Northgard's new clan will slither out later this month

The ambiguity in that headline has got me thinking about how great it'd be if Northgard's new clan revolved around earthworms or slugs, but sadly it isn't to be. Along with a free update, the money-costing clan of the Snake DLC will land at some point in July. In a shocking example of stereotyping, they've been typecast as "the most roguish clan in Northgard'. When I was seven I couldn't understand why everyone gave snakes such a hard time, so I wrote a story where every animal except the snake protagonist was a prick. It saddens me that society can't seem to move on.

This update will also add a new military unit, and developers Shiro Games have been teasing their plans for future updates too.

All of this comes from an AMA that the devs hosted on Twitch. The vid hasn't been saved, but you can peruse the full transcription as transcribed by one of the devs.

They say they'll do a full reveal of the Snake clan in the coming days (the AMA was on June 27th, so expect that soon). In the meantime, here's what they shouted at us:

"Like the Clan of the Wolf and the Clan of the Bear, the Snake does not have a particular affinity with a resource but its gameplay is linked to its backstory! After the aggressiveness of the Wolf and the winter resistance of the Bear, the Clan of the Snake is the most roguish clan on Northgard! They’re cunning and deceitful with no regards for fame nor honor!

"We tried to build the mechanics of the clan around these thematics! We’ll be unveiling this clan in the next few days!"

They also mentioned that the clan will have a "unique Warchief like the Wolf and Bear". I'm hoping she's literally a snake, just so video games will have given me Hammond the hamster and Signy the snake in the same month: "her name is Signy, and she’s got her very own way of gaining new abilities!".

Interestingly, the devs also say that they're rebalancing the fame victory and the "Clan of the Snake has a particular relationship" with it. We were just told they don't care about fame, which makes me think it could be about sabotaging the fame of other factions, or maybe stealing it. Sounds like something a snake would do.

Moving on from Snake specifics, here are some details on that new military unit. They're called Skirmishers:

"This is a melee unit with high move speed but low defense. In neutral tiles, they are invisible to wildlife and their movement isn’t limited by the presence of adversity.

"You can choose to attack wildlife whenever you want by right clicking on a Wolf, Draugr, etc… With this unit comes of course a new building, the Skirmisher’s camp, which is a base military building (you won’t need a training camp in order to build it)! We'll be giving you more information on this new unit in a few days."

We'll have to see, but my first thought about those skirmishers is that I'll probably want to avoid them. They'll still cost a villager - arguably the most expensive resource in Northgard - and will take longer to clear out hostile territory. It's possible that camouflaging will let a well-micromanaged squad take out threats without losing health themselves though, so I won't write them off yet.

Looking further ahead, Shrio Games also tiptoed around some ideas for future updates. A new neutral faction will appear along with the update after the Snake one, which will also change how Kobolds and Jotnar function. They've also been thinking about adding a God-worshipping clan, as well as toying with the idea of adding a non-human playable faction. This will come at the ambiguous and likely far off time of "at some point", but I'm most excited about their plans to develop Diplomacy systems - which will "be the subject of a major update".

It's been months since I booted up the game, but I'm looking forward to taking a trip up North to check out that new clan. There's no word on how much it'll cost just yet.