Vikings: Wolves of Midgard

First, A WARNING TO ALL NEWER PC PLAYERS USING INTEL 10th GEN or NEWER,
You will need to put a change in your settings in environmental settings on your account. By adding a simple line to it, the game will load normallly and not crash when you click on start in the loader. You can find the instructions on how to do it here:
I used this because i had the crash at start, and it fixed the game for me by adding this command to your environmental settings on your pc under your account. It worked on my Windows 11 Operating System, and i imagine it will work on windows 10 pc's also. Now that i got the technical stuff out of the way, let's review the game now:
Hello friends,
Today i will review the game Vikings - Wolves of Midgard. This is a ARPG set in the viking age. You can play as different classes and even choose different gods to worship that let you mix skills to pick your own playstyle depending on which skills you choose or which god. The game has a basic storyline of saving the world and is not groundbreaking, but if you like ARPG's, you may like the game. The game is ok for what it is. It also features multiplayer and couch co-op where you can play with 2 people. Although personally, i did not test these options. Also, when i did try playing online, i found no one. Not sure if the multiplayer is peer to peer or been shut down by the company. If you test it, try hosting a server as you may get someone to join your game that way. There is also new game plus mode, which adds difficulty. Everytime you start new, it adds difficulty to the game. There is also colored weapons like in diablo that show the quality of them, up to legendary ones in orange. Anyways, here are my PROS and CONS:
PROS:
- ARPG game with viking era storyline and fighting mythical monsters based on norse lore.
- Ability to upgrade your town buildings, which serve as your base between levels.
- Flexible skills to pick and gods to make different class builds. Also, the player can choose which character they can choose when starting.
- New game plus mode that makes the game more difficult similiar to other games that get more difficult the more you beat the game.
- The Test of Gods allows you to fight in a arena location to gain extra resources to build your village buildings up or gain extra gift points to improve skills.
- Environmental hazards such as too hot or too cold can drain your hit points in the game.
- Works on windows 11 OS.
- Works with a controller. I used a switch ZEN controller.
CONS:
- Please see the above warning about intel 10th or higher gen chips. I suffered from the game also not starting. After using the fix found above, it worked fine.
- Some minor graphical glitches like weird lights flashing in certain areas.
- Some grinding is required to keep up with the enemies levels. If your lower by 5 levels of the monsters in a area, you may have to grind enemies by going back and forth to the village and the area to level up.
Recommended game. Although the game might be good to get on sale as it is just a meh kinda game, it does has some interesting features like the ability to choose your character type at the beginning of the game, you can switch it later, or even choose which skills and gods your character changes your skills. It also features couch co-op and online multiplayer.

Vikings: Wolves of Midgard is an action role-playing game that takes players on a journey through Norse mythology, blending elements of action, strategy, and exploration. Set in the harsh and unforgiving world of Midgard, players must survive against all odds and fight back against the encroaching darkness threatening their homeland.
The game's combat system is fast-paced and satisfying, with a variety of weapons and skills at the player's disposal. Players can choose to specialize in different combat styles, from dual-wielding axes to using powerful magic spells to decimate their enemies. The game also features a variety of boss fights, each requiring different tactics and strategies to defeat.
In addition to combat, the game features a crafting system that allows players to create new weapons and armor, as well as a skill tree that allows players to upgrade and customize their character's abilities. The game also offers a unique survival aspect, with players having to manage their hunger and warmth levels to survive the harsh winter environments.
The game's graphics are beautiful and immersive, with detailed environments and character models that bring the world of Midgard to life. The soundtrack is also excellent, with hauntingly beautiful music that perfectly captures the game's themes of struggle and survival.
While the game is not without its flaws, such as some repetitive combat encounters and a somewhat limited open-world design, it is nonetheless a solid and enjoyable action RPG experience that is sure to appeal to fans of the genre and Viking mythology alike.

