It isn’t often we get the chance to adventure through a procedural world loaded with Norse mythology in every corner. This unique survival experience featured in Tribes of Midgard has been created by Norsfell and brought to multiple platforms through Gearbox Publishing. Hosting a few different modes to play through and the immediate introduction of seasonal sagas, this game doesn’t just start off strong; it starts off with a plan to keep the action going! But does this game hold an entertainment value that would be worth playing through more than once?

Gameplay

While there are two game modes that can be played in both single-player and multiplayer fashions, the general gameplay remains the same for them. The two modes available are Saga Mode and Survival Mode. The difference between the two modes is how you handle each one.

Survival mode is meant to be handled with the concept of long-term care and building up your village to survive in the harsh Viking world. I made the mistake of trying to handle it somewhat like the Saga mode and I failed faster during the first blood moon event, which is pretty pitifully quick. When playing in this mode, make sure to put focus on your tree’s health life in the beginning and level up the merchant’s and town’s defenses later because you will find yourself having a rough start if not properly managed.

Saga mode, however, is much different in the fact that it is meant to be a somewhat kick session. If you play it on single-player you can save and come back, but on multiplayer sessions (which can have up to ten players), you will have to wrap it all up in one go - which will last roughly two to three hours. In these sessions, you want to be quick to level up your merchants, put just enough resources into your town defenses to have something there, and focus on the main goals of the game. In this mode, your character reaches a max level of ten and the goal is to reach the Saga boss and defeat him before the tree dies. Understand this though - by day fifteen, you will have a very hard time sustaining yourselves while venturing due to how the world becomes colder and colder as you progress. The latest day I reached so far was thirteen and we almost beat the Saga boss before it was inevitable to sustain ourselves and had to Bifrost out.

Now, let’s go over some of the specifics to explain what everything is. When you start a world, you will need to gather material to build weapons, armor, tools, and potions. These materials can be found from the natural resources around the map, found in camps that you can raid, and in the more dungeon-like areas such as the underpass and hideout. As you collect materials and kill enemies, you will earn souls. Souls are basically the main currency of the game as they are used to level up merchants, give your Seed of Yggdrasil (tree in the center of the village) more essence to survive, repair your items, and do pretty much anything else you need to do. The only thing that doesn’t cost souls is what you get from the merchants and that is because they use materials that you collect to make what you need.

The only merchant that you won’t be able to level up is the woman in the center next to the quest board and that is because she is the village healer. She can be activated at any time, but there is a two-minute wait time after she gives out heals. Behind her is a chest that can be opened with one golden horn, a currency item used in the shops for cosmetics, and that chest will grant one rune at random. Of course, you can find random runes while roaming the land as well, but if you wanted one right away you can use that chest. The runes will give a random attribute bonus, so be sure to read the rune once you get it.

As you level up your character, you will be given Blessing points. These points are used to give your character strength in a class of your choice. At first, you will only have Archer and Warrior, but there are other classes that can be unlocked through in-game actions. Personally, I am a fan of the Warrior class due to his dodge without taking damage, self-revive, and attack damage bonus traits.

There are important aspects of the game to know though. The Seed of Yggdrasil is essentially the world’s life bar and if the tree dies, so does the world. Every night your village and life tree will be attacked by Helthings and while your merchants will assist in fighting against them, you will need to help defend the life tree as well. When there is a blood moon, you will have the hardest night fight against the Helthings, but the next night will be promised to not have any appear, giving you a free night to explore more. Jotunn’s will randomly appear in the world, but never more than one at a time. You get the most souls and materials when a Jotunn is defeated, but every time a new one spawns they will be stronger and have more health. So, a good trick here is to get their health really low and then leave them alone to collect resources and complete quests. Wait for the notice that the Jotunn is close to your village and then defeat it. This will give you the most time without a Jotunn threat and allow the chance to complete what needs to be done.

Make sure everybody is handling things as a team and not individually. By this, I mean that there need to be a couple of people completing quests, everybody should be gathering as many materials and souls as possible, a couple of people need to be completing special events that arrive on the map, and the team should be working together when the Jotunn’s arrive. When you do reach the portal to the Saga boss, you will need fragments from the different aspects in this game and by not having enough of these, you’re doomed to fail.

If you do realize that the world is doomed and there is no way that the team will be able to recover, the way to get the most points from your world is to Bifrost out. Typically, the Bifrost can be found pretty close to the village, but it doesn’t activate until the first Jotunn is defeated. When you Bifrost out of a world, you are abandoning it and won’t be able to return, but you get more points from the game than you would if you just go down with the world.

Spoiler Section! Skip to “Video and Audio” to avoid direct gameplay tips!

The steps you need to take to complete a game are pretty straightforward once you get the hang of it.

1) Find the bridge that leads to the Saga boss - it will lead into a snowy area. Start working on building it.
2) Find the underpass that leads to the Hideout - it will lead into a desert area.
3) Open the chest on the bottom floor of the Hideout - you will have to defeat two trolls to unlock it.
4) Find the Saga boss portal and activate the Shrine next to it - have the team prepare to fight the boss and use the Shrine to get there.
5) Place all the needed fragments to activate the portal.

When preparing for the Saga boss, your Seed of Yggdrasil will still be under threat of the Helthings at night. You will want to try and time the start of the Saga boss with the start of a fresh day. If you can start the fight following a blood moon night, that would be prime. Make sure everybody has Repair potions so they can just drink that to repair their weapons without having to return to town. Protection potions are pretty helpful for the fight as well as it makes players nigh-invincible for a short time and will affect players near the user.

If you don’t have what you need to make Heatproof or Frostproof potions, an alternative is to make Speed potions and a few small health potions. It’s not great, but it will help you if you are just trying to find the Hideout or Saga boss locations.

Video and Audio

Giving a top-down point-of-view was easily the best choice for this game. It comes in handy with literally every aspect of the game and makes the fights against giants seem less ridiculous than it sounds when explained. Add on that the overall graphic quality is appealing to the genre.

When it comes to the Audio, however, it felt more like it was all about the sound effects. There is some music to the game, but it blends into the background so well that it is practically unnoticeable. This isn’t really a bad thing as the sound effects are well crafted, but it would have been nice to include a bit more of an accent to aspects like fighting a Jotun and the life tree health getting low.

Replayability

This game is nothing but replayable! Even if you are by yourself, you can play both of the game modes that are there and the game is altered just enough to give players the proper difficulty. Plus, when you make a world you can adjust it to fit how many players are expected to be active in the game and the difficulties of everything else that goes on. The world map is generated randomly as well, so it is always like exploring a new land.

They also have plenty of rewards to unlock as you progress through the game. Even the classes that you can set your character up as have some to be unlocked through activities in the game. With out-of-the-world goals to reach and a difficult in-game goal to reach, there is always a reason to keep playing this game.

What Could Be Better

Sometimes the quests are either not very clear or perhaps the font is just too small and can be misread. I have a fairly good-sized screen for a computer monitor and I was having trouble reading some of the quest dialogue aspects. This should either be adjustable or just be better explained by the NPC that you interact with for the quest.

Conclusion

Tribes of Midgard is an addictive co-op multiplayer experience! I have been enjoying this game since I first turned it on and I can’t wait to get it into the hands of more of my gaming partners because I am ready to head for that Saga boss again and again. This is definitely a multiplayer game that I can see more people getting into because it is easy to understand, challenging in gameplay, and has a manageable overall needs for completion process.