War of the Vikings Review - Not so deadly

War of the Vikings can be considered as the “sequel” to 2012′s War of the Roses; a medieval multiplayer action game which was overshadowed by Chivalry: Medieval Warfare , a similar game (albeit in first person) that launched around the same time. Unfortunately for War of the Roses, the game was quickly forgotten and servers became a ghost town within mere months. Even a large, free upgrade and many giveaways didn’t keep player’s attention for long, and War of the Roses is now a forgotten game. This time, developer Fatshark are going to give the series another go with a viking theme, but is War of the Vikings just a palette-swap of its predecessor or a proper upgrade?

 

Just like its predecessor, War of the Vikings is meant to be played online only, with only a short tutorial teaching you the basics; swinging, blocking and how to use ranged weapons available offline before immediately leaving you to fend for yourself in online matches. Luckily, the short tutorial is really all you need to understand the game, withing just one or two online matches you will get used to the game’s mechanics and strategies and then you’ll be swinging axes and tossing throwing knives just like the meanest vikings of the north. If you’ve played War of the Roses, you won’t have a problem jumping in, as War of the Vikings plays exactly like it with only very minor changes being applied to the formula.

Battles in War of the Vikings are fairly chaotic, as Vikings and Saxons run at each other wailing giant, two handed swords and axes whilst others stay back and try and do damage with their bows and arrows or other ranged weapons. Things get messy and brutal quickly, as just a few hits are usually enough to get you knocked down, so melee fights are usually short but very intense. Two handed weapons hit hard at the cost of low attack speed and poor blocking, having a shield means you can only wield one handed weapons but, on the up side, the shield can block attacks much more effectively and makes you very tough to kill on a one-on-one scenario. Archers, obviously, are very strong from afar and gain bonus damage with a correct timing and headshots, however, they are very weak in melee as they can only carry a short sword or axe.

 

Whilst the combat is very fun and the current maps are all good, war of the Vikings falls short in the variety department. Compared to War of the Roses, or even your average multiplayer game, War of the Roses has very little to offer. Currently, there are only three game modes and a handful of maps, which means you can play every map in every game mode in just a few hours. Veterans of War of the Roses will also be disappointed about the lack of customization options: in War of the Roses, class customization allowed you to chose everything about your class, down to what kind of arrowhead you were using and what kind of metal your weapon was made of. This added a lot of depth to the multiplayer and made creating your custom class feel very unique as it was nigh impossible for another player to have the same loadout. The silver lining in this decision is that at least the customization is more streamlined and easier to understand for new players, however, it feels like there are only so many ways you can take one class and loadouts end up being very similar from one another.

There really isn’t much else to say about War of the Vikings. Veterans of the series will know exactly what to expect, and the game will feel more like a re-skinned War of the Roses with less content and less customization options. New players will enjoy what the game has to offer if they are looking for an alternative to Chivalry, however the lack of content is eventually felt and I don’t expect a lot of players to stick around for much. In fact, the number of active player since the release has decreased quite visibly already, and funnily enough, War of the Roses gained more popularity and is currently being played more than War of the Vikings.

Overall, I don’t think War of the Vikings is worth your time just yet. Whilst the foundations for a solid multiplayer experience are there (I did have a lot of fun reviewing the game), the content simply isn’t.

If you feel like you could enjoy a game such as this one, I recommend trying out War of the Roses, which is much richer in terms of content and even player base, at the moment. Additional content patches should be arriving to War of the Vikings soon but, at the moment, you are better off waiting for a free weekend to try it out and maybe pick it up for a nice discount; this could all be solved with modding tools, but in the latest interview Producer Gordon Van Dyke just confirmed us that they’re looking into it, with no timeframe yet available.