PC (Steam)
Early Access: 24/8/2015
7/10
Funatics and Daedelic Entertainment present the spiritual successor to ‘The Settlers’, a strategy game with vikings! Fans of the previous title will be glad to know that many of the same team developed this game.
Cracking Ace got the chance to preview the game before it’s Early release, so the version we have is still being developed. The final game might not reflect this review, but so far it’s all looking pretty polished and is good fun to play. I imagine it can only get better.
In ‘Valhalla Hills’ the journey to the afterlife has been disrupted. Odin is annoyed at his youngest son Leko (not Loki) for not living up to his viking heritage. In a tantrum he has closed the gates to Valhalla and is not letting anyone in unless they prove their honour.
You play as Leko and have to guide your viking followers as they work towards redeeming themselves in their god’s eyes.
It’s a simple premise, your vikings arrive on an island, they have to find and reach a portal, open it, and go through to complete the level.
The trouble is that each portal (except for the very first one in the tutorial), when opened releases Ice warriors and enemies that are all to willing to stop the vikings getting any further. So it’s up to you whether you prepare your vikings for battle, or opt to resolve things peacefully by preparing offerings.
The more islands you complete, the more things you unlock to play with. The new buildings and equipment help against stronger enemies and allow you protection when you reach more dangerous islands that come with wildlife like boars, wolves, and bears.
The game grows slowly, letting you learn at your pace, but as you get used to things, it introduces something new. Early on it may all seem very simplistic, but as the game progresses, it really starts to become a challenge.
The controls are slightly different to most games of this type. Your commands are very passive. Rather than click on a viking and tell him/her where to go, you will just place a building site, and the vikings will get around to it when they are ready. Because of this, you don’t need the required resources already stored, as the vikings will build when they have what they need. 
However, you do need to be wary of what resources are available to you. You can ruin your journey by spending all your logs before completing construction of a woodcutter’s, leaving you no choice but to either destroy your other buildings in the hope they’ll drop the resource you need, or starting the level over. The temptation to whack everything in place and wait for the vikings to sort it out is there, but you’ll learn not to when the builders are spreading resources thin and you’re left with a village full of useless half built huts.
You also need to be aware of the range of your buildings as vikings will only work in a limited area. If your food stores are nowhere near your army, they will starve and die.
Being passively controlled, the vikings will decide when to take breaks, sleep, and eat. You can help them rest up better and more efficiently by providing tents and campfires. Busy vikings won’t stop what they’re doing to build new stuff. If you want one to (for example) stop fishing and build a tent, you’ll have to disable the fishery temporarily.
The vikings themselves look cute in the chubby cartoony style, less bloodthirsty warrior, more Lord of the Rings dwarf. You can customise your vikings to some extent. You can choose a helmet, more of which unlock as you play the game and complete certain challenges, and you can rename them. The game currently randomly generates gender, beards, and clothing, but these might be changeable later.
The levels are short and ideal for quick play, but if you want to play longer you’re unlikely to get bored. It’s a fairly relaxed game. There is no ever-present threat looming over you. At worst the wildlife might be a concern, but if you keep your distance until you are ready, you should be all right. I found that once I had what I needed to get my village built, I could place everything I wanted then leave the screen for a while as they got on with what I’d asked them to do. I popped back for a minute to begin the gathering of the peace offerings, and then could wander off again while I waited.
You do need to plan what you place before doing that though to make sure your incoming resources will cover whatever you do.
So overall it’s a very enjoyable, relaxing, charming game that offers a challenge but with little urgency.
Early Access gripes
Below are a few things I hope will be fixed in the finished game:
Hopefully add a either priority build option or an editable job queue, e.g. to ensure they build the woodcutter’s before other things.
A bit of viking AI might help, although this is probably down to player error. E.g. The Bakery requires a Mill which requires a Wheat Farm. If you put them all down the vikings might build them in the wrong order.
The camera view when placing buildings is much better than general play view. I’d prefer to be in that all the time or at least be able to switch whenever I like. I can cheat it by pretending to place something, but I shouldn’t need to.
The camera zoom is most of the time too far away or too close.
