Electric Nightmares

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Northgard sails out of early access on March 7

Yarr? No, wrong ones

When we declared Northgard one of the best games of 2017, the Norse mythology RTS was still in early access. If it was that great then, how swell will it be when it's actually finished? We'll see on March 7th, the release date announced today by developers Shiro Games. One big feature coming with the full launch is a singleplayer story campaign, sending a young prince and his mate across the land of stone circles, armoured bears, and terrible winters on the trail of his father's murderer. Also, did I mention the game has armoured bears? Because it does.

I've been waiting for the full release myself, so I'll turn to some of our Brendy gabbing about Northgard:

"It's an impressively well-made thing, a finely-embroidered cloak of an RTS with all the elements sewn together in a pleasing and sensible way. Most importantly, the immediate environment around your home feels like it really influences your strategy for the whole match. I once spawned in an area with three hunting grounds and a fishing lake nearby, but very little woodland or stone. I had to base my entire economy on stag fillet, placing food silos in every quadrant and blocking off access to our home canyon by quickly colonising a coastal passage into our land. From this position I could trade my plentiful food with both the peaceful giants and other AI players I discovered. From here you can use the money to buy materials in a marketplace (this building slowly accumulates wood, food, iron, and stone which you can buy for coin). In the long run, this is much more expensive than mining stone or chopping wood yourself but sometimes in the early and mid-game it is the best option. I later betrayed my trading partners and murdered them. They stopped buying stag fillets."

He's also recommended Northgard as a good starting point for getting into RTSs so what I'm saying is: Brendan really quite likes this game. I've been avoiding hearing too much while waiting for the full release, so I'm glad the wait is almost over.

Northgard will hit Steam on March 7th, priced at the same £23.79/€27.99/$29.99 that it costs in early access. If you are already Northgarding yourself, you can sign up for a beta to try a bit of the campaign.

Here, this new trailer shows some of the campaign:

Cover image for YouTube video

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Northgard

PS4, Xbox One, PC, Nintendo Switch

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About the Author
Alice O'Connor avatar

Alice O'Connor

Associate Editor

Alice has been playing video games since SkiFree and writing about them since 2009, with nine years at RPS. She enjoys immersive sims, roguelikelikes, chunky revolvers, weird little spooky indies, mods, walking simulators, and finding joy in details. Alice lives, swims, and cycles in Scotland.

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