Tribes of Midgard is a wily mix of survival, RPG, tower defense, and hack-n-slash action rolled up in Viking style sensibilities. Norsfell Games has managed to develop a unique roguelike formula within this game that not only has high replayability, but also works extremely well in an online co-op format too.
Tribes of Midgard drops you into a randomized, roguelite wilderness with nothing but your wits and a loincloth about you. You are then tasked with gathering resources and souls needed to upgrade a nearby village, craft gear, and enhance storeowners/village defenders. All the while the clock is ticking because at night, fiends magically appear to destroy the lifegiving tree at the heart of your village. To make things worse, each night, your foes become stronger and more numerous. To throw your Viking anxiety into overdrive, giants called Jotun eventually appear and trudge slowly through the wilderness with the same goal as the night fiends.
Played solo, Tribes of Midgard is a hectic yet easy to grasp adventure. Played coop, Tribes of Midgard still manages to keep that sense of urgency as you strive to collect, protect, and build.
Tribes of Midgard manages to do what great roguelike games all have the potential for…replayability with an RPG sense of progression even after death. This progression is achieved by meeting challenges. Once the challenges are met, the player unlocks brand new character classes that each have valuable skills that could prolong the length of each play session. Some classes allow you to revive yourself after death. Others negate the need to repair tools and weapons. Other classes may even allow for better crafting and even teleportation!
To go along with the challenges, there are Golden Horns that act as a kind of in game currency. These horns are used to unlock cosmetic gear as well as limited timed recipes that are tied to seasonal online content. Just like every other season pass, Tribes of Midgard uses seasons to offer new content that players can acquire to keep them coming back for more.
All of this Viking action occurs in a top down Don’t Starve Together styled viewpoint that looks unique and yet has a familiar playstyle. In each game you play you must balance resource gathering with exploration and combat. Do too much of one and you may either forget to defend your village or get stuck somewhere the environment is too hot or too cold. This, in turn ,damages your health. Also, since the difficulty ramps every day, the trick is to figure out how to constantly get stronger RPG-style without dying. While dying only forces you to respawn, you lose any souls that you’ve collected and haven’t spent. These souls are required to do EVERYTHING in the game so losing them is a HUGE setback if you find yourself dying with a lot of unspent souls.
Oftentimes a playthrough can last 15 or 20 minutes, but as you unlock more classes and recipes, you will find a strategy that could make a session last many hours. Still, survival isn’t the only endgame here. There is a mythical beast to find and slay and if properly prepared, it can be slain pretty quickly. Still, doing so takes a lot of practice, strategy, and a bit of roguelike luck!
The difficulty in Tribes of Midgard isn’t in the size of the bosses or even the types or numbers of the enemies. Interestingly enough it is in the fact that you cannot be everywhere at once. Jotun are always going to arrive and threaten your village. The night creatures are always going to become stronger and more numerous. There are many places on the expansive map both above and underground to explore. Of course, the further away from the village you go, the harder it becomes to return fast enough!
Tribes of Midgard is a brilliant solo or co-op PvE roguelike game that is very exciting. With the promise of seasonal content and a developer that looks as if they will continue to add more that simply weapons and cosmetics, Tribes of Midgard seems to have a bright future!
