You’d be forgiven for rolling your eyes upon first hearing about Viking: Battle for Asgard. What with Ubisoft’s relatively similar Beowulf coming out at the same time judging Viking as merely another hack-and-slash riding on the coattails of God of War is not necessarily an unsound response. However, dig a little deeper and you’ll find that Viking could very well be the usurper of the hack-and-slash throne.
Viking was one of the surprise delights shown off earlier last year at Leipzig Games Convention by developer Creative Assembly, the team behind the Total War series. A background such as this means there’s little surprise that Viking, despite its third-person action premise, will focus on epic battles between hundreds of Vikings. You control a hulking mass of muscle named Skarin, a Viking warrior prepared to cut a bloody channel through many a throng of gruesome enemies. Your quest is to slowly liberate settlements from the undead hordes of the vengeful Hel, a goddess who has been booted out of the heavenly realm of Asgard and she’s none too happy about it.
I have seen the light, and it is me. 