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.

Good role-playing game!
7/10
+ Good music.
+ Good game atmosphere.
+ Good storyline.
+ Multiple endings.
+ Decisions made lead to consequences.
+ Good gameplay.
+ Different paths to victory.
+ Good turn-based combat.
+ Different ways to solve quests.
- Camping.
- Loading screens.
- Several bugs.
Despite the low budget of the game, it is interesting to play!

what a perfect game!
pros:
+graphics, music, the whole art is well done and beautifully delivered
+very interesting scenario/plot (reminded me a lot the Vikings TV series)
+simple and nice village building
+the camping menu was interesting (especially the weapons/armor crafting)
+solid battles with a nice varity of skills and ways to combine them between your party members
+44 hrs of gameplay

cons:
- couldn't find any

Fun game, multiple endings and the choices are interesting and they don't always let on what they will influence later. If you like turn based good one for sure

I played this game a few years and rage quit after a particularly annoying fight involving a few archers before completing Logic Artists' more recent title Expeditions: Rome and then giving this game another go and completing it on the default difficulty in Iron Man mode. I would definitely recommend it to fans of turn based CRPGs like Owlcat's or Larian's stuff, but be aware that this game is quite challenging and you need to understand the mechanics well in order to enjoy it. This game certainly feels a bit more of a lower budget than Expedtions: Rome as well but it ran smoothly for me and without any bugs that I can recall.

Basically, you play the role of the son or daughter of the deceased leader of a Danish viking clan circa 800AD and you have to assume leadership of your clan before travelling to Britain to either trade, conquer or forge alliances with the kingdoms there in order to build up your clan's strength for an eventual final showdown with a rival. You will travel with about a dozen different companions, with some of these being custom mercenaries which you will create yourself. Entering a new area from the overland map or engaging in the turn based battles has you picking up to 5 companions of your choice to join you. There are no character classes in this game, but each character typically slots into a specific role, depending on their attributes, skills and gear. Most characters will generally be skalds, healers, archers, or weapon and shield/spear/two handed warriors.

So what's good about this game?
- The combat system is nicely designed and offers a good challenge. You have to think tactically and use your party's skills to complement each other.
- Innovative camping system that I would love to see other CRPGs using as well.
- Decent plot and writing.
- Some pleasant ambient music while travelling around the towns etc.
- It's a somewhat older title so you should be able to run it on potato PCs without any problems.
- My gameplay experience was completely bug free! Some of the loading screens can take a while, though.

And what's not so good about this game?
- Some really strange design decisions. You can't rest in any settlements or even anywhere on the overland map, but instead have to find a specific camping area and set up camp there. Thankfully these are all over the place, but some are occupied which means you have to defeat the current occupants in battle if you want to rest there.
- You can't tell what the date and time except when you're on the overland map, where you have to hover the mouse over the main timeline bar at the top of screen to see the date and hover over the dots of your party's travel route to see the current time. All really fiddly when this info could have been displayed clearly on the screen somewhere instead.
- Annoying random events that hinder more than help you like a companion getting an injury with no chance to avoid it.
- Equally annoying combat mechanics. There is no proper initiative system, so it seems most fights are scripted to have the enemies go first during a 'surprise round', even if your party can clearly see them first. In this case, all you can do is move your characters into position before the enemies take their turn. This can be painful when you're up against a group with a large amount of archers, as often there will not be enough spots where you can take cover, and enemy archers seem to be really accurate with their shots. Once combat is underway, it's virtually mandatory to have at 1 companion with the "demoralize" skill, which reduces enemy ranged attack hit chances by half if they fail to resist it.
- Melee attacks all hit automatically for some strange reason, so you can't really play the game as an agile dodging sort of character like you would in a D&D game. If you want to be a tanky frontliner character, using a shield (which gives you a chance to block attacks and absorbs damage) and wearing heavy armour is really the only option open to you.
- Loot is very limited and most stuff you find will be crafting components. It's annoying to fight a horde of heavily armed and armoured enemies and get almost nothing off their corpses except a few coins and a handful of crafting components. Smiths in towns typically don't sell you any armour or weapons but will either sell you crafting components or else can craft gear for you but you still have to supply the materials needed AND pay for it on top of that. Consequently it's utterly pointless to buy any crafted gear from smiths as you can just have someone from your group craft weapons or armour for you free of charge in camp if their crafting skills are high enough.
- The ending was fine but seemed a little anticlimactic. The final fight was a bit easy and I would have preferred a better explanation regarding what happened to your character and their companions, like in the Owlcat games, for example. I guess they probably were limited by budget though.

Solid 7/10 from me otherwise. I haven't played their first title Expeditions: Conquistador yet, but I would recommend playing Expeditions: Viking before Expeditions: Rome if you plan to play them both, as Rome is the superior game.

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).