Creative Assembly is best known for historical large-scale PC strategy games like Medieval: Total War and Rome: Total War. Every once in a while, though, they seem to enjoy a little flash and fantasy, and thus we have their action-based take on Norse myth and legend, Viking: Battle for Asgard.

Two Words: Undead Viking

You play Skarin, a Viking warrior killed in battle and brought back to life by Freya, the Norse goddess of love and war. She has chosen you to be her champion to free the Norse people from the scourge of Hel, the goddess of death. As any gamer knows, saving large groups of people requires two things: Fighting and fetch quests. You’re turned loose on the landscape to gather an army of allies and tear down the gates of Hel. As far as story goes, that’s about all you get, especially since Skarin himself is about as full of personality as the average wall.

At first glance, Viking seems to play like Grand Theft Naglfar, but it actually resembles Mercenaries more than Rockstar’s flagship franchise. Like Mercenaries, Viking is tightly focused on combat and building to a big final mission. There are three separate areas to conquer, each beautifully rendered, impressively large and full of things to dismember.

Every objective comes down to one of two things – either you have to kill everything in a particular area and free the men trapped there, or you have to go get something and bring it back to somebody so they’ll join you. Skarin carries a large sword and axe as his liberation tools, and fights like an overwhelming force of nature. Fighting is fast, brutal and bloody, with gory finishing moves providing a lot of nice dismemberment moments. The melee combat is an especially strong point of the game, so it’s not like the constant combat is a downside, really. It just would have been nice to see a little more creativity in the missions you’re offered.

An army bred for a single purpose

As you liberate settlements, strongholds, and other important locations on the expansive map, freed men will join you until you have enough soldiers to assault the major enemy fortifications in the area. This is where Viking really distinguishes itself from other hack and slashers and typical sandbox games. The army battles are tremendous sequences, often featuring hundreds of soldiers on either side going at each other in Lord of the Rings style assaults. Your job in these battles is to eliminate key enemy leaders, which can take the form of reinforcement-summoning shamans, deadly troll-like sword-swingers, and even towering giants. These major enemies are generally taken out using God of War style button tapping sequences, and meet their end just as gruesomely as their cannon fodder troops.

Also notable is the inclusion of dragons as allied heavy artillery. Collecting dragon amulets in the quest section lets you summon dragon allies. During the army battles, they can be called in to take out hard-to-crack enemy positions with a spectacular gout of flame and flying bodies. The large-scale battles are a great addition to the sandbox concept, and ensure each map finishes with an exciting sequence. Later ones contain so many combatants that slowdown is fairly common, but it doesn’t affect gameplay to any great degree.

Hail Ragnar’s beard

Viking: Battle for Asgard isn’t going to be challenging Crackdown or GTA for the sandbox crown any time soon, but it’s one of the strongest free-roam action games in recent memory. Despite the repetition that plagues the game’s progression, the satisfying combat and epic army battles help it stand out. Fans of exploration, Viking myths, and limbs separating from torsos will find much to love here.

Review by: Matt Keil