Action RPGs are like pizza. Bear with me here.

Most of the time, when you want pizza you want to order it from that really good place across town with the perfect dough. But sometimes you order from the average place nearby because of a special. Sometimes you get a mediocre chain restaurant party pizza at work. Sometimes you grab a slice from the place around the corner even though it's terrible. None of these pizzas are as good as pizza can be, but even when you're eating mediocre pizza... you still get to eat pizza. Right?

Vikings: Wolves of Midgard is like the frozen pizza you drag out because you forgot to make dinner. There are much better pizza options out there, but I still ate almost 14 hours of empty pizza calories. Did I enjoy it? Sure. Did it give me a stomach-ache? Yes. Do I feel good about it later? Not really.

What I'm trying to get at here through the hunger is that the core gameplay recipe first cooked up by Blizzard North in Diablo 1 is so good and so much fun that a worse game can borrow the mechanics, throw on a few toppings, then release their own variety and it will still be fun. Clicking on things and watching them explode into blood and swords and pants is fun and will always be fun. Vikings has that. Therefore, Vikings is fun QED QED QED.

Some of the introduced toppings are interesting. There's an increased focus on dodging incorporated by the inclusion of the console-only rolling stick from Diablo 3, where you need to be constantly somersaulting around for an opening. There's also mechanics like cold exposure and combo-counts, that reward reckless play in a genre that often feels too easy. This can also fall flat, though—if you treat exposure like a time limit to get to the next campfire it's thrilling, but if you treat it like a timer to reset by backtracking it's tedium. There's also something to be said about the loose story, which is mostly an excuse for your character to amusingly scream about how much she likes killing things, and the way all the scenery explodes in bursts of pleasing physics.

But there are also stumbles. For starters, definitely play with a controller—despite the genre history, mouse and keyboard is frustrating to control and dodge, and your character often won't move forwards because they're targeting some rock or hidden enemy—the controller won't fix everything, because skills still felt pretty unresponsive, but it helps. There's also a weirdly hamstrung skill system where both actives and passives in each tree are restricted to a single weapon category. I often had more skill points to spend than skills to buy, but there's zero point in branching out because nothing carries over to your primary weapon—it's a bizarre limitation that takes away a lot of the character customization crucial to action RPGs. And the story, which I never said was good, runs around in circles way too often. Maps see a bit of re-use, as do missions—the fourth time Vikings' she-Deckard told me to butcher through the giant armies to seek an alliance with their queen, who always says no and also swears revenge, I was kinda done.

So what I'm saying here is Vikings isn't a very good or exciting pizza. It might be better with friends, it might tide you over when you need it, but it's hard to recommend. You could order from a new, different pizza place, or stick to grinding out paragon levels in your old favourite pizza place. But with all that said, if you decide to pick up Vikings... it's still pizza, and you still get to eat it, and it still tastes good in the moment.

Action RPGs are like pizza. Bear with me here. Most of the time, when you want pizza you want to order it from that really good place across town with the perfect dough. But sometimes you order from the average place nearby because of a special. Sometimes you get a mediocre chain restaurant party pizza at work. Sometimes you grab a slice from the place around the corner even though it's terrible. None of these pizzas are as good as pizza can be, but even when you're eating mediocre pizza... you still get to eat pizza. Right? Vikings: Wolves of Midgard is like the frozen pizza you drag out because you forgot to make dinner. There are much better pizza options out there, but I still ate almost 14 hours of empty pizza calories. Did I enjoy it? Sure. Did it give me a stomach-ache? Yes. Do I feel good about it later? Not really. What I'm trying to get at here through the hunger is that the core gameplay recipe first cooked up by Blizzard North in Diablo 1 is so good and so much fun that a worse game can borrow the mechanics, throw on a few toppings, then release their own variety and it will still be fun. Clicking on things and watching them explode into blood and swords and pants is fun and will always be fun. Vikings has that. Therefore, Vikings is fun QED QED QED. Some of the introduced toppings are interesting. There's an increased focus on dodging incorporated by the inclusion of the console-only rolling stick from Diablo 3, where you need to be constantly somersaulting around for an opening. There's also mechanics like cold exposure and combo-counts, that reward reckless play in a genre that often feels too easy. This can also fall flat, though—if you treat exposure like a time limit to get to the next campfire it's thrilling, but if you treat it like a timer to reset by backtracking it's tedium. There's also something to be said about the loose story, which is mostly an excuse for your character to amusingly scream about how much she likes killing things, and the way all the scenery explodes in bursts of pleasing physics. But there are also stumbles. For starters, definitely play with a controller—despite the genre history, mouse and keyboard is frustrating to control and dodge, and your character often won't move forwards because they're targeting some rock or hidden enemy—the controller won't fix everything, because skills still felt pretty unresponsive, but it helps. There's also a weirdly hamstrung skill system where both actives and passives in each tree are restricted to a single weapon category. I often had more skill points to spend than skills to buy, but there's zero point in branching out because nothing carries over to your primary weapon—it's a bizarre limitation that takes away a lot of the character customization crucial to action RPGs. And the story, which I never said was good, runs around in circles way too often. Maps see a bit of re-use, as do missions—the fourth time Vikings' she-Deckard told me to butcher through the giant armies to seek an alliance with their queen, who always says no and also swears revenge, I was kinda done. So what I'm saying here is Vikings isn't a very good or exciting pizza. It might be better with friends, it might tide you over when you need it, but it's hard to recommend. You could order from a new, different pizza place, or stick to grinding out paragon levels in your old favourite pizza place. But with all that said, if you decide to pick up Vikings... it's still pizza, and you still get to eat it, and it still tastes good in the moment.