Dead in Vinland

I didn't expect much from this game, but surprisingly I have found it quite interesting.
A nice mix of survival management and quest genres.
And even though manual management of everyone and everything becomes cumbersome by day 50, I enjoyed the story, and the game, very much.

I have played over 80 hours on this game.
I strongly recommend playing the hardest difficulty and true viking modes. This makes the game extraordinarily difficult but it also builds character. Learning to baseline survive and then thrive on these modes is one of the most difficult challenges I've ever faced in these types of games. Which is a wonderful thing, that is the ultimate complement - achievable but challenging gives a true joy to success and horror when things go awry (they will. They very much will).
It is possible to have terrible RNG, but that is part of the game. The game requires careful management of resources, long term planning, and very careful assignment of roles and resource use. It takes a while to get into the swing of things and figuring out what is absolutely necessary and what can wait a little. E.G. Food and water are critical resources. The absolute most important thing to remember is to upgrade things. That makes it far more survivable. A fully upgraded shelter provides a huge number of benefits.

I really liked this game, they did a good job breathing life into the characters you interact with so that it didn't feel like you were just managing numbers and bars. The combat, exploration, and resource management mechanics synergize beautifully, and the pacing hit the sweet spot where I always felt like my village was on the edge of collapse without feeling like it was hopeless. My two complaints are that the post-game narrative conclusion didn't really fit with a lot of the character decisions made during gameplay and that while there are a lot of side characters to explore, the main story overshadows the side stories to the point where it feels like replaying the game to discover those characters is a bit of a slog. Still, would definitely recommend playing through the game.

--Keep your family alive on an island. Raise your daughter right and be mindful of temptation to your family life- I recommend DIV with Norse side stories as it adds so much more story flavour that was already in the base game.

I like the ideas, I like the survival aspect. But the game just gets really repetitive. You end up fast forwarding thru everything and there's doesn't feel like an actual purpose.

Dead in Vinland is not a great battle RPG, it's a fairly good narrative game, but it is an EXCELLENT survival game! It seems to have mixed reactions, but I think it's because it's a very unique and complex game and people don't know what they're getting into.
At its core, it's a survival management game. Your tasks are completely focused on resource management, long term planning, and, most of all, risk mitigation. The game is full of dice rolls and potentially frustrating moments, but where some could consider this a negative, I think it's very well done, exciting, and thematic for a "survival in the unknown" situation. Similarly, it's very rewarding to be able to roll with the punches, make difficult decisions, take risks, and so on. If the game weren't so dependent on predictability, it would be a dull, easy slog. As it is, it should jive well with people who like peak screen-punchers like Darkest Dungeon and XCOM.
Speaking of Darkest Dungeon, there is a somewhat similar battle system, which seems to see the most criticism due to its simultaneous unpredictability and lack of variety. I find it's not so bad when considered in the same "risk mitigation" style as the rest of the game. For the most part, you don't want to get into fights, and fights become mostly a process of getting away with as few injuries as possible. In terms of actual RPG combat, it's lackluster, but when it's considered just another abstracted roll of the dice, it fits just fine.
Again, I definitely don't think this game works for everyone. Those looking for a more traditional combat-focused RPG, those who get easily frustrated with bad dice rolls, and those who don't like considering a lot of stats and numbers should probably stay away. I was looking for a detailed, strategic survival simulation that was more about management and character development than more common survival games (which tend to be about hitting trees with rocks and assembling those rocks). To date, I haven't found a better example.

This game is soooooooooo good! In addition to the really fun survival/management mechanics, there are a lot of interesting places to explore, mysteries to solve, tons of dialogue & decisions to make. In this game you can visibly improve your camp area and you can also pair off the survivors romantically.
The one fault I have is that I was technically finished the survival portion of the game before a lot of the stories played out. (So i survived an extra 100? days to see all of the stories unfold. The DLC might've solved that though).