*** This is what video games were meant to be. ***

TLDR: I have a grey beard and have been frustrated in one way or another with every single game I've played for nearly 2 decades... until I tried Nordhold a few days ago. Highly recommend not even reading the review and just buying the game.

Old school gen-x and millennial strategy gamers will love this one, and I imagine younger players will as well. Even if you're not typically into turn-based strategy, this one *should* appeal to most fans of AoE, C&C, Warcraft, etc.. Nordhold will also greatly appeal to disenfranchised Sid Meier's Civ fans. It is certainly different than all the aforementioned titles though. In many ways it's more akin to the old flash-based tower defense games gen-x used to kill many hours on their browsers at their first mundane office job... I avoided this plight myself by going to war instead, but I see you desk jockeys out there!!

Due to it's roguelike banner / hero power / relic system, as well as procedural tile generation system, no two games are exactly alike. This causes one to spend a couple hours learning to get a decent grasp of the game, but a long time to master. Strategies and build plans don't always work out, and with about 20 hours of actual gameplay (33 according to Steam), I have been consistently making it to wave 28 recently by abandoning my plans and using a more dynamic approach. Apparently the 4th and final boss is at wave 30, but, I believe that boss simply just opens more game modes. I am a casual gamer and imagine I will wind up with 100-200 actual hours in this game before I move on.

Another reason this game appeals to me is that it is relatively easy to play via Steam Link from my linux-based PC streaming to my tablet. A lot of my favorite titles are not. If you're fed up with pay-to-win traps posing as strategy games on your tablet, this is at least worth a look! Nordhold has all the dopamine drops that you'd have to pull out your credit card for every day on one of those other games, but none of the financial guilt! The way video games were INTENDED to be! This is simply just a video game, not a way to exploit you for money or data. I even like the sound effects... First thing I do with ever video game is turn the music soundtrack OFF, so I can't speak to that.

Anyways, if you're still reading this and you didn't have one before, congratulations on your first grey hair! If you haven't already made up your mind, I'm sending you my best wishes. I hope things improve for you. After all, adjusted for inflation, this game would've been like $5 if it was a brand new title in 1990 and I bet there's even a demo or free version out there somewhere... Just buy it already.

Do not buy this game if you want to sleep. I had to force myself to stop playing at 1am the first day I got it. This is the best tower defense game I have played.

my favorite tower defense game. Very addicting