Expeditions: Viking is the enticing sequel to Expeditions: Conquistador, an indie turn-based strategy RPG from 2013. I had the opportunity to play through a short demo at Pax East 2017 and very much liked what I saw.
While Expeditions: Viking keeps a lot of what made Conquistador successful, including a wide range of characters with traits that help introduce them to the player, skills that allow you to avoid combat when preferred and turn-based combat, it looks more like a traditional CRPG than Conquistador . You have the chance to explore more discrete areas outside of combat than in Conquistador . The top-down view will feel quite familiar to CRPG fans, while those who have played games like XCOM or Conquistador will not be thrown by the turn-based battle system.
Speaking of the battle system, I can’t help but note how large the party feels. You have at least six party members to manage if not more, all with a dozen skills that are useful and synergize well with those of other party members. Some skills, stats or weapons are necessary in order to have more choices in dealing with possibly troublesome situations, but at least in the demo, the party size and preponderance of skills felt like extreme overkill. Those bandits never stood a chance. Of course, difficulty options should allow you to adjust your Viking experience.
Viking ’s gameplay felt very CRPG-standard: meet someone, pick a bunch of dialogue options that will boil down to the same 2 or 3 possible consequences, follow through with the consequences, turn in the quest if you accepted one, explore the town if you didn’t burn it to ashes, see if you can find any other quests if you haven’t subjugated or murdered everyone around you, move on. Viking isn’t shaking up the formula – but I’m pretty happy with that. CRPGs have a damn good formula and sometimes you just want to enjoy classic and comfortable gameplay with solid writing, which Viking confidently promises.
While I didn’t see this in the demo, there will be a variety of factions with whom your reputation may grow or fall, while your party members’ loyalty determines how much of your shenanigans they can put up with before their personality and faction alignment drives them away from you. You’ll also be able to travel between your Viking home and the land of Britain, where you’ll have to make faction decisions that will affect what happens when you return to your home. Your Viking village may be upgraded with various building options that will boost certain stats in the game.
The split between Britain and your Viking home as well as the upgrades to your Viking homestead promise to be some of the most interesting parts of Viking and I wish I could have explored that more in the demo. Factions, reputation and loyalty are more tried-and-true CRPG staples that are welcome in Viking and fit in well, but do nothing to shake up the scene. However, I’m really interested in a plot that promises to span the ocean before circling back home. The characters are much more defined than the randomly-generated party members of Conquistador and even their portrait art shines with charm and personality.
My favorite thing in the demo had to be the character generation. You have so much flexibility in creating your character: there are templates you can choose if you just want to get started, but you can also try out wacky builds. The numbers you assign to stats like intelligence, strength and wit will determine what abilities you are able to select as well as what weapons you are able to wield. Best of all, your bio involves with your stat, skill and weapon choices. It’s how Vikings introduces you to yourself.
Vikings is due for an Apr. 27 release date. Do you plan to check it out? Feel free to let us know in the comments section below.