So after playing this a while I am going to make a revised review. At first I did not recommend this game, but after playing it a while I have come to the conclusion that this game is very close to being a very good game,so I am going to post a description that will outline the good and the bad to help you decide if this game is for you or not and hopefully provide some feedback on how this gamestyle could be improved in the future.
First of all do not go into this game thinking it is a diablo type of game, the skill trees are very small and you do not really create a build with talents, you unlock them as the game progresses. So I will start with the Good and then move to the bad.
The good-
The combat system is for me where the game shines, you have a defensive roll that is crucial to master for timing to
evade enemy attacks and counter-attack, especially on boss fights. So this game is really a good mixture of timing and hack and slash. You do lots of improvements to your base in the game, upgrading weaponsmith,armorsmith,runesmith,etc. and this adds better weapons and is a good feature because you feel like you are always moving forward.There are also convenient instances to do in the base to grind materials.
The main campaign is actually quite long, I currently am at about the 35 hour mark and have not finished it yet, playing mostly 1 main character and 3 side characters that I have not leveled very far yet. The talent system is based on the weapon that you use, for example if you use a staff then you get the powers of odin, if you use a 2 handed weapon you get the boons of Thor. Now this is where some of the elements of the game could really use some improving and so now I will move on to the bad to provide some feedback and let you know what to expect. (The game is fun to play so I changed my review to recommended just because I continue to play and I think this game has a lot of potential for future versions, or at least if they improve some things)
The Bad- So I will start with what are to me the worst features of the game.
First a heads up on the level design, the first boss you fight, the Jokul is very hard when you are learning the game, you have to kind of learn to fight it with a dark souls type of strategy and this can take several fights, also the very first level is punishing because it has cold damage. I think this is the hardest part of the game, right off the bat this is going to discourage a lot of people from playing, right out of the gate you will have players getting frustrated and rage quit the game.
The Dual Class system- So you can level up more then 1 weapon, the problem with this is that it is not a true dual-class because once you switch weapons you no longer have access to the talents that you leveled on the other one, the passives shut off etc. So it is not so much of a Dual class because you can only use 1 skill tree at a time, so there is not really any point into leveling a 2nd skill tree because you will start at the beginning and be very weak with that weapon, so imagine it like this, you have a mage and a warrior, when you switch to the mage nothing you did with the warrior skill tree is active and vice versa, so you might as well just pick 1 weapon and max that out because leveling another one is not going to add anything to your arsenal. I think that while the system is unique they really should have just focused on making bigger skill trees for each weapon and just skip the weapon switch mechanic entirely, it does not add anything to the game and I am sure many players tried to dual class and wound up having a very hard time with the levels. A deeper skill set for each weapon would have been much better, more of a diablo type of talent build would have greatly enriched the combat system that is very good. The other issue is that there are 5 weapons, but you can only make 4 characters, so to try out all the weapons you have to make at least 1 dual weapon character and I feel doing that is a mistake for the reasons I stated above, you do not really benefit from leveling 2 weapons, a character with a maxed out 1 weapon is just as strong as a character with 2 weapons maxed out since you can only use 1 skill tree at a time.
The levels are designed with bonuses, such as smashing all the tomic huts, etc. Some of these objectives are very long, like 30 huts, so this makes the player have to search out every nook and cranny of every level when grinding resources, this combined with mechanics like environment damage can really detract from the game being fun.
In short, I think if the following changes were made to a future type version of this game it would be top notch
1:Get rid of the dual class system and add more talents or make it to where you can use both benefits at the same time
otherwise there is not really any point into leveling 2 classes. More talents with a more customized build tree would add a LOT Of value to the game and add so much to it, let the players decide what abilities to use and do not just limit them to a few special abilities per weapon. I especially did not like that despite their being 5 builds I can only make 4 characters.
I do not consider dual class a viable build in this game, it adds no extra power.
2: Make the levels more open world and get rid of the requirements to hunt down 30 hidden objects. this is not a good mechanic and just adds a lot of time to the levels, it is a time sink and not fun to have to go around and hunt for hidden things. The levels are extremely confining and you often get stuck on invisible corners or worse blocked in by mobs when you are fighting, give the player some more room on the levels and have some secret areas but do not force a player to have to look fro 30 items, this is not fun.
3: Environment damage is something I personally do not like but it is not implemented bad at all in this game, you can gear up for it so I will not call this a huge negative, but know that many players really hate this mechanic so adding it to any game is most likely not a good move since there are not many people that I think really love it and it will always draw more hate from people, especially when it is punishing like in the very first level, I think the first level of this game most likely really drew a lot of the bad reviews and probably stopped a lot of people dead in their tracks from playing it past the first level.
4- Final suggestion, and I am going to repeat the first one because it is so huge, talents talents talents, they are the meat and potatoes of this genre, make the weapon tree much bigger and fix the dual class system, it is not really a dual class it is a 1 or the other, ARPG players especially are very smart and spend a lot of time examining what every talent does and how to maximize their talent tree. With the system in this game it makes zero sense to put any points into more then 1 weapon tree, I could level a Thor character all the way without any other weapons and he will be the best Thor. I can level a Odin character all the way and he will be the best Odin, If I level a character all the way with both, he will be the same Thor or the same Odin but I would have spent twice the time doing it. If I spent the same time and split my tree, they would be half as strong as the full Odin or full Thor. This was the most glaring mistake in this game to me and despite having a very fun combat system ,this really detracts me wanting to make more characters. If each weapon tree had several branches and talents this would have been a 5 star game, as it is I would put it in the mixed category if there was one but I am changing my review from not recommended just because of the potential this game had that I feel was not realized.

I like it. Not a milestone of gaming, but it has good graphics and it's fun to level up your viking and advance the story. And if you consequently upgrade your equipment and use your skills, it's not too difficult to beat. (I played on standard difficulty)

a very fun game to play for hours on end it plays best on the PC on the consoles the frame rates drop to low so its best enjoyed on your PC thats for sure i love the storyline and since buying it i have never gotten board

Now in 2023 this is good ARPG. However, don't expect Diablo 1/2 and Sacred 1/2 but this is really enjoyable game on hardest difficulty with a bit of souls-like fight mechanics.

Very fun