Expeditions: Viking

Recommended: Like shouting "Skål!" with tears in your mead—absolutely
They told me this was a turn-based strategy RPG.
What they didn’t tell me was that I’d form a bond so deep with my warband that I’d cry into my keyboard when one of them died trying to save a settlement I barely cared about until that exact moment.
You don’t just play Expeditions: Viking.
You lead.
You suffer.
You micromanage inventory weight like it’s your actual back pain.
Let me tell you about Runi One-Eye.
He wasn’t the strongest. He wasn’t the smartest.
He just had this stupid lopsided smile and a habit of singing off-key when he sharpened his axe.
Said he wanted to go west to “see if the sun’s warmer on the other side of the sea.”
He wasn’t even supposed to be in the front line.
But when the Saxons ambushed our camp, he was the first to charge.
Blocked two javelins with his shield. Took a third in the leg.
I told him to fall back.
He told me, “You said we make our own fate. Let mine count.”
He held that chokepoint long enough for me to flank around and save the village.
We won.
Barely.
When I got to him, he handed me his father’s dagger and said,
“Give this to someone worth leading. If that’s you, keep it.”
He didn’t make it through the night.
And yeah, I reloaded.
Four times.
Tried every combo of tactics, turns, healing, and prayers.
But the game said: no.
Runi’s time had come.
That’s when I knew.
This wasn’t just tactical combat.
This was storytelling through survival.
This was history, but bleeding—on a snow-covered hill, under a sky that never cared who lived or died.
Other games ask you to min-max.
This one asks you what kind of leader you are when the choices aren't clean, the consequences are real, and your friends don't respawn.
Final Verdict:
Expeditions: Viking is one part strategy, one part survival, and one giant Viking-sized serving of feels.
The combat? Sharp.
The decisions? Heavy.
The memories? Carved into my soul like Runi's name on that warband roster I can’t bring myself to delete.
10/10. Would raid, trade, and weep again. Skål, old friend.

This is my favorite of the Expeditions games, and the one I'd recommend the most.
It has the best story and gameplay balance of the 3, and to my opinion, the most interesting historical setting. It felt immersive, engaging and satisfying to play. If you came from Conquistador, this feels much smoother and less janky, and if you come from Rome, it's like a breath of fresh air with no pointless mechanics and boring minigames.
In the end, you can't go wrong with Vikings.

I just finished this game and I thoroughly enjoyed it. That being said, there are gameplay mechanics and small issues that could lead to some frustration for the unprepared or unwilling.
Bad stuff first. The most annoying thing in this entire game is trying to get the little hand cursor to appear to pick up loot. You will find yourself messing with the camera to poke through barrels and chests constantly.
This game has a time limit. I strongly dislike time limits in my games, but the good news is that I had more than enough time and that was with me going back and forth to Denmark a bunch and generally goofing off. Don’t overdo it with the camping, and you can really stretch the time limit quite a bit.
As for the camera, it simply does not zoom out enough, but other than that, it’s easy enough to move it to your liking.

This is just a minor gripe but one more bit of jank. Sometimes you won’t be able to equip items and you have to leave the inventory menu and come back to resolve it. Not a gamebreaker by any means, but irritating, nonetheless.

The gameplay itself is very good, but I did have to restart as I didn’t quite understand the systems at work with SP and resource management. You want each of your hirdmen to only specialize in one or two weapons. This rule goes for most skills (1 or 2 support skills, etc.) If you attempt to make a jack of all trades, you are going to struggle on medium difficulty or above. When you start acquiring extra hirdmen, make sure you pick one to heal, one to tinker and craft, etc. You will have enough party members to pimp out camp. One more thing I wish I knew when I started, without the use of thralls, you will have a difficult time doing everything you want in your homestead, so it is good to focus on either power or prosperity as opposed to both (I used no thralls for the entire game).

Dialogue options in this game are many and meaningful. You have characters with personality, everything is well written, and the number of dialogue options can be dizzying for somebody who locks up at A or B style questions. The hirdmen’s dialogue is well written and the story is interesting. There are even a few mysteries left that I didn’t uncover…
Now for the meat and potatoes, the battle system. In short, it’s excellent. You will be killed and probably more than once, but once you learn how to use the battlefield and when to deploy traps or use skills, the game becomes a thrill ride. There is an excellent cover system at work here as well, and you can hide units behind hirdmen with shields, as well as obstacles. You are going to want to do this, as archers are DEADLY and can wipe out a party quickly.
In general, you want to utilize cover and deploy skills to limit the accuracy of ranged units. While doing this, you want your sword (or axe) and boards to block access to your archers, healers, etc. utilizing unit placement to also force archers to waste turns on tactical moves. It is all really well done, and once you get the hang of it, it is really fun.
So, yeah, Expeditions: Viking, it’s really good. I’m jumping back into Conquistadors next!

IN A NUTSHELL: a very decent turn-based strategy game with an amiable story. Buy if you like choice-making games and turn-based strategy. Rating is 8,8/10.

This game is the first game of its genre I've played, so keep it in mind that I don't have much experience of other similar games.

But darn if it isn't good, I love this game. Played it through a few times, there's nothing bad I could REALLY say about it, since I feel like I would be nitpicking at that point. Turn based combat is good, and I like how in-depth the character skill trees are. Characters are decent and the story is simple, but it works well. Also it was rather beginner friendly for a goblin like me who only has two functional brain cells when playing strategy games.

Overall I would give this game a 8,8/10

I play offline and I finish the game. So the hours are not correct. I have many more.
It is an old game, but it seems new.
Great game. Even if I am not into invader-game, here, the story is great and no one is fully good or fully bad. It has sarcstic humor too wich I like a lot.
It had a time-line but it is okay to manage. You can choose super difficult to super easy.
You can cheat at the time-line but the sucess will be blocked.
Sometimes the remark's lines on the top-left are too quick to read.
What's else ? Great companions, great choices, super fun combat, many languages available.
I will look at the for expeditions rome since I really like expeditions viking.
I will replay this game for sure.

Somewhat of a rough start for me due to getting used to the game mechanics. Decent Act 1 (<10 hours), great Act 2 (15-20 hours) and short Act 3 (2-3 hours, mostly wrapping up the game).
Overall fun experience roleplaying as a viking - aggressive or peaceful, with decent fun decision making. Great worldbuilding!
Some minor gripes about looting (body looting can be annoying, but resource gathering / management can be satisfying), generally good leveling up system (perks, not stats; you are encouraged to min-max your stats / perks on each character - at least 1 maxed out stat - and not doing so can hurt in the long run, i.e. me) and good progression on armor/weapon (will be rewarded for dabbling in the crafting system, but you will unfortunately max out about halfway in Act 2 if you try hard enough).
Highly recommend the game if you like viking show(s). Best to play play on Medium difficulty (Hard is hard as a first playthrough, I started on Hard and couldnt git gud).

A very neat CRPG with great replay ability. Even tho the game lacks voice acting, the dialogue is strong and the characters are all well written