and the rats that raided our food supply in January have forced me to butcher my only remaining sheep. The future looks grim, but my people s suffering is curtailed when one of my opponents becomes so famous that he wins the game outright. Losing is a strange kind of mercy.
Despite its harshness, Northgard is a superb RTS that s easy to pick up but difficult to master. That may be an overused phrase, but it s justified here – let me tell you why. Hurry up, winter is coming.
Developer Shiro Games' Viking-themed real-time strategy Northgard has now properly released on Steam, following a year of early access development.
Northgard has attracted a decent amount of praise from strategy fans over the last 12 months. On a basic level, it's a lot like the classic Settlers series, insofar as you're tasked with establishing a settlement and slowing building it up through careful exploration, resource management, and expansion. In practice though, it has a rhythm and pace all of its own, thanks to some atypical design choices that set it apart from its peers.
Its big distinction is that each map is split into separate zones, which you'll need to individually scout, rid of enemies, and finally colonise in order to grow your settlement.
Viking RTS Northgard has just swept out of Early Access, adding a singleplayer campaign in the process. Think of the game as a bit like Age of Empires, only with more snow and four-winged dragons. It sold more than 600,000 copies in its year-long Early Access, and T.J. enjoyed his time with it last year when it was still just a Skirmish mode vs the AI, so it might be worth a look.
You start off foraging for food, eventually gathering enough resources to build a settlement and have your villagers specialise in a particular job, like a warrior or a woodcutter. Where it differs from the classic Age of Empires formula is that the map is split into sections, and gaining control of each area (either by spending resources or defeating an enemy force in that area) will let you construct more buildings—each area has limited building space.
The update that brings it out of Early Access is a big one, and that campaign mode is the main addition. You play Rig, son of the Viking High King. Your father is murdered and his Regal Horn is stolen, and it's your job to quest through the wilds for vengeance. During its 11 chapters you'll get a chance to master each of the game's six clans, which should make it an ideal intro for beginners and give you some of the skills you'll need in skirmish and multiplayer.
Speaking of, you'll now be able to create solo or online multiplayer games across seven different environments. The latest update also adds combat penalties that ramp up as you travel further from friendly territory and rebalances the clans, which you can read all about in the patch notes.
It's been on my list for a while, and I'm definitely keen to check it out. If you are too, then it's $22.50/£17.84 on Steam, which includes a 25% discount that lasts until next week.
Correction: The early access piece was from a year & two weeks ago, not two weeks.>
We come from the land of the ice and snow~> From the midnight sun, where the hot springs flow~>
If you’ve been anywhere near the UK this past week, you’ll have probably seen Winter (with a capital W) coming back for one last clawing grasp at our dreary little isle. Perhaps some of you even took a liking to the sight of snow on the ground, and your breath condensing in the air. These people are wrong and bad, but we love them anyway.
Mercifully, we exile those poor, wrong-headed folks to the frozen north now, albeit in RTS form. Northgard, the clever little Viking town-building strategy game from French outfit Shiro Games is out now, after a well-received stretch in the icy fjords of Steam Early Access.
generating buildings are built. They now only improve food production of Fishermen, Hunters and Farmers production bonus for healers with Medecine
production bonus for Menders and Sailors
production bonus for Skalds and Sailors production for Skalds production for Menders/ production for Sailors (depending on your choosing) production for Healers
and its Krown upgrade cost has been lowered from 50 
to 25 and +5 (when upgraded) to +2 and +4 
Any resemblance to real months is purely coincidental 
generating buildings are built. They now only improve food production of Fishermen, Hunters and Farmers production bonus for healers with Medecine production bonus for Menders and Sailors production bonus for Skalds and Sailors production for Skalds production for Menders/ production for Sailors (depending on your choosing) production for Healers and its Krown upgrade cost has been lowered from 50 to 25 and +5 (when upgraded) to +2 and +4 Any resemblance to real months is purely coincidental